Ruby Tuesday (5)

It's an awful picture (the light!, the shine!) but this image made me happy. I managed to grab 3kg of these beautiful baby plum tomatoes at the closing of the market. The next stop was this shop. Within 10 steps in the shop I was carrying this ovendish in blue and light yellow... only to ponder a light green one or maybe a rectangular or round? When I discovered the large tables with all kinds of spices I had to take an extra breath... put my dishes down and started pointing; this one, and that, oh and that one too, and 2 ounces of those...

I bought the blue one, put the yellow one back on the shelves... went home with my tomatoes, my dish and the spices. It's a good thing the store is all the way up north in the Netherlands and I'm here; down south.

(Voor de Nederlanders onder ons: Dit was een poosje geleden in Groningen, de winkel heet Kruiden en Keramiek; een walhalla van mediterrane geuren en kleuren. Aardewerk, kruiden, hebbedingetjes zo leuk! Als je in de buurt bent, beslist even langs lopen, nee, binnen gaan natuurlijk!).

The bread that followed the Injera: Sourdough Bereketei

Wondered what the secret ingredient was? It's roasted fenugreek, whole seeds dry roasted and then crushed with very coarse sea salt using a mortar and pestle. I had this big bag of teff and wanted to bake not only pancakes but also bread with it. I had a faint memory of seeing some Ethiopian breads in Maggie Glezers' Blessing of bread. So that was the recipe I turned to. 

Maggie warns the baker to set the exhaust fan on high while roasting the fenugreek ánd while baking the bread itself. Pah I thought.. what can one tablespoon of those lovely seeds do to a kitchen? Besides, I happen to like fenugreek. Besides, I don't even have an exhaust fan in my kitchen. (Go aaaah..)

Well the love wears off pretty quickly when you walk in the fenegreek-roasting-aftermath for days on end....

Lesson learned: Listen to Maggie!

Sourdough Bereketei

(adapted from Maggie Glezers' A Blessing of Bread)

For the starter; the evening before baking:

1/2 cup very active fully fermented sourdough (refreshed 8-12 hrs earlier)

60 grams warm water

about 1 cup teff flour

Mix and knead into a firm but supple dough, cover and let ferment overnight. (Depending on the sourdough you're using and the grade of grind from the teff flour you'll need to adjust the water content. My starter was rather liquid, the teff very fine, aim for firm and supple and consider adding a pinch of yeast for extra lift).

Seed Mix:

1 tbs. fenegreek seeds

1 tbs. coarse sea salt (15 gr)

Be forewarned! Switch on that exhaust fan and go on roasting that fenugreek, use a small pan over medium heat. The seeds will turn darker brown and go all fragrant.... (There's a warning in the book from the Ethiopian lady that gave the recipe to not touch the seeds with your hands before they are mixed with the salt or it will become bitter.) Mix and grind with the salt using a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder until coarsely crushed. Set aside.

For the final dough:

Half of the starter (reserve remainder for later baking)

1 cup teff flour

1 cup light whole wheat flour

4 cups high protein bread flour

(Total around 800 grams)

1.1/2 ts instant yeast (yes, I decided to use yeast next to the starter)

2 cups warm water (appr. 500

---> fenugreek/salt mix

Mix and knead starter, flours, and water until a shaggy dough has formed, cover and let ferment (autolyse) for 30-45 minutes. Add salt/fenugreek mixture and knead into a full dough, the resulting dough will clean the bowl nicely and is quite soft to the touch, not sticky. 

First rise: in a clean bowl, covered, until doubled in bulk. (Mine did in one hour)

Shape and proof: Divide in two, shape into two tight boules, cover and proof for another hour or until doubled/tripled; 1-1/2 hour. This is a very avid riser, didn't take long in my house. After shaping and proofing the dough has become very very soft!

Bake, preferably on a heated baking stone, in a 450F/220C oven for 35-45 minutes.

(Do I need to remind you of the exhaust fan?)

My family loved the bread, although it is quite specific in what you combine it with. I really couldn't taste it properly I'm afraid, I had spent so many hours in the fenugreek fumes that it was just too much at the time. The smell of the bread is wonderful though, the flavour there but not overwhelming.

I was a wee bit disappointed with the baking, I'm afraid that the dough had overstepped it's boundaries in the rise and proof stage, not enough oomph left to give me ovenspring. Maybe the combination of a regular light -organic- whole wheat plus a regular bread flour with the no-gluten teff made it hard for this bread to keep it's stance. That's why I mentioned the high protein flour in the recipe. Another thing is that I baked one of the boules in a pan, the other in a romertopf.... I really think this one benefits from the all-around heat of a baking stone! (Or even a preheated cookie sheet).

Still this bread performed. I liked the addition of the fenugreek, the interior was light and fluffy despite the much wanted not happening ovenspring. You can't have it all!

Edit: I adapted the recipe to suit the -Dutch- flours I used and had on hand, the original is all white whole wheat and had no teff in the final dough, just in the starter. In the comments Jude asked about a little bitterness of the fenugreek lingering in the bread. Maggie Glezer specifically mentions the use of white whole wheat for this bread instead of red whole wheat; the white is sweeter. I wonder if that is to complement the flavour of the fenugreek? Anyway I think with the differences in flours you might want to follow the original recipe in the book.

(I think this is a nice one for Susan's Wild Yeast YeastSpotting!)

Bread Baking Babes do it all: Ethiopian Injera plus!

This is posting day. I know that. Which is quite funny because I had my special BBB-panties all twisted some time ago. It's too confusing -even for me- to repeat the whole thing but I mixed dates and deadlines and even months and I think at one point of time asked the Babes to postpone the deadline and suggested a date two weeks earlier. Do you follow? They didn't. I didn't.

Anyhoo..

It's here, the day the Babes Bake Bread and listen up.... they're cooking as well! Breadchick Mary is head of the Kitchen this month and she whipped up a challenge! Wow! Thoroughly intimidated I was. So I did what I usually do when faced with something intimidating; postponing while thinking about it indefinitely.  

Then close my eyes and jump right in. Late.

Situation as of now is such:

- the batter for the injera is ready to be baked.

- there's a special bread in it's final rise, which I will post about later separately.

- the wot is cooking

Question son nr. 1, 2 and 3:

Wot's cooking Mam?

Yes honey that's right.

They think I'm a complete dork, I have fun! I will update live as the day continues.  

(secret ingredient for an additional bread.... stay tuned!)

Continue: It's getting even worse, now they think we will be having pancakes for dinner. Ai! As you will understand by now the injera is ready, the stew is ready, and the bread has been baked..

I gladly refer you to Mary for the full recipes for this dinner, she has step by step pics to make

 injera and if you wish to present your family with a -tr-additional Ethiopian meal she has even more things to make. The butter mixture is wonderful btw!

About teff; the first bag I grabbed from the health food store turned out to be a ready mix, consisting of all kinds of different non-gluten flours and baking powder. It is still in the pantry. The next bag was the one I was looking for: brown all teff flour, in Holland it's a very very finely ground flour contrary to the flour Mary used I think.

To get a headstart on the starter (dôh) I used two tbs of a very active sourdough I had somewhere in the back of my fridge. Fed it with teff and off it went. Very lively, but with a teenage tendency to slump, frown, and roll eyes when confronted with authority... in other words, quick to bubble, quick to form the liquid brown on top. Another thing that comes to mind when looking at the evolving starter is quicksand.

Baking injera is easy.... if only I could get used to NOT flip the darn things over! Very confusing, I've been baking pancakes since I was 12 and all of a sudden I have to think while baking. I guess every other pancake was flipped. Sorry Injera!

(Sourdough Bereketei dough)

Ah yes...the secret ingredient? It's present in the other dishes as well, the bread I made with it is called Sourdough Bereketei and I'm not entirely sure this is going to be a hit, (it smells good though). On it's first rise it went crazy, doubled in an hour. Second rise equally good and then.... no ovenspring! Nothing. Like a 70's girl on the beach, just lie there and get a tan. Tap me on the shoulder when I need to turn. 

Later!

It's later now, after dinner coffee. Dinner was enjoyed by all! "pancakes" in whatever form or shape are a sure hit but I wasn't too sure about combining it with stew, (one of them dislikes tortilla with a vengeance) but no worries! They loved it! A bit of nagging about spicy but plates were cleaned.

A little dinnertime story? Table set, Ethiopian dishes pointed out, these aren't pancakes but injera made with a special kind of flour (2 boys sniffing at their pancakes, affirmative nod). Explained the Ethiopian way of eating with the hands, yes you're allowed but NOT with the wrong hand mind you!

Remark boy 1 to all: Why can't they invent cutlery in Ethiopia?

Remark boy 2 to boy 1: They'd better invent toiletpaper and soap first!

Stubborn is the word: Chewy Amaretti

You are not allowed to think of pink elephants.

Well? What happened? I bet you just did. Your mind ignores the "don't" word and goes straight on to the pink elephant. They say kids think like that. Never say: don't run. It summons the wrong mind image/attitude and whoops there they go..  Censorship attracts attention so to speak. 

She specifically mentioned it. NO marzipan. Unfortunately it triggered the exact opposite reaction. Hadn't Deb from Smitten Kitchen written that warning I would never have thought about that big chunk of marzipan in my fridge. But she did. And I made amaretto cookies with marzipan. Tsk tsk.

I had to feel my way around the marzipan. What I had in the fridge was a brick of raw marzipan which was quite firm and not as moist as almond paste (although I think even "your" almond paste differs from ours because it is sold in tubes and/or cans? Ours is sold -again- in bricks wrapped in foil and has to be kneaded with some egg yolk prior to use). 

So I added 1 tbs of cream and 1/2 tsp of lime juice to the marzipan in the food processor, used less sugar: 2/3 cup instead of 1. Mixed the marzipan with the liquid and sugar in the food processor and proceeded with adding 2 egg whites, pureed until smooth. Piped in nice rounds and baked for 15 minutes on 140 circulation oven.

My first attempt was nice, real chewy (as in warn the dentist chewy) but not entirely what I would have liked to see. My nicely domed buttons went flat during cooling and I thought they were not light enough, the center was still very moist. Nonetheless the test batch -left on the counter unattended- disappeared within an hour. Addicitively chewy! I returned to the kitchen and grabbed a handful. More than once.

Next batch I will omit the tbs cream and go with just the lime juice, add some zest as well for extra zing; try to use even less sugar; I'm thinking 1/2 cup.

Omdat je het waard bent../Oppepper voor saaie groente!

Altijd al willen weten wat het nu eigenlijk verdient, zo thuis? We hebben er waarschijnlijk allemaal weleens grapjes over gemaakt, onszelf manager genoemd, en dreigend geroepen: "nou, als ik betaald zou worden voor alles wat ik hier doe..."

Dit is je kans! Helaas alleen te personaliseren voor Amerikaanse inwoners maar niettemin aardig om achter de hand te houden. Helemaal blij geworden? Goed zo!

Ga ik je nu even teleurstellen, onder dat aardige grafiekje staat in lief blauw: "en Pappie dan?"

Als je daar hetzelfde invult als bij mamma kom je tot de ontdekking dat hij kennelijk meer waard is dan de mamma die hetzelfde werk doet! Het is toch niet te geloven! Toegegeven, het zal hem ongetwijfeld meer tijd kosten en dus meer uren omdat efficient multi-tasken nou eenmaal voorbehouden is aan ons dappere dames, maar toch tamelijk frustrerend. Hmm. Vertellen we er gewoon niet bij.

Zouden ze ook op dit aardige idee zijn gekomen? Vast niet!

Simpel en lekker:
1 el zonnebloem/arachide olie
1/4 tl gemalen komijn
1 tl gerookt paprika poeder (of hoh chilipoeder en gewoon paprika poeder)
een flinke hand "honey puffs" (van die gepofte ontbijtgranen met honing)
klein handje gehakte walnoten

Verhit de olie in een anti-aanbak koekepannetje en voeg hier de specerijen aan toe, even roeren zodat ze opgenomen worden door de olie. Rooster vervolgens kort de walnoten, en voeg daarna de honey puffs toe. Blijf roeren, schud af en toe de pan even op terwijl de honey puffs roosteren. Het is de bedoeling dat ze mooi krokant worden met een laagje gekruide olie eromheen.

In een kommetje af laten koelen (af en toe even roeren om te voorkomen dat de boel aan elkaar plakt) en tot gebruik luchtdicht wegzetten. Serveer dit apart als garnering of, schud ze vlak voor het opdienen, door -saaie- groente.
Eet smakelijk!

Dipping Diva: lemony dill feta-spread / Citroen-dille feta créme

(Nederlands? Even scrollen..)

One of my fellow Boisterous Bread Baking Babes blogged about baking our Pane Francese, the bread she showed was wonderful but the bowl in one of the pictures caught my attention. Natashya, please tell me; what's in there? Luckily for me she gave us the recipe of her feta slather at the bottom of the post. I've made it twice since I read it, and the bigger boys like it a lot! The first time I had to play around the recipe because not everything was on hand at the time. It came out as a -delicious- cross between tzatziki and her feta-slather (that slather word really says it all, it's a natural thing to do with this one!). The original recipe can be found here at Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. This is what I did the first time:

Lime-dill-cucumber feta spread

200 gr feta, cubed

1/4 cucumber, peeled, cubed

4 el olive oil

2 el lime juice

zest of half lime

2 garlic cloves

1 tbs dried dill

2 tbs fresh chives, chopped

fresh pepper & salt

Place feta, oil, garlic ,zest, juice and cucumber in the bowl of a blender (food processor) pulse until everything comes together but still has some texture. Stir in dill and chives and finish off with pepper and salt. Excellent with fresh baked crusty bread as an appetizer with drinks or with your dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Citroen-dille Feta boter:

225 gr feta, in blokjes gesneden

4 el olijfolie

2 el citroensap

rasp 1/2 citroen

1 á 2 tenen knoflook, geperst

evt. één van deze toevoegen:

{1/4 stuk komkommer, geschild in kleine blokjes} of

{1 á 2 lente-uitjes, alleen het wit/lichtgroen, kleingesneden}

3 el verse dille / 1 el gedroogde dille

2 el bieslook

peper en zout

Oh zo simpel maar zo lekker! Simpelweg alle bovenste ingrediënten in de blender (evt. keukenmachine) pulsen tot een dikke brij, niet helemaal fijnmalen, probeer nog enige structuur te houden. Dille en bieslook toevoegen en op smaak maken met peper en zout.

Heerlijk met versgebakken knapperig brood!

Some like it hot, others don't: Thai Fish curry

This recipe is for the "others", it's mild and mingling a lot of interesting flavours. It's the first time I used angostura bitter and only 1/2 tsp at that! I always thought it to be an ingredient for alcoholic beverages only; it was fun to hear the liquor store manager describing it as "a kind of Maggi". I was wondering what exactly that 1/2 tsp would do to the dish... Frankly I'm not able to tell you. Not yet. The final dish sure was delicious.

To truly experience the difference in flavour the author of the book advises you to marinate raw shrimps in garlic, divide in two and add a few drops of angostura bitter to one batch, grill both batches and notice the difference. I plan to try that!

The book "Taste" makes for an interesting read; it's in my bookcase for a while now and while I read it from cover to cover I have only made 2 or 3 recipes but I plan to keep it downstairs for a while to explore further. So far each and every recipe is a hit. The set up from this book is quite different from what you're used to, categories aren't the usual appetizer, entree, dessert chapters. It is based on individual flavours and what they do to each other when combined. The author explains and gives examples of each flavour and then follows up with recipes (from sweet to drinks and soups to savoury) where you experience what she describes. You'll be finding chapters as Sour, Salt, Bitter, Sweet, and Savoury -or umami-. My sons' favourite fried rice recipe comes from her and you can't believe how simple it is but it blows you away on flavour.

First I'd like to share this curry recipe, it's from "Taste" by Sybil Kapoor.

Marinade:

8 spring onions, finely chopped

1 tbs fresh -lemon- thyme, finely chopped (I used regular thyme)

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/4 tsp finely chopped habañero pepper (I used dried aleppo pepper)

juice of two limes

6 fish fillets (snapper/cod/

1/2 tsp angostura bitter

Mix spring onions, thyme, garlic, pepper and lime juice. Rub the fish with the angostura bitter and cover with marinade; make sure there's some under the fish as well or flip halfway through marinating time. Cover and marinate for 20-30 minutes

Sauce:

4 tbs sunflower oil

1 onion, sliced thinly

1 tbs curry powder (I used a red Thai curry powder which is somewhat milder, sweeter even)

4oo ml coconut milk

salt, pepper

Heat oil on low and fry onions 10 minutes or until soft and golden. Add curry powder and cook for another 4 minutes. Push onion to the side and quickly cook fillets on one side (it should have a slight coloring), flip over and cook the other side for 1 minute. The fish is not fully done yet. Take the fish out and keep warm. 

Turn up the heat and add remainder of the marinade plus coconut milk to the pan, bring to a boil, lower the flame and simmer for 10 minutes. Return fish fillets to the pan and poach for another 5 minutes. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper. 

Serve with rice (although I really like to have naan, tortilla or roti with this as well). Spinach, or stir-fried vegetables will go very well with this.

We all really really liked it, I had a small bowl of Greek yoghurt ready for those who thought it too spicy but it wasn't necessary at all. The heat of Aleppo pepper is far milder than Habañero. I made this as part of a saturday night dinner with company but since it's easy to make and doesn't take too long to prepare it will make a delicious meal for a weekday as well.