Ruby Tuesday (7)

Kitchen Red...

Another one in the series of Work of the Poet: Ruby Tuesday

Airy Multi grain breads? Possible!

Let's do it! Just write and hit publish. Don't stare at the screen, don't drown in blog reading, tweets, facebook, and most importantly don't get intimidated by other peoples fabulous pics, fabulous postings... Peptalking myself.

Bread! I baked bread and even managed to get some pics while they are still untouched. I think the boys here missed my home baked bread, every loaf I turn out disappears. These two loaves are adapted from a pioneer bread, using a slurry made with semolina, a little teff flour (calling all bread baking buddies, any teff flour left?), whole wheat flour and unbleached bread flour.

Straight dough method, starting with a slurry, introducing a little auto-lyse.

Pioneer dough recipe:

(makes two loaves: 1 9x5, 1 10x5)

for the slurry:

80 gr semolina

4 tbs brown sugar

2 tsp salt

4 tbs vegetable oil

240 gr boiling hot water

Combine and stir together in the bowl of your stand mixer. Let cool until luke warm.

Final dough:

all of the slurry

300-320 gr water

2.1/2 tsp yeast

150 gr whole wheat

100 gr teff flour

550 gr unbleached bread flour

(optional: add 2 tbs gluten or ground 2 vit. C tablets into the dough to help it along if your flour isn't strong enough)

All ingredients together in a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer and mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Cover with a teatowel and leave to stand for 20 minutes (auto-lyse). Start kneading until you'll get a soft pliable dough that cleans the bowl, just about tacky not sticky.

Transfer dough to a large lightly oiled bowl and cover. First proofing (until doubled) will take 1 to 1.1/2 hour. Turn out on a lightly oiled surface, half, and pat each into a large rectangle, fold a business letter and roll up from the smaller side into a loaf shape. Cover and let rise (approx. 45 minutes to 1 hour). Preheat oven to 220. Bake off: 5 minutes on 220, turn oven down to 200 and bake for another 35 minutes until golden and hollow sounding when tapped on the bottom. Pinch the corners, (they should feel firm) to make sure they are done.

Adding to Susan's Wild Yeast YeastSpotting!)

Fresh Tomato Salsa on Ruby Tuesday (6)

I am sure you all have been making fresh tomato salsa since you could hold a knife, have to tell you however that this was a first for me.. (yes that's a strawberry there and I know it's not supposed to be there but let me assure you that it was a really nice addition).

The love for tomatoes came late in life for me, although my mom tried every trick in the book to let me enjoy fresh tomato; sprinkled with salt and pepper, dipped in sugar.. just didn't like them. Baked yes, grilled fine, sauce great but fresh, eaten like you would eat an apple? No thank you.

It's different now. I even make fresh tomato salsa!

fresh ripe tomatoes, diced

onion, chopped fairly small

lime juice

olive oil/lemon flavoured olive oil

pinch of cumin

cilantro (fresh or lightly roasted seeds)

salt and pepper

aleppo pepper flakes (or any fresh chili, handle with care!)

No quantities, it was an instant idea and I just went ahead with it. I added some shredded basil leaves, some fresh chopped parsley and chives, because they were there in my windowsill staring at me... oh and the ripe red strawberries of course. Just a couple, quartered.

Absolutely something to do again, so simple but good!

This is another one for Ruby Tuesday.

Bread Baking Babes bake savoury bread!

The aroma of bread being baked is an enticing one, this month's bread ranks even higher on the mouthwatering scale. Lien (Lien's Notes/Notities van Lien) was our honored Kitchen of the Month and she decided on a bread featuring the bounty of the season; Asparagus!

She selected a recipe from Jan Hedh and tweaked it around to get to this lovely bread:

Asparagus bread with walnuts and parmesan

125 g green asparagus (used

one bunch of spring onions greens)
25-30 g rocket
50 g walnuts,
50 g freshly grated parmesan cheese
450 g strong bread flour (substituted a quarter whole wheat)
12 g fresh yeast or 1 1/4 tsp dry instant yeast
250-270 g water (whole wheat version may use a little more water)
25 g olive oil
10 g (sea) salt (1.1/4 tsp)

For the instructions please visit Lien, I had to make one major adjustment in the Asparagus department. Meaning that when I was ready to bake the green asparagus I needed were nowhere to be found. My substitute consisted of the greens of a bunch of spring onions, sauteed in 1 tbs of walnut oil, adding rocket and some parsley just before taking it off the heat. I know by doing this I lost a lot of the seasonal quality of this bread but got a great aromatic oniony bread in return. Not a bad deal at all!

I proceeded as described in the recipe. Kneading the dough to incorporate the additions can be quite tricky, I found it works best to treat it like you would a cinnamon swirl bread.

Pat the dough into a rectangle, spread ingredients over the dough, roll up and tuck the ends under to form a squarish package and let rise as such. Over kneading will result in the release of a lot of moisture and you'll end up with a "slippery when wet" dough.

I shaped the dough in one large tapered loaf and baked it for 30 minutes on 220C, lowered the temp to 180 and baked for another 15-20 minutes.

Definitely going to bake this one again, I really want to try this with adding some spinach leaves and blue cheese instead of parmesan! Great bake-up Lien, proportions worked out great for our Dutch flour! So what's keeping you? Come on and bake with us and earn your Bread Baking Buddy Badge by baking this bread and sending your details to Lien (notitievanlien(-at-)gmail(-dot-)com). Deadline is June 26th.

For real asparagus bread check the other Babes in the right hand sidebar!

Does size really matter? (pansizes dear readers, pansizes!)

Question: Is there a way to figure out how much (bread) dough you need to fill a loaf pan?

Although the gadget situation has improved a lot lately, it is still quite difficult to get specific ingredients and bakeware here. Even more so when you step up the ladder and broaden your baking horizon and buy books in English. So we European bakers often need to calculate, and/or get creative, do the trial and error thing (that's me), get some tasty but sometimes misshapen loaves, because the regular 9x5" loaf pans are not the standard size we can buy here. A couple of years ago I bought one (why? why only one?) 9x5" loaf pan in London and ever since I regret that I didn't buy two. Because that's the yield most bread recipes state.

"Makes 2 9x5" loaves" sound familiar?

Let me show you the different sized pans I own. The ones missing in the picture are my first loaf pans, heavy black tinned steel, relatively narrow and long. They were tossed recently. I fought with them for too long. They need to be seasoned and have a tendency to rust when used with wetter doughs or retarding in the fridge. (Forget about acidic sour doughs too) It is possible to get them back in shape but it is such a chore. Mind you it can be done but I finally decided that it was just too much of a hassle. Scoring, re-seasoning, using an inlay of baking parchment, all possible but I've given up. These are the pans I regularly use nowadays;

On the left the London one: a 9x5", middle is a Chicago metallic 10x5", and to the right and on top two loaf pans that expand from 27x15x9 cm (11x6x4.5") to a whopping 40 cm (15") and everything inbetween. Right is the smallest size, the one on top is pushed out to the max.

All pans are ever so lightly brushed with oil every now and then and loaves slide out easily. I wipe them clean, only wash them in hot water (no soap) when needed. The Chicago metallic is one I bought very recently together with a jelly roll pan (yay! Finally!). The shop promised me they were getting more sizes so I have my eye on another 9x5...

Not shown in the pic are the 8-mini-loaf pans, one silicon and one dark steel.

Then you fill the loaf pan. How? Generally I gouge it to be filled halfway or less: 1/3, depending on the dough. If you fill a loaf pan like you would fill for instance a cake pan (up to 2/3) your message of "I'm risen enough" gets to you too soon resulting in baking a bread that has not fullfilled the proofing potential and, thus, lacking in flavour that it gets from full rise. Then again, a wetter dough will not dome above the loaf pan but will rather go up and sideways. (Think of the low pants that were in vogue for a while and how they made some of us look around the belt area... ahum *cough*).

That makes us come full circle; how much dough in a pan and how do we calculate?

Name	Pan size inches	Pan size Metric cm	Dough weight	Flour volume	Pan Volume
Jumbo	10 x 4.5”	25 x 11	2 lb	4 - 5 cups
Standard	9 x 5”	23 x 13	2 lb	3 - 4 cups	1.9 ltr / 8 cups
Large	8.5 x 4.5”	21 x 11	1.1/2 lb	3 cups	1.4 ltr / 6 cups
Medium	7.5 x 3.5”	19 x 9	1 lb	2.1/2 cups
Small	5.75 x 3.75	14.5x9.5	8 oz	1.1/2 cups
Miniature	4.5 x 2.5”	11x6	6 oz	¾ cups
Banneton	8”	20	1/2 - 1 lb	1 - 2 cups
Banneton	9”	23	1 – 2 lb	2 – 3 cups
Banneton	10”	25	2 – 3 lb	4 – 5 cups

1 lb = 1 pound = 454 grams!

(Info compiled from various sources a.o. "Bread made easy" by Beth Hensperger, and The Fresh Loaf)

Equivalents:

Jumbo also makes:

- two loaves 8.5x4.5

- two 8" rounds

- three 7.5x3.5"loaves

- eight 4.5x2.5 mini loaves

- twelve 2.5" muffin cups

Standard also makes:

Two 9” rounds

Two 9” fluted/tube

Four 7.5x3.5”

Six to seven 5.5x3”

12 to 14 mini loaves 4.5-2.5”

You're missing the Pullman loaf pan? (Pain de mie). I found the following in Raymond Calvel's Le Gout du Pain:

"For medium density breads:

260 grams (9.173 oz) per liter of pan volume for open pans.

245 grams (8.64 oz) per liter of pan volume for lidded/Pullman pans.

For higher density breads, generally baked in lidded molds or forms:

approx. 275 gr (9.7 oz) dough per liter of pan volume."

Or you can calculate. Ahum. Yes. Math. Let's try.

Calculating volume: length x width x height = volume

This way you can see which substitute you can use. Same volume, same amount of dough will fit. Here's how they do it over at Baking 911 (scroll down to find the chart and the mathematical calculation on the bottom of the page).

Edit: thanks to Elizabeth, here's another handy dandy pan size chart that lists in square inches!

Pooh... Was this helpful? Am I making sense here? Let me know!

Slow-cooker pulled pork / Slow-cooker hamlapjes in saus

(voor Nederlands even scrollen)
What exactly is pulled pork? Ever since I read about pulled pork sandwiches I wondered.. Short from going to the States and sample I had to make it myself I guess. A documentary on tv settled it, I was going to try. Not sure what the documentary was about really, what stood out for me was the guy visiting some restaurant known for it's bbq-ed pulled pork. We had some really great sunny days already but somehow Bbq is always a spur of the moment thing in our house (weather in the Netherlands) and usually it's nothing more adventurous then sausages/hamburgers/chicken. Let's hope the cookbook that the kids got DH will inspire hehe. 

I used Andrea's recipe as a base, halving the quantities and fiddled around some of the ingredients that are not available here. We tried it on buns, but we all thought it needed some oomph. The next day I reduced the sauce some more, added extra salt and pepper and some heat by means of smoked red pepper, some extra ancho chili pepper, added a fair amount of mixed vegetables and used it as a filling for tortillas. A little cheesy béchamel sauce on top and baked in the oven until golden... Pulled pork tortilla lasagna? Really very good!

Ooit gehoord van "pulled pork"? Het zou zo maar de Amerikaanse versie van draadjesvlees kunnen zijn, in een andere uitvoering. Officieel wordt het gemaakt met op de bbq geroosterd varkensvlees, uit elkaar getrokken en geserveerd met saus op een broodje. (Filmpje met uitleg waarin je kunt zien dat de hamlappen die ik gebruikt heb eigenlijk te mager zijn...). Ik heb Andrea's recept gebruikt als basis, maar zo hier en daar wat geknoeid met de ingredienten die hier niet zo makkelijk verkrijgbaar zijn. Het had eigenlijk wel iets pittiger gekund, het broodje dat wij aten vonden we een beetje flauw en nietszeggend. Ligt vast aan mij en niet aan het originele recept. Maar toen.... na een dag in de koelkast... Gelukkig had ik het vlees apart gehouden van de saus zodat ik de saus nog wat extra kon kruiden met zout en peper, wat extra -Ancho- chilipoeder, en gerookte spaanse peper. Dan de saus nog meer ingekookt, flink wat kleingesneden groente erbij en dit alles weer gemengd met het uit elkaar getrokken vlees.

Dat werd de basis voor tortillas, een simpele béchamel kaassaus erover, wat geraspte kaas en in de oven totdat het mooi bubbelend en goudbruin was. De geur alleen al bracht iedereen in huis aan tafel, ik hoefde niet eens te roepen. Heerlijk! Dit is de herziene versie:

Vlees aan een draadje:

scheutje -olijf- olie

1 grote ui, gesnipperd

2 teentjes knoflook, fijngesneden

1 klein blikje tomatenpuree

1 blikje tomatenblokjes met saus

60 ml sherry (of sinasappelsap)

1 el bruine suiker

75 gr stroop

1 tl piment (of 1/2 tl kaneel plus 1/2 tl gemalen kruidnagel)

1 el worcestershire saus

1 tl hickory smoked salt*

1 tl chipotle chili poeder*

(evt. half flesje/potje tomatensalsa of bbq-saus)

ca. 1.5 kg hamlappen (die heb ik gebruikt maar kunnen iets te mager zijn)

Verhit een klein scheutje olie in een koekenpan en fruit de uitjes op middelhoog vuur totdat ze transparant zijn en iets gaan kleuren, voeg knoflook toe en bak nog 2 minuutjes. Dan de tomatenpuree toevoegen, roeren en even laten bakken. De rest van de ingrediënten kunnen nu allemaal in de pan, goed roeren en ong. 30 minuten laten pruttelen. Af en toe roeren. Pureer nu de saus totdat hij er relatief glad uitziet. (Ik heb een staafmixer gebruikt, maar je zou ook kunnen zeven en een blender of keukenmachine kunnen gebruiken). Daarna nog een half uurtje door laten sudderen.

Het vlees inwrijven met peper en zout en in de schaal van de slow cooker leggen, de (hete) saus gaat hierbij, zorg dat het vlees goed bedekt is. Sudder het gerecht ong. 10-11 uur op "low" of 8-9 uur op "high". De precieze tijd is niet heel belangrijk in dit geval, het kan rustig een uurtje langer of korter. Dit vlees is relatief snel gaar, en er is voldoende saus om ervoor te zorgen dat het niet droog wordt.

Dan is het tijd om het vlees te ontdoen van de saus en uit elkaar te trekken. Saus apart houden in een steelpan en met een vork het vlees in draadjes trekken. Ik heb gewoon vieze handen gemaakt en ontdekte dat het heel makkelijk gaat als je een soort wrijvende beweging maakt met je vingers. Knoei karweitje maar het is snel werk. Terwijl je bezig bent met het vlees kun je de saus proeven op kruiden, en nog wat meer laten inkoken op halfhoog vuur. Waar je op moet mikken is een dikke saus, niet te vochtig. Goed op smaak brengen met zout en peper.

Heerlijk als vulling voor bijv. tortilla's, of als vleesgerecht bij rijst maar misschien wil je toch ook zo'n broodje proberen?

* sorry, ik weet het, niet te vinden waarschijnlijk, maar dat had ik toevallig. Het gaat in beide gevallen om het rooksmaakje. Het loont echt de moeite om te zoeken naar bijv. gerookt paprikapoeder, en ik ben persoonlijk helemaal weg van de chipotle chili; gerookte chili pepers die gemalen of in vlokken verkocht worden. De rooksmaak is echt aanwezig en geeft een authentieke smaak aan gerechten zoals bijv. chili con carne.

Before you know it / Voordat je 't weet

They show you how to do it. Properly.

Oldest traded his newspaper round for a "real job". Taking orders at Domino's Pizza. He's wearing the cap and the shirt (tucked in the black pair of pants that didn't come with the job but nevertheless were obligatory... ). He is still 15 and as such not allowed to work at the "make-line". The "make-line" is where your pizza is hand tossed and made to order and is considered as heavy duty, not suitable for 15 yr olds. Hm. Ok.

He's been trained though so one day he came home and said mom, I'm going to make pizza tonight and I'll show you how to do it. They get preweighted balls of dough delivered so I showed him how to make dough using the breadmachine for the kneading. He prodded and pushed, tsk-ed at the dough, telling me that this wasn't exactly how pizza dough should feel... (Yes I huffed a little). But isn't it nice to know that they work pretty much from scratch, using fresh dough and fresh ingredients and the pizzas are made to order and not sitting there all made up indefinitely until you come along and order?

He did a fine job, showing me how to push the dough from the center to get a rim, making some sort of bowler hat, then working from there to get a nice thin pizza with a thick rim. Nice! Of course he himself wasn't satisfied, he wanted them to be picture perfect. I can tell you that they were!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.... zijn ze zover dat ze jou vertellen hoe het moet. Niks aan je schort hangen terwijl je ze uitlegt.... Het kan nog wel hoor, dat uitleggen, mits je het verpakt in humor en net doet alsof ze het zelf bedacht hebben. Met een beetje geluk blijft dat nog hangen ook dan. Maar goed, in dit geval werd ik geínstrueerd te kijken, te luisteren en te leren. Met als beloning pizza!

De oudste heeft namelijk zijn krantenwijk ingeruild voor zijn eerste echte baan, namelijk bij Domino's Pizza. Voorlopig mag hij als 15-jarige alleen nog "voor" staan en orders aannemen. De "make-line", daar waar de pizza's worden gemaakt en bij de oven is namelijk verboden terrein als je nog geen 16 bent; het wordt gezien als zwaar lichamelijk arbeid en dus niet geschikt voor een 15-jarige. 

Maar ondertussen heeft 'ie het wel geleerd en op een dag kondigde hij aan dat hij mij zou laten zien hoe je nou een echte pizza maakt. Leuk om te weten trouwens dat die pizza's dus echt van vers deeg worden gemaakt  (en door pukkelige 16 jarigen worden gevormd en belegd op het moment van bestellen.. met schoongeboende handen hoor, dat dan weer wel). Hun deeg wordt vers aangeleverd, in afgewogen bollen dus ik was nog wel even nodig om deeg te maken. Volgens de pizzamaker was het niet helemaal zoals het zou moeten zijn maar hij deed het er wel mee. (Puh... het waren toevallig prachtige deegballen, ha!). Enne, ik moest hem er wel even aan helpen herinneren dat mijn keuken geen pizzakeuken was en het -dus- wel erg prettig was als er niet óveral semolina bloem lag. Dank u.  Hij heeft trouwens zelf gestofzuigd en gedweild daarna dus ik mag hélemáál niet klagen! Ze waren heerlijk die pizza's. Leuk he, toch, tieners. Ook niks mis met dat deeg.