Multigrain and the Bitch: HotHotHot

We've used poolish for our baguettes, and wondered about sourdough.  We did a lot of research/homework and finally made our own starter with rye flour, water, and white flour.  It took about 5 days of "feeding the bitch" on a regular schedule and crossing our fingers.  Tip: put into a cooler / chillybin with a bottle of hot water and seal to get the right temperature for the yeasts and bugs to work.

When it finally showed itself to be a viable sourdough starter, we fed it, then stuck it in the fridge as a retarder so we wouldn't have to keep feeding the bitch quite so often!

We used the sourdough for our levain:

The night before you need it, mix some starter in a bunch of water, then whisk with flour.
Cover and put in a warm draft-free spot till it's bubbly and kind of scary looking.

Add the levain to water and flour, and let rest for 30 minutes.
It's a hydrating the flour step, called "autolyse" ... a yuh.

Add some salt, and beat for a few minutes to incorporate.

Also the night before, create the "soaker" -- a mix of seeds and grains in water.
Her: cracked flax, sesame, sunflower, live oat groats, spelt.

This will take a while because the seeds, once soaked, will be slippery and kind of slimy.
Work it into the dough -- and then once it's mixed together, knead it till it's smooth.
Brian added about a cup more flour because though it made a nice dough, it just
wasn't coming together like ti should.  That happens; the amount even changes from
day to day.

Knead by folding and smacking the dough, and making sure you make
quarter turn each stroke.

We weighed the dough -- it came in at 7 lbs!  Since we planned to
make four loaves, they lumps were weighed to
be 1.75 lbs apiece -- bouncing big loaves!

These cut lumps were stretched and rolled into boules, covered and allowed to rest
for two hours total.  About halfway through, they were folded and pat down
then rolled into boules again and covered and left to rise.

Since the home oven is not deep enough to make baguettes, these were formed into
batards -- thicker, stubbier, but basically the same shape and total weight.
Except the standard baguettes are 12 oz and ours were 38 oz.
We raised them on a professional linen couche because it was cheaper than making
one or converting our cotton towels to couche-duty.  And the dough doesn't
stick on the linen as badly as on cotton.

When the batards are risen, they are slashed to allow for controlled expansion of
the dough so that it won't tear the loaf.  Think "stretch marks" ... and when
done properly, they open up and one edge makes an "ear" -- prettier than
any stretch mark!  We baked these on terracotta oven tiles, or a rough clay
baking slab -- both work equally well.

Once when he was baking bread for a surgeon's family, the doctor admired his kneading and
the strength of Brian's arms.  "You would have made a fine orthopedic surgeon --
I'll bet you could set bones just like kneading dough!"
Note that we cool them  upside down, and we don't cut them for at least 20 minutes,
or the insides won't have any texture or real flavor.

We continue to work on the texture, but this was damned good!  It also made
wonderful french toast several mornings hence.

Szechuan Eggplant, Restyled

We had a recipe for Szechuan Eggplant which required the eggplant to be soaked in water, deep fried, then soaked in water again, then simmered with a hot red sauce.  Yes, it's worth it, but there must be a less arduous, less caloric way to create this dish.  It's so good that I bought a dozen long eggplant to make more and experiment a bit.

Instead of frying, we decided to roast the eggplant -- even though this means we lose the lovely opalescent purply color of the skin.  We scored the skin side; the flavor of the sauce doesn't penetrate the skin side, otherwise.  Plus, not only does it not pull the flesh of the eggplant so it falls apart, but it's easier to chew the skin when it's already scored.  Be careful not to overcook, or it goes mushy.

While roasting, chop up ginger, garlic, and scallions.  Heat a wok and drizzle a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil.  When the oil starts to smoke, add these vegetables and stir-fry till wilted and the mixture is bright green in color.

Add gochujan paste, soy sauce, red wine vinegar and water to loosen up the mixture.

When the eggplant are browned and still hot, toss with the sauce to coat.  If you wish, you can simmer in the sauce for a few minutes, but we'd forgotten to do this step previously and it was still delicious.  Finish with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil.

It's great on it's own as a main course offering with some rice or noodles.  Or as a sandwich filling.

Tail o' Poolish

Baguettes are a sort of benchmark of bread making; croissants are, too.  They are a basic bread, consisting of flour, water, yeast only.  They require more knowhow than they require technique, and time is needed to develop flavor.

The flavor comes from poolish, an analog to a sourdough starter, and if you skimp of the required 15 hours, the baguette won't have the expected flavor.  Fear not -- you need to remember to start the poolish so many hours ahead, but otherwise, it's nothing special, other than to not poke at it or keep looking at it.  Forget it for 15 hours, seriously.

The other thing that is important is the forming and slashing of the dough.  In bread competitions, the crumb of the bread is important, as well as the lack of any evidence that the dough has been overworked or "abused."  So, despite what we may have learned about kneading bread dough, you really do need to pay attention to the dough.

Slashing the cuts is a bit like creating a stretchmark -- you are creating a weak spot so the bread can "bloom" out and form into a uniform shape without ripping or cracking in an unattractive or destructional manner.  it's a little counterintuitive, so the first ones should be about following and replicating the masters till you "get it."  like gru.

right out of the oven -- two baguettes with nice slashmarks
and one row of rolls called the dragon tail 

the dragon tail rolls are cut like epi rolls, but the tails are folded
back onto the roll.  the resulting row of rolls resembles
the spine of some mythical reptile ;)

to eat, pull the dragon tail "vertebrae" apart

nice creamy looking crumb!

Quid Pro Quo: So Little Time, So Much to Know

guess which one is me?  (from the yellow submarine: sea of holes)

I just spent a fun weekend with my fab-four, though we were not "all together now," since we're now grown-ups and can't all make it where and when we said we would or wish we could.  this time, for the first time, our casual group portrait required "photoshopping in" to get the four of us into it.  there are even "significant others."  like i said, we're now grown-ups.  so we look at the good, mostly.  we also forgot to take photos of all of us, in general -- maybe we are entering dementia?

We ate a lot, too.  We even managed to cook one of the meals.  A partial log of 4 days: