22 November 2011

Turkey (dismemberment) day.

Lewisburg.

It's turkey (pickup) day. Behold, forty pounds of turkey, dismembered:

Turkey

They were live turkeys as of this morning. I picked them up from a farm just north of Orangeville, came home, and tore them into boneless bits, a la Jacques Pepin. (Worth noting - it's significantly more taxing to debone a twenty-two pound turkey than a four-pound chicken.) A few more trims, and we've got:
  • Breasts for roasting - to become sandwich fillings - or for taco and pizza chorizo.
  • Tenderloins for stir-fries.
  • Thighs for stews and sausages.
  • Drumsticks for soups and braises.
  • Wings for soup.
  • Liver for dog treats. If we weren't hosting Thanksgiving - and cooking 95% of it - I might make pate. But there ain't time enough for that.
  • Wishbones for Thanksgiving fun.
  • Extraneous bits for tonight's stir-fry dinner. Specifically, the muscles beneath the shoulder, that came off with the wings.
  • Carcasses, wing tips, gizzards, and hearts for stock. With a handful of aromatics, they've given us about two gallons of rich stock for Thursday's feast.
The rest of the bird, sans what we've eaten tonight, is already in the freezer. This, of course, because I picked up our Thanksgiving bird from another farm, just to hedge my bets.

And to give us enough to eat throughout the year.

And, no, I don't roast a whole bird. Dry-brine - as stupid as that sounds - the breasts for gentle roasting. Cure and braise the leg quarters. Let the family deal with it.

16 October 2011

Pork and pretzels.

Lewisburg.

Sharon's out of town, but here's proof for her that I'm still eating well:

Pork chop

Pork chop, low-temped in apple cider at 60°C, and seared for a good crust. A lovely pink inside, as a good pork chop should be. Pumpkin spƤtzle with sage. Mustard greens and chard with garlic and chilli. Butter-fried apples. A nice schwartzbier to accompany.

Meanwhile, I prepped an education example for tomorrow's baking class:

Pretzels

Pretzels and pretzel-shaped objects. The same batch, split in half. Those on the left enjoyed a bath in a sodium carbonate solution. On the right, a dip in plain water.

I'll bet you can guess which side smells of pretzel, and which of fresh bread.

04 October 2011

Pumpkin cavatelli.

Lewisburg. Pumpkin season is here, and in full force. Given that repeated, heavy rains have done in much of the garden, I'm lucky that I have any at all, but eleven cheese pumpkins is still plenty. It would have been more, but only a few were harvestable after Irene, and anything still ripening by the time Lee arrived were on the way to rot.

Yes, we've already had pumpkin pie. I think some sort of soup is a strong contender for tonight. And last night, before I had to run off to teach class, we had pumpkin cavatelli:

Pumpkin cavatelli

Just pumpkin puree and flour, run through the cavatelli maker. The texture ended up a bit springy, not unlike udon, so I'll try them next with durum semolina. Sizable quantities of pumpkin gnocchi are also in our future, since they freeze - and cook from frozen - so well.

The pumpkin flavor and color were hard to miss; once boiled, their orange hue intensified. We tossed them with oyster mushrooms, garlic, and fresh sage, and I'm already looking forward to more.

28 September 2011

Short ribs.

Lewisburg.

Sometimes, a new kitchen toy isn't cheap, so it had better be worth it. That Polyscience 7306c immersion circulator? 100% worth it. For example, the otherwise-impossible medium short rib:

Short ribs

Forty-eight hours - two days - at 60°C, with pre- and post-searing, for flavor, color, and bacteria-killing before the circulator bath. The end result is tender, juicy, and nothing like the (admittedly still pretty lovely) results of braising. Makes for a damn fine sandwich.

The same technique has been a real boon for other cuts, too. Juiciest pork chops and veal chops imaginable. Tender, moist chicken that makes the finest chicken salad I've ever had. (Yup, I'm not above using high-tech lab equipment for a better chicken salad.) Sausages, especially in large quantities, are juicy because they're properly poached, not just because of the pork fat.

Making twenty pounds of sausage for my brother's Oktoberfest suddenly required far less focus and split-second timing.

Also: amazingly precise eggs; confit without the need for pounds of lard and/or duck fat; fun tricks for gelatinizing and retrograding starch in rice, potatoes, etc. One of these days I'll see what kind if fun I can get into with malted barley and alpha- and beta-amylase at different temperatures. Probably carefully curdling milk into cheese, since I've really got to start making my own fresh mozzarella. There are more options than time, for now.

And, unrelated to circulator fun: bacon. It's been a while since I put up photos of the smoker, but since I forgot a finished bacon picture, here it is:

Bacon

Four hours of hickory smoke, plus a gentle oven heating to give the proper hot-smoke effect. Lovely. Weeks upon weeks of flood-inducing rains have really limited smoking opportunities, so it's been nothing more than a garage obstacle since bacon time. Oh, well.

19 July 2011

Mid-July harvest.

Lewisburg.

Prime harvest season is under way. We're enjoying the start of tomato season - which means mostly just devouring cherry tomatoes fresh - and a good variety of vegetables are ready to bring in, or nearly so. The first jalapeno peppers have been a treat, and a fiery one at that from all the dry heat, and in the past week or so we've seen snap beans, fresh basil, summer squash, and the window for digging garlic.

Lots of garlic. We'd pulled some for green garlic throughout the spring, but simply buying a few extra heads from the market last fall has resulted in a real bounty. Behold:

Garlic_small

It's one of those "Take the photo, quick!" moments, as those eighty-ish plants, bundled and held at arm's length, get heavy. Quickly. Half a dozen heads came in for fresh garlic, and the rest are hanging in the garage to cure for four to six weeks. The very best - and there are some large and lovely heads - will hold until this October's planting. The rest are fair game for the kitchen. Due to shifting the garden, we had no garlic harvest last year. Now, I'll be making up for lost time with plenty of roasted garlic.

Also in the "unexpected bounty" category: napa cabbage. Now, this may look big, with all of its outer leaves still attached:

Napa cabbage_small

And it is. Very much so. With three more just like it.

I had no idea it would grow this large, but even after trimming, the main head weighs just over five pounds. Plus, there were three small side heads worth keeping. Add in the rest, and I think I might have enough kimchi to last me quite a while. It's been some time since I polished off the last batch, and it seems that another two, maybe three, are justified.

13 June 2011

The new smoker.

Lewisburg.

It took long enough, but I finally have a serious smoker. No more of those cardboard box shenanigans!1

It still looks like a half-assed high school steampunk disaster, though:
Smoker contraption

Never mind that. It works, and works reliably, and if it didn't weigh a ton, it'd be perfect. A firebox, made from food-grade aluminum2, holds a two-burner propane camp stove, each of which has its own cast-iron smoker box to hold the necessary wood chips and sawdust. The heat draws in plenty of oxygen from the apertures at the base, exiting out the duct at the top.

Then it's into the food box:
Smoker foodbox

Even split into three separate pieces, this sucker's still heavy. Solid. Imposing to move in and out of the basement.

The base is where the smoke enters, and I can rig this up to include trays of ice for colder smoking, if necessary. Today, after three hours of smoking, it was a mere 150°F inside, which suggests to me that I've got good flexibility in temperature control. Come autumn, cooler temperatures will be much easier to achieve.

The central piece holds the racks for smoked items, as well as rods to hang sausages from. The whole front panel is a door that swings open, with a small window near the top to peek in. Atop that is a two-panel roof that can be opened as much as necessary to get good airflow.

Pig and soybean

Today's test run included some honey-cured bacon and a block of tofu. Really, once you've got it going, you might as well toss in what's at hand. If I'd had my act together, I'm sure I could have packed it full. Kamozawa and Talbot's Ideas in Food is full of suggestions to get things started. I'm already looking forward to smoked tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, apples, and pears, in addition to cured meats and sausages. And, undoubtedly, plenty more.

* * * * *

1Actually, the cardboard box setup was pretty sweet, especially for a tiny apartment. If it weren't so finicky, and prone to waterproofing / wind resistance / flammability concerns, it might still be around.

2Read: Inexpensive sheet pans from a restaurant supply store. Trimmed, riveted together, and sealed with fireplace mortar.

12 June 2011

Mid-June harvest.

Lewisburg.

From a spring both cold and unfailingly wet, the weather has surged into the heat of high summer. Mostly dry, too, though the past few days have brought more than two inches of rain, primarily from thunderstorms. Some of the plants are thrilled, including the hops that have overwhelmed their supports, knotting into a fury of bines, leaves, and budding little cones:
Hops

The radishes have been less enthused, racing to bolt before we could pull more than a handful to eat. Still, the seedpods ought to be good for a stir-fry or two:
Radish flowers

The rest of the deck planters are humming along nicely, providing a handy little salad bar just a few steps from the kitchen:
Salad bar

With sweet salad turnips, too:
Turnips

These Hakurei turnips are tough to beat. Sweet, tender, and quick-growing, they've got delicious roots and leaves. The only bits we don't use are the tip of the root and the short section between trimming the root top and the base of the leaves.

We've also harvested a bunch of broccoli raab, which has grown enormously in the past week:
Raab

Also lettuces that are threatening to bolt any minute:
Lettuces

Kohlrabi with pristine leaves, thanks to plenty of rowcover:
Kohlrabi

And we've also started into our peas for this season:
Garden harvest

The wet spring delayed planting, and this hotter-than-average weather means they'll likely be a brief treat this year. But at least we get some. The small local farms have, for the most part, skipped peas this year, since they couldn't get them in the ground in time.

On the upside, we've got plenty of purslane - it's having a banner year - which, as far as garden weeds go, is tough to get upset about. And the garlic scapes were too good to resist this morning, so they'll be a treat for as long as they last. Add some fresh strawberries to that, and it's becoming unclear how all of this is possibly going to fit into the refrigerator.

03 June 2011

The garden, in pictures, despite the lack of greenery.

Lewisburg.

It's not much to look at, but there's plenty of garden on its way. June arrived with fierce, hot weather - now tempered - and most everything's in the ground and growing.

Winter squash, melons, watermelon:
SE plot

Pole beans, bush beans, lima beans:
S plot

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant (yet to transplant):
SW plot

Onions, leeks, garlic:
W plot

Potatoes:
NW plot

Peas, soybeans, carrots, parsnips, fennel, poppies:
N plot

Tomatoes, tomatillos, summer squash, bitter melon:
NE plot

Kohlrabi, broccoli raab, napa cabbage, lettuce, flowers galore:
E plot

And a mashup panorama of the whole thing:
Garden panorama

Click on it for a better view - or at least as big an image as Flickr will handle. You get the gist of it.

11 May 2011

Spinach gnocchi.

Lewisburg.

We wanted vegetables for dinner last night.1 So, in a moment of "well, duh," I went with spinach gnocchi, fresh asparagus, and green garlic:

Spinach gnocchi

Lots of green. Plus a realization that there's no reason I can use just about anything moist, flavorful, and puree-able to make dumplings. Ricotta and pumpkin have been standards for quite some time. Why not parsnips and carrots? Kale? Sweet basil? Red peppers? Roasted garlic? Smoked apples?

For the spinach version, I simply blanched a large bunch in boiling, salted water for about a minute, then drained and rinsed with cold water. A few squeezes removed excess water, and then the food processor turned them into a more-or-less smooth paste. I added an egg, which helped along the blending, and offers a bit of structural assistance during cooking. Then just enough flour, lightly kneaded to make things workable, and they're ready to boil.

Or, in brief: Flavorful, moist food + egg + flour = colorful, flavorful gnocchi.

Plus, they freeze and cook up like a dream. What's not to like?

* * * * *

1Pizzas the night before, and tacos the night before that. Delicious, but generally light on greenery.

28 April 2011

Asparagus.

Lewisburg.

First asparagus of the season:
Asparagus

And, since it's a new patch, the first harvest for us. Ever. It's quite exciting.

25 April 2011

Spring liveliness.

Lewisburg.

I planted my strawberries today - three weeks after they arrived - and I'm pleasantly sore from lugging several yards of soil about the yard. (There's still more to go, but it's less pressing.)

It's getting ickily humid, with thunderstorms potentially arriving any moment, but there's been just enough evening light for a few photos.

The hops are getting big. Fast. This one's over two feet, from barely finger-length less than two weeks back:
Climbing hops

The Asian pears are just about to burst into bloom:
Pear flowers

Peaches, on the other hand, aren't waiting:
Peach flowers

And, as near as I can tell, the blackcurrant bush is happy. It was a sudden gift from our friends Matt and Nina, who moved from Lewisburg last summer. Nina couldn't bear leaving it to be ignored - or worse, torn out - by the subsequent renters, and asked if we'd please take it. The deathly dry August weather didn't give me too much hope for a good relocation, but there wasn't a choice. But, hey, it's looking lively:
Blackcurrant buds

So while I've been doing all this, my neighbors have been mowing their lawns. Ah, the impending tedium.

14 April 2011

Spring pictures.

Lewisburg.

With a little sunshine, it's looking more and more like spring. (That and the two neighbors out on their lawnmowers.)

The first violet of the season:

Violet

The daffodils are in full bloom:

Daffodil

So's the hyancinth. Fragrant, too.

Hyacinth

Rhubarb's wasting no time:

Rhubarb

And the hop shoots are coming on fast. With a little luck, I'll finish up the new supports tomorrow - concrete's curing right now - and get the best ones trained.

Hop shoots

The rest, of course, are just another spring vegetable treat.

13 April 2011

Dandelions.

Lewisburg.

So far, spring's been a bust. I'm weeks behind schedule for planting peas - it's been too cold and too wet - and I've been so desperate to get trees1 transplanted that I've been digging out in the rainstorms. Tomorrow, assuming the nine inches of water drains from the post holes, I'll be setting the new hop supports system in concrete. If not, maybe Friday?

Even the dandelions are in short supply thus far, though I was able to collect enough for a few meals from the warm spots about the house. On the south side, where we're busy tearing out the expired yews the previous owner left, the sun plus reflected light from the house has given a handful of dandelions enough warmth to sprout. Just a few minutes of digging, followed by plenty of washings2 to remove the accumulated mud and debris, and it's wonderful, delicious spring greens.

The small and tender greens are tasty nibbled raw, with just a little bitterness. I tend to eat a few while I'm cooking, or if I'm working outside. Most, though, I blanch to strip off the bitterness, to keep it from overwhelming everything else. Fifteen seconds in salted, boiling water does the trick. The leaves wilt, but stay green. The bitterness is gone. And a dousing in cold water keeps them looking good.

Dandelions and pancetta

I cooked the first handful with a few sliced mushrooms, topped with some slices of homemade pancetta. A little barley cooked in chicken stock, left over from another dinner, and some sauteed broccoli with garlic and wild onions. Though I'm not overwhelmed by their flavor - it's distinctly different from the cultivated alliums - a little bit is nice for variety. Besides, they're the only edible plants growing happily outdoors.

Dandelions and orecchiette

Tonight, more dandelion greens, blanched and sauteed with shallots. Tossed with fresh orecchiette3 and some local arugula, chopped and wilted by the pasta's heat out of the pan. A few crispy croutons from an old loaf of bread, and a grating of parmesan cheese.

So, basically a warm pasta salad. Nothing wrong with that.

Spring is coming, though. Soon. The rhubarb is coming out; the strawberries are coming back to life; the hops are sending up shoots like mad; and I spotted the first clump of field mustard, almost ready for picking.

* * * * *

1Three pears and three hickory. I'd ordered another pear and several bush cherries, but supplies ran short for this year. Though I was initially disappointed, my back and shoulders are currently thrilled.

2Six before bagging, then again once more before cooking. It's a mess outside.

3Mine aren't traditional, since I make them from an egg pasta dough, but they're easy to shape by hand and have a nice, chewy texture. When we're loaded with broccoli raab from the garden, it's usually the first dish. Orecchiette are also a handy fallback for pasta-plus-vegetable meals, where it's not so much a sauce as chunks with olive oil, red pepper, and parmesan.

06 February 2011

Bread, with pictures.

Lewisburg.

Yesterday was, among other things, a bread-baking day. A short trip into work, followed by a casual breakfast, then a retreat from the ice, rain, and damp. Despite the fact that the entire process takes several hours, it only occupies the hands and mind for brief intervals, and so really lends itself to a day of chores and minor tasks about the house. In addition, I've been doing what I can to teach my friend Seth to bake bread - from a thousand miles away - and figured that a little photography was in order.

The day before, I started things in motion. I scribbled down a recipe, to start.1 Cleaned up, it looks like this:

Total:
585g AP flour (65%)
225g whole wheat flour (25%)
90g whole rye flour (10%)
45g bulgur wheat (5%)
45g rolled oats (5%)
45g polenta/grits (5%)
725g water (81%)
20g salt (2.2%)
1-¼ tsp. yeast, plus a pinch

Poolish (35%):
315g AP flour
315g water
Pinch yeast2

Soaker:
45g bulgur wheat
45g rolled oats
45g polenta/grits
20g salt
410g water

Final add:
270g AP flour
225g whole wheat flour
90g whole rye flour
1-¼ tsp. yeast

The soaker and poolish need sixteen-plus hours' worth of a head start, so I try to get them going around lunchtime the day before baking.

Ingredients

The poolish is a high-moisture pre-ferment, which gives the bread more flavor and more staying power. I prefer poolishes to a thicker pate fermentee or biga, because they're easier to mix. But I'll use whatever suits. As it ripens, the poolish looks like the top of a pancake:

Poolish

It's just flour and water, in equal proportions, with a little bit of yeast. The rest of the dough's water and the salt are in the soaker:

Soaker

This ensures that the large grains in the loaf are well integrated, which isn't guaranteed otherwise. Notice how the rolled oats have plumped? And how the bulgur is exploded almost like popcorn? They're full of moisture, and won't rob it from the dough. They also won't remain firm and crunchy in the crumb, or threaten to tear the dough as I work it.

After a long rest, I combine these with the remaining flours, and more yeast to raise the dough. I like using an electric stand mixer and dough hook for kneading, especially for a batch with multiple loaves, or very wet doughs.3 So after about five minutes with the dough hook, here's the shaggy mass of dough:

Kneaded dough

There's no form to it, but the gluten structure is apparent. As I don't like oiling bowls, like a lot of bread recipes suggest, I prefer to give a fold here, which adds enough shape and structure that the dough slides easily from bowl after the first segment of its rise.

First fold

To fold, there are a hadful of different methods, but I use Jeffrey Hamelman's. It's a little more involved, but I find that it does an excellent job of strengthening the dough. Since it folds over dough from four directions, 90 degrees apart, everything's very evenly balanced when going back into the bowl. I don't find it necessary to reshape the dough into a ball after this, since the primary fermentation time really seals up the edges.

Here's after the second fold, 50 minutes later. There's been a slight increase in volume, more noticeable to my hands than my eyes.

Second fold

You might notice the brush sitting on the board here. I use it to brush excess flour from the dough, as it does a much more thorough and much gentler job of it than my fingers.

After another 50 minutes, the third fold. There's a significant volume increase here, even after degassing. The strengthening dough is also pulling itself closer to a sphere.

Third fold

The last 50 minutes of primary fermentation pass, and it's time for a fold, dividing, and pre-shaping. I wanted to use my small, round bannetons, so I've divided this batch into three loaves. Two will do their final rise in the bannetons, and the other will just be a boule.

Preshaping

These sit on the board, seam side up, and covered, for about 15 minutes. Since they've been through a bit of handling - a fold prior to dividing, and another after - the gluten's tight. If I work them too much, I'll tear the smooth skin that's forming the surface of the loaf. So they sit until the gluten relaxes, and I can finish shaping them.

Shaped

The floured bannetons hold the loaves upside down, lending them some shape and the distinct spiral flour pattern. The boule - sitting upright here - will rest upside down, wrapped in floured linen to prevent it from drying out. The final rise will take about and hour and a half in the cool kitchen, before they're ready for baking.

Pre slashing

Note that the banneton loaves are a little taller, a little less sprawled than the boule. They're all the same, within a few grams, but the difference in form is umistakable.

Slashed

A few moments later, the loaves with scoring. These are fairly deep cuts, made with a standard hardware store single-edge razor blade, because I know they're going to expand significantly. For larger boules, I tend to make an X shape across the top, which provides more room for expansion, but the single slash does make them easier to slice later.

The loaves proofed in the bannetons have been scored with the blade perpendicular to the loaf's surface, to nearly an inch at the deepest point. The other boule is a test, using the blade at about 30 degrees up from the surface, making just a shallow cut. Maybe a bit over a quarter inch. When this works properly, it forms a lip that continues to expand, giving more room for oven spring than it would seem to suggest. It's a trick used for long loaves, but there's no reason it won't work here.

That waviness along the edge is a result of me trying to match the curve with a stiff wrist. I find that my scoring is far more effective when I keep my hand and wrist stable, letting my whole arm move. The blade seems to cut so much better this way.

Bread hearth oven

Then it's into the preheated oven. This is my best attempt at creating a baking hearth at home. Six firebrick splits - half-thickness refractory brick4 - to serve as a base hearth, with space for air circulation around. A cast-iron skillet filled with lava rocks for steam generation. An oven thermometer. A (slightly damaged) pizza stone that lives on the bottom, permanently, for a little more thermal mass.

The bricks hold a great deal of heat, and are able to absorb moisture from the baking bread, resulting in a superior crust. They need a while to preheat, so I'll give them at least an hour to get up to the 450°F that I prefer for most breads.5 They also stay hot for some time after the oven is turned off, so I do need to plan dinner after baking accordingly.

The skillet and lava rocks - intended for gas grills - are there to generate steam early in the bake. They preheat with the oven, so that water poured over top has plenty of surface to evaporate. This gives better oven spring, and a nicer, thinner, crispier crust. I also use a spray bottle to hit the sides of the oven immediately before loading the loaves in. Another trick - for loaves without a flour pattern on the surface - is to brush them with water just before scoring.

The breads go in on a peel dusted with cornmeal or semolina flour, and bake for about 34 minutes in this case. Shape, size, and temperature determine that. Whole grain flours sometimes darken quickly, too, so I need to watch throughout the bake so that I can turn the oven down if necessary.

Baked breads

Removed from the oven, and cooled on a rack, they're ready to slice. Note the difference between the two scoring methods. Also note that my scoring wasn't quite enough to accommodate the full oven spring. The crust has torn beyond the edge of the cut on all three loaves. I could have avoided that with a longer or deeper slash, additional score marks, or by allowing the loaves additional time for their final rise.

Still, a little tearing there isn't a problem. More of an issue is when there's a blowout along a weak seam - often one not apparent earlier - which just looks a little uglier. It'll still taste great, of course, but those are the loaves I avoid giving away.

Sliced loaf

Inside, it's a soft, tender crumb, without any large pockets. For a grain-filled loaf like this, that's my preference. When still very fresh, I like a slice plain, or with a spread of butter. It's also great for sandwiches, just lightly toasted. Any remaining after a few days will end up as croutons, French toast, or a bread pudding.

* * * * *

1I don't always do this. My default is to start a poolish with 450g flour, then figure out the rest the next day, depending on what my schedule looks like.

2It should be about 1/8 tsp., but I didn't bother measuring.

3Exceptions include pizza dough and English muffins. The former gets only folding, but no kneading. The latter gets virtually no handling at all.

4This is important. Refractory brick is intended for high-temperature applications, so it won't explode in the oven. Common brick, which is cheaper and easier to find, can't promise that. The smaller thickness is nice because it's not as heavy. Too much more weight on here, and I wouldn't be certain the oven rack could take the strain.

5Enriched breads, with milk, eggs, and sugar that mighty burn, bake at lower temperatures, and generally not on the hearth. Bagels usually go in around 475-500°F, directly on the stone. Pizzas bake at this oven's full blast, 550°F, on a pizza stone. (It's a more level surface than the bricks.) At that temperature, a pizza is ready in 8 minutes. If I could bake them hotter and faster, I would, but this oven cost enough that I'm not monkeying with it.