STIR THE POTS

Brownies

I love brownies. And reading about the world's rising gluten intolerance on the Huffington Post Kitchen Daily, I found an interesting recipe from Ilva Berretta for chick pea and pecan gluten free brownies. The article made me wonder if my heavy wheat consumption is responsible for recent headaches, sinus congestion and other ailments. But for now, I'm sticking with the old fashioned type of brownie. 

Reaching into my files for a recipe from re-knowned pastry chef Dieter Schorner, I found something simple, fudgy, cakey, gooey and filled with cherries! I haven't gone back to this formula for so long, but since I have been trying to make new items for upcoming parties at work, what a better excuse then now to bake them!

 

Layer Cake... yes, sir!

During the last year of my army hitch I was given the task of being the overnight baker in my mess hall. It was a strange but happy time. The first pleasure came from listening to Jimi Hendrix on my radio, as opposed to my sergeant  barking orders at me. But the bigger surprise was how much I actually enjoyed following recipes, as often in our cooking for the troops, well... honestly we winged it.

Anyway, recently, I took out my collection of Army Quartermasters recipe cards, inspired by the need to bake a cake big enough for 80 people - Army size. I went for this nation's military official Devil Food Cake. Regardless or not whether you're gung-ho about the military, these recipes are damned good. Seriously, the recipe led to a cake that is as moist and luscious as anything you'll get at a fine bakery. Try it. While it may not convert you to rah-rah soldierdom, you'll certainly enjoy what it yields. 

Anyway, this recipe calls for a sheet pan cake, somewhat cafeteria looking and unceremonious. Without the usual layered look of a traditional cake which is a lot more eye appealing. So I adapted,9" round springform pans, mixed, baked and cooled. Frosting, found a different source on joyofbaking.com, similar but less sugary from the Army's version. These baking recipes are perfect, and I will revisit them, that's an order!

 

Olive oil biscotti, with a distinct nod to Sicily

The term "extra virgin" sounds good, especially for olive oil. So when a recipe for biscotti with pistachio and cranberry called for butter, I decided to give my extra virgin oil a chance serve as substitute.

After starting a batch, already having worked out the ratio to use oil instead of butter, I realized I didn't have either cranberries or pistachios. But I did have the other ingredients; walnuts, sultana's, saffron, crushed fennel seeds and lemon zest - a Sicilian inspired cookie

 

Here's what I learned about using extra virgin olive oil. Extra Virgin is good, but a standard olive oil is better. First, it's less expensive, and it will give the biscotti a subtle - rather than overly assertive - olive oil flavor. Beyond that, the olive oil worked fine. 

 

While the recipe called for "egg-washing" the cookies, I passed on that instruction, wanting something more rustic in looks and embellishment, sort of a workingman's cookie. More important so far as instructions, biscotti are twiced cooked. The first baking is to set the cookie. Once baked, let them cook even more, as you might find these are a bit fragile when slicing with a serrated knife to a thumb thick size.

 

Get out your vino santo or marsala, caffe macchiato.....

Walnut, sultana, fennel, olive oil and saffron biscotti

283g All Purpose flour

    7g    Baking powder

 1.4g    Salt

170g    Sugar ( I ran out of sugar, substituted half with agave, which I mixed with wet ingredients.)

80g     Olive oil

pinch saffron threads

 1        Zest of lemon or orange

113g    Nuts, pistachio, almond or walnut

56g     Fruit, cranberry or raisin, gogi?

100g   egg, (2 eggs)

squirt if vanilla (optional)

 

Sift dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients, eggs, oil, etc... Add to dry mix and finish with nuts and fruit. Split dough in half, roll out to about 7" cylinder, about half inch thick.

Bake at 350F for twenty to twenty five minutes. Remove and cool on rack, when cool enough to handle, cut into thumb thick slices, straight or biased. Re-cook at 300F for about twenty minutes, cool if you can keep from eating warm!

For my friend who say's, "why not!"

Landed, Roggenbrot.

 

It's warmer this weekend but still winter. Let's remember sweeter days. My mind goes back to some hours spent in Germany. The Rhineland-Pflaz, on beautiful sun drenched afternoon, full of light, great wurst, salads, and of course great hardy loaves of rye bread.

Rye is, and always will be, a staple in my diet, a challenging kind of bread if you haven't considered what makes it tick. Lack of gluten, and a challenge to create the rich tasting moist bread when it can sometimes turn into a brick, whether for new bakers or old ones like me. 

Below are some notes on a loaf I had made in school with a teacher, who had plucked it out of a book and handed out the basics to us for a lesson. Notes from classes for me are always a struggle. You are trying to absorb the verbal passing of a message, then jotting down the numbers.  Generally, what comes out is dizzying mess. All to say, in attempting this, get out your calculators, spreadsheets and a lot of bakers common sense!

 

 

Landbrot nach Heidart (No idea what this Heidart is?) I think the translation is wrong, and must actually be Hirtenbrot, Shepards bread, or even Heidibrot another rye bread.

Here is the version I got from Nick Greco, formerly baking instructor at FCI.

My sole adaption was the exclusion of yeast.

Two 2lb loaves or one huge 4 lb, batard or round mischbrot.

Total formula(minus 2 percent yeast)

60%Rye

40%Wheat

2%salt

65% water

Starter:

270g Rye, (whole rye)

27g starter (I used white liquid levain)

216g water

Fed overnight, about 12 hours till risen.

Final dough:

486g starter

330g Rye flour

400g Bread flour (I used All purpose from Central Milling, organic)

20g salt

435g water

I just mixed by hand till dough came together, allowed to rise about two hours at bulk.

Divided in half, shaped and rose on a board in round mischbrot form seam side up, one loaf. About an hour and a half final rise, but could of been two, not watching the clock, feeling the dough! The breads were  baked seam up not slashed, and one down for the slashed effect.

Baked in a creuset pan at 475 with lid for 20 minutes, off for 15.

Very light shallow slash on the seamside down loaf, and the other seamside baked without a slash!

 

 

 

 

Ten Grain & Sunflower Seed Bread

January and Sunday means football for me, and this week was the NFL playoffs. With my home town team the Jets one game away from the Superbowl, I decided to enjoy it while attempting my own challenge, baking a ten grain bread. I was using a mix from a New York micro mill called Wild Hive Farm, and which is sold at Eataly. Composed of millet, rye, winter soft wheat, oats, barley, spelt, corn grits, and flax seed, it also has two lesser known varieties. The first is tritiale, which is a hybrid of wheat and rye. The second grain variety is known as vetch. It may sound like the Yiddish word kvetch, but Sunday the mix gave me less cause to complain than the defensive play of the Jets. 

For the recipe, I used an old production list for a nine grain bread dug up in a drawer (sorry, can't attribute it because the list had no name). Anyway, the list was for a yeasted pre-fermented bread.  I adapted it for sourdough, and tossed in some sunflower seeds for taste. The come-from-behind game of the Jets left me with my own running in and out between plays and folds. Not something I recommend! Well, given that the Jets lost, it really was the bread that shined through for my on my football Sunday.

 

 

10 Grain and sunflower seed bread

 

 

I converted my 100% hydrated levain to 70% as it was what the original formula was set up for.

Download 10grainsunflowerseed

 

Pissaladiere a slight return

Not so long ago I posted about pissaladiere, that summer favorite from the Côte d'Azur. While visiting my mother recently, she urged me to take a turn at making one. Growing up, I used to watch her with interest as she cooked meals that weren't just delicious but interesting. Some from cookbooks she collected (a passion that I picked up from my mother, it seems) - and others from her French background, including, quiche, boulettes de viande or meatballs, and of course pissaladiere.

As a kid I liked her exotic dishes. I still do, only now we cook together. And enjoy them together. Whether it's the anchovies on top, or eating a pissaladiere at room temp, it's all good. Sort of like wine that needs to breathe. Somehow letting the dish cool down releases the flavors of all the ingredients. Letting the salty filets, olives and onions mellow for a better degustation. Of course you can eat it hot, but we happen to like it room temperature, a family idiosyncrasy I guess.

Pissaladiere:

Dough:

1.5 tsp yeast

400g flour (you may need to add in more depending on your flour.)

.05g corn meal (optional

280g water

20g oil

8g salt

Mix dough and let rise till doubled. Fold dough once or twice depending on feel or strength of dough. At this divide into two balls and rest, 15-25 minutes. Roll out to a circle about 8 to 12 inches, remember, not too thin.

Topping:

2 large onions,(I mixed white and red, just because I had some and I like both!)

1 Tbsp. Herbs: thyme, rosemary, chopped or Herbs de Provençe, (if using dry herbs, remember it's stronger!)

1-2 tsp Olive oil

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper 

8-10 anchovy fillets,(you could soak in milk if you want to mellow the flavor,optional.)

12 Pitted Niçoise olives (we only had some cured Italian or something, black and cured are just as nice, but Niçoise would really make it certified!)

1 Sliced tomato (Now here is where we veer from the orthodox, usually you don't put tomatoes, but this is how my maman does it and she comes from that part of the world, so she should know?)

Thinly slice the onions.Sweat the onions with oil, add herbs, bay leafs and cook over medium heat till translucent, season  salt and pepper to taste and cool.

Slice tomato. Cover the dough with onions evenly spread out. Crisscross the anchovies all over the pissaladiere. Add pitted olives either whole or cut in half, cover the pissaladiere with tomato slice and bake in a pre-heated 420 F oven for about 15 to 20 minutes till the edges are golden and the bottom is golden browned.

Tortillas to Empanadas

Visiting Ecuador, I have been craving a piece of decent bread. All I have found here are pillows of soft white dough, yeasted, slightly sweet, shaped into odd looking but familiar pseudo-crescent rolls. Other than that there's some yellowish colored bread, or even some neon pink glazed sweet breads carted on window paned boxes mounted on bicycles with parasols with the peddlers literally pedaling their goods.

 

Out of sheer bread withdrawal, I decided to attempt something that could be recognized as handmade, with some taste of wheat and perhaps some additional flavor profile. Say, wheat tortillas. I didn’t have sourdough in mind, and for that matter didn't even have any yeast. Instead I relied soley on flour, water, salt and the flavor enhancer (and really fantastic ingredient) manteca de cerdo. Otherwise known as lard! The other thing I lacked was a rolling pin, so relied on Dan Lepard's innovative method of a wine bottle.Yes, they do make wine here, but that is another story. I started the dough using the ratio technique. Without Michael Ruhlman’s ratio book in hand, I used only my sense and experience to guide me; as the only scale we have available is huge and is used to weigh fish and vegetables. Rudimentary skill was at its most primeval stages.I rubbed the lard into the dough, added salt and eyeballed the water to the feel of how the dough was coming along, as I hadn’t previously used flour here.

Even with the humidity, the dough was perfect. I made up some tortillas which puffed up and tasted great. Whether plain or with cheese, tomatoes and chilies for an ad hoc  quesadilla, it worked, to the amazement of the cooks who had never had this style of tortilla. One of the cooks asked me if I knew how to make empanadas and if this dough would work. Having never considered the idea of tortilla dough being multi-purpose, I supposed that it could, and why not try? So I made little golf ball sized dough, patted them out flat with my hand, and proceeded to fill them with shrimp. Then we made some cheese with herbs. Our medium of cooking was in lard, fried things are good, especially in lard.

 

 

Tortilla and Empanada Dough

 

2 Cups of flour

1 tsp of salt

4Tbsp of lard

Water, add till you get a malleable dough.

 

Rub in the lard with the flour and salt, add in water till you have a manageable dough, mix but don’t over knead dough. (Think short crust or pie dough.)

Rest at least 20 minutes covered with a towel. Divide into golf ball size or make larger empanada’s if so inclined.

Roll into a circle for Tortillas, about 8 inches round. To cook tortillas use a round cast iron skillet or a flat Teflon pan and cook over medium high heat on both sides till puffy and blistered, about 1 minute for each side.

For empanadas, roll out dough about a quarter inch thick or pat dough with flat of your hand to create a oval shaped piece of dough. Fill the center of the dough with whatever filling you choose, about a tablespoon of filling depending how big you made the piece of dough. Pinch sides of dough to seal. Crimp with a fork or pleat edges with fingers.

Fry in a high sided pot or fryer till golden brown  350 F.

Plantain, a story and recipe.

As my last post pointed out, I'm taking my summer break in Puerto Lopez, Ecuador, made famous by Anthony Bourdain, but also home to a new restaurant started by my own familia. Namely my wife and her brother. I'm here to help open it. From one kitchen into another, or out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 

 

Actually, it’s winter here now, a somewhat wet and overcast season where the temperature is a cool but comfortable 70 to sometimes humid 80 degrees. This sleepy fishing village is filled with people from all over the world, but particularly travelers from the interior of the Andean highlands. 

These folks come down with their family entourage during the  ferriado, (holiday season), their vacation on the coast.  They come to see the local ecological sites and the schools of humpback whales off shore, or just play and relax along stretches of sandy beach. Even if it is winter here you couldn’t tell with the revelry that overtakes the visitors. Not even a cloudy sky or an occasional downpour can upset them. They are here to enjoy themselves. And they do. One of the biggest enjoyments is eating local specialties of this region, (Manabi). From the the ocean comes grilled fish, (comatillo) langostine, pulpo, calamari; and from the earth of course the renowned bolon; all the while sulking and carrying on about the portions and prices, but all the same they enjoy themselves nonetheless.

Ecuador is like other nations, with distinct cultural and geographic rivalries, which can often cause some name-calling. People from the interior Andean region call the coastal inhabitants "costeños" or "monos" (monkeys), partly because of the local diet of plantains and bananas (guineos). Quite funny since the coastal people call the Andean visitors "serranos", highlanders who eat grains and potatoes. Ironically they all come to try 
dishes derived from plantains, most typical of these dishes being the glorious and filling bolon.  Sort of like our own favorites, they come with different additions, including cheese, peanut butter, or Chicharrón. Beyond that there are sub-variations. During this  latest visit a new condiment I was introduced to something known as "sal prieta," a mixture of roasted peanuts, salt and corn ground and mixed in with various spices.

This week I have had my fill of eating plantains, but still can’t seem to get enough of all the guises and flavorful ways to prepare them. Here are some of my favorite styles and my take on an old favorite, plantain and cheese empanada.

A trio of plantain, by Chef Bernardo Zambrano of the Sheraton Hotel in Guayaquil.

 

Bolon de verde con queso y Chicharrón, Toston de verde con sal prieta, maduro asado con queso.

(plaintain with cheese, pork crackling, flattened and fried with crushed,peanut, corn and salt spice mix. Ripe plantain grilled and stuffed with cheese.

How they make bolon in Manabí

 

 

 

Empanada de verde con queso (plantain empanada's filled with cheese.)

4 peeled and boiled empanadas

4 raw grated empanadas

salt to taste

 About 1 1/2 cups of cheese, queso fresco or any semi soft cheese grated.

4-5 cups oil (frying oil, canola or if your lucky lard, tastes better!)

Peel the eight plantains, boil four till soft and your able to crush them with a back of a spoon. Grate the other four plantains into a bowl. If your able to use a food processor and pulse both the raw and cooked plantain together till you have a dough, you may add some of the cooking water to loosen the dough if too stiff. Divide into walnut shaped pieces, and between a sheet of oiled plastic wrap press down to make a round circle. Place a tablespoon of grated cheese in the center. Take one side of the dough and cover the other half sealing the edge of the empanada.

Deep fry in a pan till golden brown, drain on paper towel and serve hot.

Mujadara, lentils and rice.

I first tried mujadara at one of my local eateries, which is a family run Lebanese food shop based in Sunnyside, Queens.  Lately, I have tended to make my own renditions, as the shop's quality has lagged recently. And initially I thought, how hard is it to make lentils with rice? Well, it's not that simple, really! But that shouldn't stop you from trying this awesome dish. 

Wanting to find a recipe, I consulted a book I found at Argosy books. My years of perusing their shelves have led me to finding some awesome books, including Egyptian Cooking: A Practical Guide. Don't ask me why this book caught my eye, but the cover talked to me right away! Though it's said to be from the levant, I guess with all the historical interchange, this is a good source as any. My local guy wasn't giving me any hints, as his recipe was a family secret.

Mujadara

I followed the book's basic recipe but adapted it to my taste and what I had on hand in my pantry.

Serves two hungry people and a few more, quite filling.

1 cup of brown lentils

1/2 cup of rice (Basmati, Egyptian if you can find it, or like me I used Jasmine.)

2 3/4 cup of water...a little bit more can be added if needed.

1 onion, red, white or yellow, I used shallots..nothing is sacred in cooking.

3 Tblsp. Olive oil

about a teaspoon of cumin, seed or ground.(toast and grind cumin)

1/4 tsp cinammon

1/2 tsp. of Turmeric (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste.

Slice onion thinly, (shallots), in a pan add about 3 tblsp oil over medium heat, add sliced onions. Stirring every minute or two till you notice them getting a golden hue, continue stirring making sure to keep the onions coloring evenly. You want a toasty onion, remove from oil to a paper towel to absorb the oil, season with salt.

Clean lentils for stones, and wash. Cover with 2 cups of water and bring to boil. Cook until it starts to get tender...the book says till soft, I don't like it too mushy.

Add rice, spices and cover with remaining water, cook for about 10 to 15 minutes covered on low heat.Season with salt and pepper. With lid on allow it to rest for a good five minutes, toss with a fork and check to see that it is cooked. 

Cover mudjadara with fried onion, and stir into the rice and lentil.

شهية طيبة

Mangú

When I was a kid, bananas were always yellow and sweet. But in my 30 years working alongside Latin American cooks and traveling to my wife's homeland of Ecuador, I have learned lots about bananas, especially the versatility of the plantain, the starchier and less sweet variety. There are countless uses and techniques to find value in this fruit.

Take the green plantano verde (green plantain, not ripe at all) which is the same as the yellowish mottled or black maduro (mature or ripe). You can cook them, fry them, boil them, bake them or grill them. Some of my favorite preparations are bolon, chifles, empanada de verde, mofongo and of late Mangú.

Origins of Mangú range from it's resemblance to fufu from Africa which was brought along with the banana with the Portugese to South America. But my Sous Chef often likes to say the name comes from the U.S. occupation of his Island of Santo Domingo, which lasted from 1916 to 1924 by the United States Marines. The story says a Marine tasted the dish of plantains and said, "man that tastes good!" And the locals started to call it Mangú. Legend, maybe, but it always gets a chuckle in the kitchen when we are making it.

Mangú

2 Plantains, green

1 onion, (I used red, but yellow or white would work fine.)

Oil, neutral, lard or olive oil and even butter works..

Salt and pepper

Salami (Dominicans like salami Campesino)

water from the cooking liquid and or some milk....

Boil plantains in a pot of salted water till soft, meanwhile fry onions in oil till golden and tender.

Mash plantains with fork, add some of the cooking water to soften the mix, drizzle with some oil to taste, season with salt and pepper....

Toppings or add in's are optional,and range from cheese, Chicharrón, but I cooked up some Maya shrimp that were marinated with cumin, piment d'espelette, garlic and cilantro and cooked a' la plancha....