Rolls are great for a formal dinner or a quick bite. Filled with ham, cheese or just plain. This Thanksgiving I whipped up a batch of German party rolls, small round bread dough seeded and baked in a cast iron pan. Delicious, and I adapted the original straight dough to sourdough, using a chilled piece of whole wheat sourdough.
Recently I purchased a copy of Italian baker Matteo Festo's Natural Leavening. It's an insightful introduction to Italy's approach to natural sourdough baking. Below are photos of my attempt at one of his formulas using grape must. Along with fabulous Sicilian flour, Molini Del ponte Nero, it led to a great loaf.
Pasta-riporto is an Italian baking method of using a small piece of dough from the previous day's bread dough to create new starter for the next batch. I'm not sure if it's still considered a sourdough. Any answers from readers? Anyway, I was lucky to find more explanation from Italian maestro Piergiorgio Giorilli. It requires longer bulk fermentation but with my hectic schedule, this has made baking bread easier from start to finish.
The Japanese use a fermented grain called koji to make miso paste or sake. When I first found it offered at my local Japanese food market, bells went off, a voice yelling at me, "go home, make soy, sake or pickled vegetables." But honestly, it sat in my fridge another two months till I finally got help from Jeremy Umansky, who runs the delicatessen-bakery in Cleveland, Larder. A wizard of sorts with koji, his Instagram posts are a gateway to bright innovations and deliciousness. So far I've made Shio koji and amazake rye bread that are based on his formulas, with some of my adaptions. Not just flavor-filled, they umami - or umified!
Since my stash of Swiss and French charcuterie is almost gone, I decided to try a product for charcuterie and dry aging steak known as Umaidry. It comes in two forms, one a membrane-like bag and the other as sausage casing. Both allow you to dry cure in your refrigerator. First you cure the meat with salt, then fill the bags, and your home refrigerator is the curing chamber. I have used Umaidry to make coppocolla (gabagool) and a small batch of saucisson sec. There will be some wait time before I test, but it was a fun trial so far, wish me luck.
*Just tried some, fantastic flavor!
My latest effort with fermented chilies was inspired by this article on Fresno chili vinegar. Alas I was missing some of the sweeter ingredients. Relying on Thai bird chilies, I added sweet peppers to tame the heat. Then I left my first batch on the shelf for about a week, almost forgetting about them. When I opened them, the mixture was bubbling. I passed them through a fine sieve and then took a taste. Hot. Way hot. Hot enough to warm me even with this very cold Thanksgiving.
This past summer visiting my sister in Switzerland, trips around the country were highpoints. Ticino, for instance. An area on the Italian border, it's breathtaking. Seriously, words fail me. Same with photos. It's not just the vistas, it's the entire feeling of this sweeping geography and local culture.
There's a local bread named for the area called Valle di Maggia. Nostalgia this weekend led me to bake some loaves. Though it didn't quite bring me back, the results were a crust and crumb as richly satisfying as the hills and valleys of Ticino.
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