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What's better during a Nor'easter than a bowl of chili. Like apple pie, it's an American favorite. There's the purist version with no tomatoes or beans. Sure, that works is you are from Texas or New Mexico. I whipped up a batch of the type I like, then rolled out some tortillas, which I found easier to handle with maseca harina.
Many years ago, I trailed Amy Scherber at her bakery. I remember the nights clearly, from baking and shaping loaves of bread to bagging them. Spending so much time bending over to make bread twists, I pulled muscles. That time left memories that still inspire me today. Recently I went looking for some formulas she published in her book, then adapted them using sourdough. Nice results, and good to look back at my budding baking first steps.
Making a staff meal at work, and craving comfort food, I made empanada Gallega, basically thick-crusted pies, here stuffed with tuna. I got tips from Chef Daniel, while I posted photo's online, he's from Asturias.
"You need to fold and pinch the dough around it to seal it..." He needs to read this blog more, done that!
My friend Michele texts me this message while on the subway;
"Papo secos, what do you know?"
At first I thought the message referred to dried Andean potatoes. But then Michele followed up with an enticing formula. Known as a "pão penqueno," it's variously shaped sandwich rolls that have a creased indentation like a pain fendu or pistolet. Also, Michele's formula is yeasted. And another version includes lard and potatoes, as well as using improvers. That turned me off. So I turned it into a hybrid with sourdough and yeast which came out pretty nice!
As much as I like a crunchy crusted bread, there are times I long for a softer loaf, especially for my favorite "PB&J sandwich." This week I baked a remarkable low inoculation sourdough with a big rabbit ear profile and holey crumb that lent itself to great toppings. Then I made a whole wheat pan loaf (sourdough, too), and was pleased.
Had kids over during last weekend's snow storm. Here is a quick yeasted Verace Napoletano pizza I did for them. They seemed to like it.
Having eaten a "torta de yuca," I decided to find out about the origins of this root. Looking online, I found that yuca is actually "cassava." More, cassava is the third highest carbohydrate source in the tropics. And because the first European sailors who settled the West Indies couldn't grow wheat on those tropical islands, they substituted cassava for bread. Also, it was introduced to Africa with corn, too. Below are shots of a torta de yuca prepared at home. Call it original comfort food.
Winter is coming. Time for tamales, more specifically duck-lard enriched masa tamales filled with meat. In the batch's below, Two kinds of corn were used. One came from a farmer's market. The other came from a native Iroquois source, which gave it a beautiful shade of brown and nuanced flavor.
Nixtamalization is the process to make masa using calcium hydroxide (also known as "CAL"). You boil and soak the corn in the CAL, then grind it. It's a method from the Meso-Americans that we enjoy in flat-corn tortilla, tamales, and many other south-of- the-border favorites. My curiosity to try it led me online to find the "Cal" and, once it arrived, go to work. Below are photos of how it went.
When I got a small tin of caviar for New Years, I didn't expect to have leftovers. But it turned out that we nibbled on it a bit before going out for a pre-New Years' dinner, leaving the bulk of it for the next day. This second day of January, I made some fabulous French scrambled eggs layered with a dollop of caviar. I then made mouillettes of German landbrot to accompany it. Too bad there wasn't any champagne. Oh, well!
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