STIR THE POTS

Beer Bread

During the pandemic, I ventured on foot to my former Long Island city neighborhood. This former industrial stretch of Queens is now a hipster neighborhood. The bad side? Rising rents. The good side, several breweries offering delicious beers including Fifth Hammer Brewing and Rockaway Brewing Company.

This discovery piqued my interest to see if either brewery would sell me any of their spent grains, great to use for baking bread for beer dough. It turned out that both offered me enough to make several bags. Now I just have to turn them into bread. 

 

 

 

Bread Share

With heightened attention being paid to bread baking in quarantine, I have made time to up my game by adapting more formulas, and trying to bake at a slower speed. Patience and study are not qualities that come easily to a always-pressured chef. Rushing to produce quick breads and expecting a perfect loaf seems like a politician's game, you get lousy results, from lots of waste to bad crumb and crust.

Often my brother chides me, tell me that I produce bread porn by posting endless photos of supposedly great loaves, never allowing anyone to actually taste them.  Well, he's wrong, as attested to by my neighbors, two butchers and a local grocer who asked if I had more! One of the butchers wives actually posted something about it on Facebook. Here's a quote: "My favorite baker sent me some bread...or at least I’d like to think so. Thank you so much, it’s amazing." 

It feels good to share a communal loaf. The breaking of bread is an act of sharing. Giving is what we do, especially now in this time.

Burger Buns

At work, I always dreamed of making home made buns. Burger buns. And not the average burger bones. Most restaurants serve challah or brioche styled burger buns. I wanted a better burger bun What's that means? It's freshly baked. It's not too soft but fluffy enough to absorb the wonderful juices of a well-made burger.  Recently, Simon Bowden, an English baker in NYC who posts on Instagram forwarded a recipe for a biga-version potato bun recipe. I adapted the recipe for sourdough. And then I put them to use with a batch of lamb burgers. Fantastic!

 

Zev Robinson

 

 

Zev Robinson is an artist and filmmaker who explores bread, food and wine. We have been talking to each other during the Pandemic via Zoom. He agreed to allow me to post one of our talks. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerusalem Bagel

Four years ago I tried to make a batch of Jerusalem-style bagels. They were far from stellar. The other day, Lior Lev Secarz emailed me a recipe for these bagels on which he swore. He got them from chef Mike Salomonov, author of the restaurant and book known as Zahav. The recipe is fantastic. I adapted it for sourdough using a refreshed young levain, along with Bulgarian yogurt replacing the labneh as called for in the original formula. My neighbors got lucky with a batch and left me comments too, which made me feel good about sharing during this pandemic period.

"we couldn’t even bother to clean our counter!"

 

   

 

This is Solomonov's formula, yeasted. Sourdough takes more fermentation time, but not much! Yalla!

 

Ingredients

1 packet active dry yeast

3 tablespoons sugar

1¾ cups warm water

907 g bread flour

⅓ cup canola oil

⅓ cup labneh

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon baking soda

2 large eggs

Sesame seeds, for sprinkling

 

Directions

• Combine the yeast, sugar, and 1½ cups of the water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add the flour, oil, labneh, and salt and mix until the dough comes together. Cover the bowl and let rise at room temperature until it almost doubles in volume, 1 to 1½ hours. Portion the dough into 6 to 8 equally sized balls and place on a lightly floured large board. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

 

• Pat one piece of dough into a rough rectangle the size of your board, then roll it up, starting from one long end, pinching and deflating/degassing the dough as you roll. Pinch the seam to seal. Continue rolling the dough into a long rope using both hands, starting in the middle and moving outward to make it as even as possible (it should be about 1½ feet long). Bring the edges together to make a long oval and pinch to seal. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces. Let rise on the board for 1 hour. The dough will puff up a bit.

 

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Spread out the baking soda in a small ovenproof dish and bake for 3 minutes. Remove from the oven and whisk with the eggs and the remaining ¼ cup water in a small bowl. After the dough ovals have risen, place them on the prepared baking sheets. Brush the tops with the egg wash, using all of it, and sprinkle liberally with sesame seeds. Bake until deep golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

 

 

 

Boeuf A'la Mode

Shopping at my local butcher I  got piece of marbled chicken steak aka  blade shoulder A prized bistro style cut for braising . With this particular cut  I learned with particular dish, its name boeuf aux carrotes (beef and carrots). The method and technique hasn't been lost, its lodged in my psyche and memorialized  in my palate. Still I was wondering about the historic origins and it's name and found some very interesting points of its creator François Pierre de La Varrenne. Writer of recipes and  a key chef during a period of enlightenment  in French cuisine. His own codifying, led to recipes, inscribed with rules and principles of taste. Varrenne suggested removing exotic spices that covered or masked dishes left behind from the middle ages, instead he preached the  use of  local product that were fresh, and meat prepared carefully highlighting the maximum taste. His summation in his book, " when eating cabbage soup, I want it to taste like cabbage."

 

 

 

 

 

Green Sauce For The Salmon

One of our signature summer dishes at work was poached salmon. But where we traditionally topped it with a classic French sauce vert (a mayonnaise and chlorophyll mixed sauce), we  needed a change, a tastier green sauce known as "bagnet vert." Based simply on soaked bread, capers, anchovies and oil, it's cleaner, greener, and delicious. 

Taking Off The Edge

In these times of uncertainty, sometimes you need a good cocktail. Here are two cocktails I enjoy for slow sipping. First up is benefit of Jose Andre's Mercado, a downtown NYC-food market. They make their own version of a Spanish-influenced gin-and-tonic, garnished with fresh juniper. In my version, I added rosemary and a wonderful lemon known as "a hand of buddha," here candied for an extra bite.

 

Second up is a Negroni knockoff that works in armagnac, vermouth, and an after-dinner apertif wine called Laubade Floc. In this case, it was shaken not stirred. And it was lovely, as was the rest of my late afternoon and evening!

 

 

 

Lets hope cocktails will be shared in celebration when this virus is neutralized, meanwhile...go easy, but pour me another one!

 

Grissini

Grissini are classic bread sticks. Years ago working as a cook at the Sony Club, we made them in-house. Actually the job was reserved for the intern cook. At the time, it seemed a torturous process, maybe because you had to get them done before lunch. Years later I met a former intern and he still remembered the grind. In retrospect, they aren't that tough to make but when you're under pressure to produce them in the dozens, well, it could be demanding. And they were enjoyed by the many entertainment senior executives who dined at our dining room back then. They were addictively good to nibble. Today with the help of a pasta roller and fettuccine cutter, never mind some time on your hand, you can make them at home and enjoy. 

Here's the recipe.

Preparation

 

In a small bowl gently stir the yeast into 1/4 cup of the warm water. Add the sugar and 

let the mixture rest in a warm place for 10 to 15 minutes until it is creamy.

 

Sift together the 6 1/4 cups flour, salt, and pepper into a large bowl and make a 

well in the center. 

Add the yeast mixture, the remaining 1 3/4 cups water, the 1/4 cup oil, 

and the rosemary and sage to the well. 

Using a fork, gradually draw the flour into the liquid in the well. 

When the dough is too stiff to stir with the fork, use your hands to 

work in the remaining flour. 

Turn the dough out onto a floured pastry board and knead until smooth, 

elastic, and not sticky, about 10 minutes. 

If the dough is still sticky, add a little more flour. Pat the dough into a ball. 

Oil a clean bowl and place the ball of dough in it. 

Brush a little oil on top. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

 

When it is time to make the breadsticks on the following day, preheat an oven to 350°F. 

Generously oil 4 baking sheets with olive oil. 

Take a large handful of dough from the bowl in the refrigerator, 

leaving the remainder covered and refrigerated, 

and place it on a lightly floured board. Roll it out as thinly as you can by hand. 

Dust it with flour and pass it through the rollers of the pasta machine at the 

first setting (largest opening) to flatten it further. 

Now fold it in thirds as you would a letter, overlapping 

the top third and then the bottom third over the middle third.

 (This will give the dough a uniform shape.) 

Dust the folded dough lightly with flour and pass it through the first setting again, feeding it from one of its open ends. 

Now pass the dough through the fettuccine-cutting attachment. The grissini will be very long — about 1 foot in length — 

which give them a dramatic effect in a bread basket on the table. Arrange the grissini well spaced on a prepared baking sheet. 

Brush generously with more olive oil. 

Repeat with the remaining dough, working with a large handful at a time. 

Fill only as many baking sheets as will fit in your oven comfortably.

 

Bake in the preheated oven until golden, about 35 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool. 

Form and bake the remaining grissini in the same manner. Serve them stacked in an oblong bread basket, 

or standing up in an attractive vessel deep enough to contain them. To store, place them in airtight metal or plastic 

 

 

Ceviche - Where Earth Meets Sea

Ceviche is the quintessence of fish dishes, a meeting of land and sea. The ingredients are basic; fish, chilies, onions, cilantro, and salt. Its magic is the transformative power of citrus cures. In South America, it's often served with plantain chips, toasted corn ("cancha tostada"), or popped corn ("canguil").

In my visits to Ecuador, following a heart-focused diet, I managed to enjoy some salt-restricted ceviche. Returning home to work, I decided to incorporate a more Peruvian styled version, known as leche de tigre. This style features scallops and sweet potatoes. I think of it as food for the gods.