I diced a few strips of bacon, sauteed that until almost entirely rendered, reserved out half the bacon fat, then added to the pan 1 huge Hermiston sweet onion, sliced, and sauteed that slowly until it was translucent and slightly caramelized.
Separately, I diced about 1&1/2 lb. of tri-tip, tossed it with 1 Tb. Chinese-style black bean garlic sauce, 1 Tb. dijon and 1 Tb. crushed garlic, then seared it off in the reserved bacon fat, in a big, very hot pan.
Then I added the bacon and onions, 3 cups water and 1/2 cup red wine, brought to a boil, then simmered until most of the liquid was gone.
I added 1/2 cup of sour cream, brought it back to a simmer, then thickened the sauce with some brown roux. I adjusted the seasoning with salt, pepper and sherry vinegar, then let it cool completely for several hours in the refrigerator.
I made some pizza dough, and when it was risen, divided it into 3 oz. balls, rolled them out ~6-7 inch, put a 3 oz. amount of filling in the center, egg-washed the edge, then folded the dough over the filling 4 ways, like closing a box. I turned these over onto an oiled sheet pan, brushed them with olive oil, pricked the tops with the point of a knife, and baked @ 350F for about 20 minutes.
The tops started to crack a bit, all at once, so I pulled them from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes. Then I put them back under the broiler for about 2 minutes to brown. I brushed them with more olive oil, and sprinkled them with powdered salt.
They were good, but the Hermiston onion was so sweet that the filling came out a bit too sweet. If I made it again, I’d probably halve the onion.
To those of you who have been checking back here occasionally, thank you. Some people have written in with comments over the past couple of months, and I’ll try to reply to all as soon as possible.
Summer has pretty much called it quits here in Juneau. Long-time residents have developed a sort of sense for this. This sense usually involves the water getting about knee-high. It rains about ten inches this month, and ten inches next month, then it quits raining. It quits raining when it starts snowing. Those of you who live in warmer areas might consider being grateful for your good fortune.
Green garbanzos are now available frozen. This is a brand new product. Costco has a deal with the packer Califresh. I just picked up a bag at Costco, and they should soon be available all over the US.
This is exciting because green garbanzos have a very short season, and haven’t previously been available, fresh or frozen, outside of the immediate growing area. But they are a prize in India, Mexico, and throughout the Mid-East. Califresh and another company, Clearwater Country, are betting they have a winner. We will probably soon see the effects of their marketing campaign on cooking shows and food websites. If you’re looking for some recipes to start with, check out the websites at Clearwater Country and Califresh.
Green garbanzos should be cooked. You can blanch them for 3 minutes in boiling, salted water, then drain and cool for use in salads, green hummus, etc, or simmer then in soup for much longer, 45 minutes, to soften more.
I’ve seen a few recipes for green garbanzo guacamole, which simply involves puréeing or mashing the blanched garbanzos, and then mashing them together with the avocado and other guacamole ingredients.
Last night I tried them for the first time, and they were delicious. I’m afraid I don’t have a picture, but I can describe what I made.
I pan-roasted some 1″ cauliflower pieces in olive oil, until they were quite browned or even charred in spots on the outsides, but just barely cooked in the middle, then I reserved these. In a large skillet, I browned some ground beef with onions and a little soy sauce, then added a big handful of the green garbanzos and enough beef stock to nearly cover all. Then I returned the cauliflower to the pan, and also added a large tomato, chopped, a couple tablespoons ketchup, a pinch or dry oregano, and seasoned with salt and pepper. I let that simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, then added some WW-flour-and-water paste, and let it simmer for a couple more minutes to thicken the sauce. I served this with garlic bread.
To make the garlic bread, I used a fresh loaf of artisinal pugliese bread (like Italian bread), split lengthwise. I mixed soft butter and mayonnaise 50-50, added smashed garlic, then enough shredded parmesan to make a paste. I spread that on the bread. Then I shaved some onion as thinly as possible, pressed that into the cheese mixture, and topped with fresh-cracked black pepper. Then I baked at 400ºF for about 20 minutes until very browned and crusty.
Following is a picture of a nice salad featuring green garbanzos, along with cucumber, tomato and feta.
Okay, so this might be only tangentially related to cooking, but I just want to mention something about the metric system.
My job primarily involves doing cooking demonstrations for people who’ve come to Alaska for vacation (it’s a great job), and I meet people from all over the world. Sometimes people read my recipes and ask me what I mean by “2 c.”
“Excuse me, what does ‘2 c.’ mean?”
“That’s two cups.”
“Oh.”
“Where are you from?”
“The U.K.”
“Hey, we got these measurements from you!”
These people are used to reading recipes like this:
400 g canned pink Alaska salmon
300 g courgettes
150 ml Dry white wine
50 g shallots
25 g cornflour
175 g Gruyere
I’ve been reading recipes on the internet for many years, and I’ve become accustomed to finding recipes in English measurements. But this is changing. I’ve noticed that some professional cooking websites are now using metric measurements.
The world internet is becoming more international. For the last 20 years, the US has dominated. It used to be you could assume a website was US-based and US-focused, but that’s changing.
Here’s a map of all the countries that use the metric system. Metric system countries are in green, the other ones are in red. There are only three countries that don’t use the metric system: the US, Liberia, and Myanmar.
Chego is a restaurant in Los Angeles that serves up a modern fast-casual Korean fusion cuisine. The chef, Roy Choi, is responsible for the Kogi BBQ taco trucks in L.A. that are immensely popular with the late night club crowd. Kogi serves up a fusion of Korean and Mexican, specializing in tacos filled with Korean barbecued pork and kalbi, with other Korean flavors. You can have a look at their menu at the link above.
Chego apparently offers a little different style. Here are some beautiful pictures of some of their offerings. I love seeing creations like this. Here’s a picture of their Hot Dog and Ketchup Fried Rice. I’m assuming the fried rice is underneath the fried egg and other garnishes.
If you enjoy Log Cabin syrup, here’s something to pour it on. This is a breakfast cabin, made with sausage links, bacon curtains, and a waffle roof. Please don’t eat the chimney. Or the curtain sashes. In general, I’d look out for skewers, toothpicks, and possibly some metal.
In the future, I’m sure pretty much all our food will look like this.
Since we’re on the subject of fun food, please let me point you in the direction of Jim’s Pancakes. Jim has figured out a great way to make artistic pancakes…by using a squeeze bottle filled with pancake batter! He adds a bit of food color at times to make pancakes that resemble, well, anything. Here’s a giraffe:
Giraffe Pancake
His daughter then eats the pancakes, which I’m sure works out great for her. Here she looks pretty psyched about her pink monster pancake.
An engineer takes a crack at perfecting the PB&J. According to his post here, he says, ” The jelly spreads more than you think. The first bite may a have a little more peanut butter, but there’s still jelly in it. Try it some time.”
And so proudly forward strides human progress. Click on the picture to enlarge.
Here at Chez Alaska, we use a Yukon sourdough starter that has been passed down from person to person by Alaskans since the time of the Klondike gold rush. Drop us an e-mail if you’d like to buy some; we’ve dehydrated the starter culture, and it can be reconstituted in a flash.
This past winter I did a bit of experimenting with sourdough, and breads in general. In particular, I tried to replicate the flavor and texture I associate with San Francisco-style sourdough. The flavor has a very pronounced tang, and the crust is chewy and pliable, with an almost bagel-like shine, and bubbles. I think those little bubbles are key. The interior, or crumb, is rather dense, and has a heterogenous character, holes of all different sizes.
Local supermarkets make sourdough in their bakeries, but I think for the most part, these supermarket bakeries now just thaw frozen dough rather than making their own from scratch. (I’ve visited institutional bakeries where almost everything, breads, pies, cookies comes in pre-made and frozen, and the baker’s prep work essentially consists of opening hundreds of boxes from a giant freezer.) Often this kind of sourdough is as light and airy as french bread. Seems like they just added tangy chemicals to their basic french bread/baguette dough, and called it a day. Maybe they throw in a small amount of real sourdough culture so they can label the product as sourdough.
My own initial attempts with sourdough breads turned out extremely dense, with homogenous hole structure, and hardly any discernible sour flavor. By switching from all-purpose flour to unbleached bread flour, I got a lighter, better rise and better hole structure. Unbleached bread flour has more gluten than almost any other flour, and the gluten is responsible for the rise. All whole wheat flour produces a sourdough that’s almost as dense as pumpernickel.
To increase the tangyness, I tried increasing the rise time, from 2 hours to 5, and that helped a bit. What worked even better was to make a pre-ferment with the starter and half the amount of additional flour, and then let that wet mixture work for a few hours, then let it rise in the refrigerator for a half day or more. Then I would add the rest of the flour and the salt, knead it into a good dough ball, and let that rise for a few more hours. So basically we’re talking a two day procedure, minimum. This also helps the crumb develop different-sized holes, rather than coming out like Wonder Bread.
Sourdough starter is a culture of many different wild microorganisms, mostly yeasts and bacteria. The tang comes from bacterial acids, primarily from lactobacilli, which are used for making yogurt, cheese and kimchi, and Acetobacter and other acetic acid bacteria, used for making vinegar. Enzymes already present in wheat flour break starch down into simple sugars, and the yeasts convert the sugars into CO2 gas and alcohol. Lactobacillus converts sugars into lactic acid, and Acetobacter converts alcohol into acetic acid. Refrigerating the dough inhibits lactobacilli more than the other microorganisms, leaving more sugar for the yeast, and producing more alcohol. This in turn encourages the production of more acetic than lactic acid; and acetic acid is much tangier. Letting the dough rise slowly in the refrigerator will help produce a stronger sour flavor. I suppose some people prefer sourdough that has less tang, but I figure if you’re going to go for sourdough, you might as well go all in. In either event, a very tangy sourdough bread when toasted, beats all other breads hands-down.
Longer proofing times are great, but it’s possible to overproof. When that happens, the yeast has consumed most of the available sugars, and is on a maintenance diet. Starch is still continuing to be enzymatically converted into sugar, but a a constant rate. But the dough needs to contain some free sugar for it to spring in the oven. When the dough hits the hot oven, the heat initially turbocharges the yeast into super-activity, causing the spring, or oven rise. Later, the heat kills the yeast and crusts the bread, fixing its final shape. But if the dough has overproofed, it won’t spring, and will remain very dense.
King Arthur has a solution for achieving extra tangy sourdough by adding citric acid. The recipe is here. Powdered citric acid can usually be found in the baking section of the supermarket, or sometimes in the health supplements section.
In order to get that shiny, pliable crust, you need to use a spray bottle of water, and mist the oven when you toss in the bread, to increase the humidity. Some people also place a pan on the lower shelf, and after preheating, fill it with ice or water when putting the bread in the oven.
Peter Reinhart illustrates this technique beautifully. If you’ve never heard of Peter Reinhart, he’s pretty much one of the reigning gurus of artisanal (AR´-tizz-i-nul) breads. He’s also a former monk, which is kind of cool. There are some other videos of his here, which are very informative.
He’s using a baking stone here, and has had his oven preheating for probably an hour at its hottest temperature, then he probably turns it down to 400°F or so when he slides in the bread. The baking stone will quickly transfer its heat into the dough, creating a good spring. He has let the bread rise on pieces of parchment paper to facilitate transfer to the stone, and he uses the back side of a baking sheet in lieu of a peel.
A baker's peel.
Another baking tool you might consider getting is a baker’s blade, or lame (lahm). That’s what you use to make the characteristic slashes on the top of a bread loaf. The razor blade in the lame works better and faster than a serrated-edge knife, which is the next best thing. The purpose of those slashes is not primarily decorative — the bread will crack open somewhere, and by using the lame you can control where that occurs. Especially when using a stone, the loaf can develop cracks near the bottom edge, which can cause the bottom of the loaf to become too dry.
A lame.
Edit: A friend writes that commercial bakers probably use a starch glaze to get the sourdough shine. Make a very thin glaze of 1 tsp. cornstarch and 1/4 c water, and brush on the loaves for the last 10 minutes of baking.
