Lox Anyone?

In a continuing quest of life-long learning and terrific food; I learned how to make bagels this week.  

The three sesame beauties in the upper left hand corner are mine.

 

The elongated 'things' are fancy wieners in a bagel dough shroud.  Very yummy!

 

Since I already know how to make Gravlax; homemade bagels complete the circle. 

Let There Be Bread

Having weekend guests we naturally tossed pizzas in the Forno followed the Packer game.

This morning I bid our travelers an early adieu.

Good thing I put the door back on the oven before bedtime as the temp was still north of 400f (called a dying oven) and I had a couple of 375g sourdough balls from yesterday.

So I baked bread.

Cheesy boules topped with tarragon plucked from the garden.

 

The Holy Grail

 

The quest for the Holy Grail of rustic loaves continues.

 

Today there was this - the version developed my America's Test Kitchen.

 

Looks great, smells delightful and I'll report-in on taste before too long. There is a half cup of Miller High Life and a T of white vinegar in the recipe. One minute of kneading.

 

My lobbying for an outdoor, wood-fired oven was successful. Stay tuned.....

 

Daily Bread

 

Baked another rustic loaf yesterday afternoon.

If you cannot stand the heat - grab a beer.

Drink Wisconsinbly People.....

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

 

 

From the Lord's Prayer.

Nailing it regularly. 

Vive le boule magnifique!

Le Pain Français

Now that the cold and early darkness of winter have descended-upon the land there is the joy and light of Le Pain Français from the kitchen.....

Daily Bread

Another freshly-made, crusty, boule from the quarantine bakery...

Big, fresh-picked-today, garden-grown salad, cherry wood smoked salmon from LaFonds Fish Market and Mr. Boule on the menu this evening.....


 

Baking Under Quarantine

Homemade Hard Rolls 

Ingredients 

2½ C of bread flour
¼ t of quick-rising yeast
1t of salt
1¼ C of hot water from the tap 

Directions 

In a bowl stir-together the dry ingredients.  Add water.  Stir to mix.  Cover with plastic wrap and rest on the countertop for three hours – room temperature - 70F.

Turn-out the dough on a heavily-floured board and using a bench scraper fold it several times.

Form dough into a round and cut into eight equal wedges.  Manipulate each dough wedge into a ball.  It’s sticky – be generous with the flour on your hands and the board.

Dough balls go on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet.  Cover with a dish towel and allow to proof for an additional thirty minutes on the counter – room temp.

Preheat oven to 450 F.  After proofing bake on center rack for 20-30 minutes, depending.
Voilà!

Crunchy, crusty hard rolls.  Easy peasy.
First time for me and when I do it next I'll use hotter water and/or allow for longer proofing of the dough at Steps One and Three.
Short video here to summarize…..

Rustic Boule

Every day I receive a friendly email from the New York Times announcing what to cook this week.  There are soups, salads, entrees, sides and more.  This week one of the messages featured.good - and easy - stuff to bake.

No-Knead Bread

 Yield 1 big loaf

Time 45 minutes, plus 4 1/2 hours' rising

The original recipe for no-knead bread, which Mark Bittman learned from the baker Jim Lahey, was immediately and wildly popular. How many novices it attracted to bread baking is anyone’s guess. But certainly there were plenty of existing bread bakers who excitedly tried it, liked it and immediately set about trying to improve it. This is an attempt to cut the start-to-finish time down to a few hours, rather than the original 14 to 20 hours' rising time. The solution is simple: use more yeast.

Ingredients

    3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

    1 packet instant yeast

    1 ½ teaspoons salt

    Oil as needed

Preparation

Step 1 - Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Step 2 - Lightly oil a work surface and place dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes more.

Step 3 - At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6-to-8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under dough and put it into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.

Step 4 - Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

The result is a very nice rustic Boule.  Easy-peasy too....

Why America is Already Great Again

Lest you harbor any last vestige of doubt about our great country's greatness I want to point out something I was reminded of while knocking about a Monoprix in Paris a couple of weeks ago.  Something that is recognized throughout the entire world as irrefutable evidence of America's greatness.

Yup.  Commercially manufactured, enriched, fortified, pre-sliced and wrapped white bread.


America's post World War II manufacturing renaissance with humming factories, baby boom, highway-building, race for the moon and vast economic expansion was accompanied by this ubiquitous household foodstuff that even today persists as a key indicator of an American family's prosperity and American culinary and economic dominance throughout the world. 

I was raised on a steady diet of Wonder Bread.  No whole grain, fancy, hipster, designer loaves for me.  Good old, soft sliced white bread that got a tad gooey after the baloney, American cheese and mayo start to soak-in after sitting for hours in a lunch pail on the shelf at school.  It's no wonder (pun intended) that am a successful and prosperous example of building strong bodies twelve ways.

So, don't let that orange man behind the curtain fool you.  He's a hustler, swindler and a con-man (from Queens).  If he points a tiny finger at you and exhorts his minions about making America great again you just tell him that he's full of hot air.   America is already great again.  

America is already so great that this cultural food icon is copied and sold the world-over. I shit you not.

Yes, even in France.  The land of fresh-baked daily baguettes that are crunchy, chewy divinely delicious along with buttery, heavenly, flaky croissants, hard rolls and brioches.  

There is this: 
  

click on image to enlarge

Commercially manufactured, enriched, fortified, shelf-stable, preservative-infused, pre-sliced and wrapped white bread.  It proudly shouts- American Sandwich on the label too.

Even the French have surrendered - culturally and otherwise - to American greatness and dominance.

I rest my case.

You can learn more about The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread here.  

Be sure to visit Harrys here.