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kindkitThere's a lot I've been wanting to post about, so I'm going to divide posts up roughly by subject. This one's about cooking and baking.
I haven't been doing much wildly interesting cooking lately--for reasons of economy there's been a lot of "grain plus whatever vegetables are around plus some beans or maybe cheese." That sort of thing can be quite nice, of course, though I notice that all these healthy whole grains and vegetables are a lot, er, more challenging on the digestion than foods that are supposedly bad for you.
Moving right along--when I've eaten meat I've been stretching it by making meatballs (with lots of breadcrumbs), soup (I made avgolemono for the first time), and so on.
Luckily Ihoarded food like crazy stocked up my pantry pretty well before the last few months of not-much-money, because it's a lot easier to eat decently through a rough patch if you have some meat (bought in quantity when it was on sale) in the freezer and cupboards full of rice and couscous and bulgur and spices and dried shiitake mushrooms and those jarred preserved lemons that were so cheap at Trader Joe's that one time.
I'm still trying to perfect my homemade yogurt. It tastes fine, but the texture can be a little grainy sometimes--not curdled, but slightly on the road to it. Adding a little powdered milk helps and so does not heating the milk too hot. Anybody have further advice on this score?
Really, making yogurt is even simpler than people claim it is. You don't need any special equipment except a thermometer. No expensive yogurt maker, no heating pad, no sterilized jars, nothing.
Here's how I do it: Take a pan (not aluminum, which might react with the acid in the yogurt) that's big enough for however much yogurt you want to make. Pour milk in it, keeping track of how many cups, because this affects how much yogurt starter you need to use. If you want creamier yogurt, stir in bit of good quality powdered milk, maybe a scant teaspoonful per cup of regular milk. Heat the milk over medium-high heat until it reaches about 182 degrees Fahrenheit, or whatever that is in Celsius. You need to hit 180 F but you don't need to go significantly over that temperature.
While the milk is heating, take a small bowl and dump in one measuring tablespoonful of yogurt for each cup of milk. Let it sit at room temperature while the milk heats up.
Also while the milk is heating, put some cold water in a larger pot/pan. This is how you're going to cool your milk.
When the milk is just over 180 F, take it off the heat and put the pan full of milk into the pan of cold water. Stir, measuring the temperature of the milk every so often. You'll need to replace the water with fresh cold water a couple of times. If the water bath isn't workable for you, you can just let the yogurt cool down by itself, but it takes much much longer and it's harder to keep track of the temperature.
When the temperature gets down to about 113-115 degrees Fahrenheit, take the pan out of the water bath. Pour a little warm milk into the yogurt you've set aside in a bowl and stir gently until it's nice and pourable. Pour this back into the pan of milk and stir very gently (vigorous stirring seems to make it more likely to curdle). Put a lid on the pan and cover the pan with two kitchen towels, swaddling it nicely to keep the heat in. Put the pan and its towels into a turned-off oven. If you have a pilot light or an oven light you can have that on for extra warmth, but it isn't necessary. Now leave the yogurt alone for 3-4 hours, depending on how warm the room is. Cooler conditions mean a longer time to set, which will make the yogurt a bit more tart but will also produce a smoother, creamier result.
When the yogurt is set, pour it into a storage container. This should be clean, obviously, but it does not have to be sterilized. I keep my yogurt in those inexpensive reusable plastic storage containers you can get at any supermarket, Target, etc.--I have kept a batch refrigerated for 2 weeks or more and I've never had it go bad.
If you want thicker Greek-style yogurt, put a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl, line it with a couple of layers or cheesecloth or a very thin smooth kitchen towel such as a flour sack towel, pour in some yogurt and let it drain for a while. A couple of hours and you get Greek yogurt, overnight or longer and you get yogurt cheese, which can be formed into little balls and rolled in dried mint and cracked pepper and is absolutely delicious.
Freshly made yogurt, in my experience, isn't very tart, but the longer you store it the tarter it will get. I like a tart yogurt so I tend to make a big batch and keep it a fair while. I also like to make big batches because where I live, there's always one supermarket or another that has milk on sale for $1.99 a gallon, so it's economical for me to buy a gallon, make yogurt out of half or more of it and drink the rest. I go through a lot of yogurt--even more now that I make it myself--and $1 for 2 quarts is a damn good price.
Making yogurt has, naturally, made me want to experiment with making my own cheese. Mozzarella seems to be quite easy (and definitely a case where you'll not only save money by doing it yourself, you'll get a better product) and I'm planning to try it as soon as I have the money to buy the rennet and citric acid that's required.
I also have plans, sometime in the next month or so, to make my own preserved lemons and pickles, both of these from recipes in Ottolenghi and Tamimi's Jerusalem cookbook. (Yes, I do fantasize about being one of those people who cure their own hams and make their own sausages from home-raised pigs, and make preserves with fruit from their own trees, and brew their own beer, and so on. If I could just find someone who wanted to do all the actual farming so I could stay indoors, away from the hot sun, and make delicious things . . . )
In baking news, I've finally found a focaccia recipe I like. It's from the Ottolenghi cookbook--I am still enthralled by all of Yotam Ottolenghi's books--with modifications by me. Below it the original recipe, with my changes afterwards.
Focaccia and Three Toppings (Ottolenghi)
Starter:
1.5 t active dry yeast
1 ¾ c bottled water, lukewarm
330 g bread flour
Dough:
330 g bread flour
1 T light brown sugar
2 T olive oil, plus extra for brushing
1 T coarse sea salt
Put yeast and water into bowl, stir until dissolved. Add flour and stir until porridgelike. Cover with damp cloth and leave 2 hours until doubled.
Mix in rest of flour, sugar and olive oil. Knead in a mixer on low speed 6 mins, then add salt and mix on high speed 2 mins.
Brush bowl with oil, place dough in, brush surface with more oil. Cover bowl and leave warm place 1 hour until dough has doubled.
Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and stretch and flatten into rectangle. Don't overwork. Take one of short edges and fold to center, take other end and fold it over first one to form 3 layers, like tri-folding a letter.
Brush heavy 12x16 baking sheet with oil. Lift dough into pan, seam side down, and flatten by pressing hard with fingers. Cover and let rise another hour. During this hour work dough 3-4 times, pressing and stretching to the edges of the pan. Should fill entire pan in a layer about ¾ inch thick and should have a bumpy surface.
Preheat oven 425 F. Add one of toppings. Place in oven and bake 10 mins, reduce temp to 375 and bake for 15-20 mins. Check bottom of bread to make sure it is baked through. When out of oven and still hot, brush generously with olive oil.
Parsley and Olive topping:
2 T olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
30 g parsley, chopped
50 g kalamata olives, pitted
Coarse salt
Stir together oil, garlic, and parsley, dot mixture over dough. Sprinkle olives over top, pressing into dough, sprinkle with salt.
Grape and Fennel Seed topping:
300 g seedless red grapes
50 g superfine sugar
2 t fennel seeds
Halve grapes lengthwise. Mix sugar and fennel. Stud dough with grapes and sprinkle with sugar mixture.
Red Onion and Goat Cheese topping:
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 T olive oil
100 g fresh goat cheese, crumbled
Coarse salt
Mix onion with oil and scatter on dough. Dot with goat cheese and sprinkle with salt.
Modifications: First, I use all-purpose flour, aka "plain flour," rather than bread flour because it produces a more extensible dough that you can stretch. And because breads are always better if they rise more slowly. I use only 1/4 teaspoon yeast to slow the starter down. (ETA: It's important to note that I use "rapid rise" yeast, which is stronger than active dry yeast and so always used in smaller quantities. I also use cold water rather than lukewarm to slow the rise still more.) I have also been known to let the starter begin to get bubbly, then refrigerate overnight before bringing it back to room temperature and getting it nice and bubbly again. You might want to use more like 1/2 teaspoon of yeast--I live at a high altitude which causes breads to rise faster.
I knead the dough by hand for about 10 minutes because I don't have a mixer, and then I refrigerate it (even if I've already refrigerated the starer) overnight before the first rise. This produces much more flavor, a crisper crust, and an internal texture that's less uniform and spongy and more airy, like artisan bread.
I usually divide the dough into two portions. You can do this right after kneading and freeze the portion you don't plan to use immediately (or rather, to use after its overnight refrigeration). For focaccia, I bake a portion in a 9.5 inch springform pan, removing the side piece after the first 10-15 minutes so the top will brown. I also usually leave the oven at 425 degrees and just bake it for slightly less time. I usually just top the focaccia with half a medium-sized onion, thinly sliced and tossed with a little olive oil.
This dough also makes a very nice pizza crust. I stretch out one portion (half a recipe) into a 9x13 pan. This makes a thickish crust, but I don't mind that, and also a larger pan wouldn't fit into my oven. Top it moderately and bake at 500 F for 15 minutes or so.
Now that I'm growing more comfortable with baking (a few years ago I was scared of baking and convinced I'd never be any good at it), I'm getting a bit more ambitious. Recently, to use up some chocolate the really needed using up because of the hot weather, I made another Ottolenghi recipe, Chocolate Krantz Cake. This is a rich yeasted dough that is rolled out flat, covered with chocolate and nuts, rolled up like a jelly roll, and then cut lengthwise in half and braided before baking. Oh, and then you pour sugar syrup over the finished cake. But it's actually not that difficult, and it's impressive and delicious. The recipe is reprinted here (the Ottolenghi website has the ingredient list but not the method, because they would quite like you to buy the book, and indeed all the Ottolenghi cookbooks are worth having). Do not, however, follow the blogger's recommendation to cut the amount of syrup. The cakes will absorb all the syrup and will not dissolve into mush. Brush the syrup over at a moderate pace. You'll get pools of syrup in the pan, but as the cakes cool they'll suck it all up and be moist and lovely.
My only suggestion is that if your kitchen is warm, it's a good idea to refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes or so after it's been rolled up but before cutting and braiding. Otherwise it will stretch a lot and you'll end up with a loaf that's too long for your pan. (If it happens, just cut the loaf in half and tuck them both in the pan side by side.)
I filled one cake according to the recipe, and for the other I substituted sesame seeds (toasted and coarsely ground to a chunky powder) for the walnuts. This tasted delicious but the sesame seeds were dry enough that that layers didn't hold together during braiding--next time I'll mix the sesame seeds into the chocolate. Or possibly use tahini mixed with sugar, because how luscious would that be?
It's worth making the whole recipe and getting two cakes, because while it's not hard it is rather a lot of work and the cakes freeze well. I recommend freezing the extra in portions that you can finish within a day or so, though, because it does go a bit stale if it sits out for longer than that.
What have you all been cooking? Read any good cookbooks lately? Eaten anything delicious? Mmm, food.
I haven't been doing much wildly interesting cooking lately--for reasons of economy there's been a lot of "grain plus whatever vegetables are around plus some beans or maybe cheese." That sort of thing can be quite nice, of course, though I notice that all these healthy whole grains and vegetables are a lot, er, more challenging on the digestion than foods that are supposedly bad for you.
Moving right along--when I've eaten meat I've been stretching it by making meatballs (with lots of breadcrumbs), soup (I made avgolemono for the first time), and so on.
Luckily I
I'm still trying to perfect my homemade yogurt. It tastes fine, but the texture can be a little grainy sometimes--not curdled, but slightly on the road to it. Adding a little powdered milk helps and so does not heating the milk too hot. Anybody have further advice on this score?
Really, making yogurt is even simpler than people claim it is. You don't need any special equipment except a thermometer. No expensive yogurt maker, no heating pad, no sterilized jars, nothing.
Here's how I do it: Take a pan (not aluminum, which might react with the acid in the yogurt) that's big enough for however much yogurt you want to make. Pour milk in it, keeping track of how many cups, because this affects how much yogurt starter you need to use. If you want creamier yogurt, stir in bit of good quality powdered milk, maybe a scant teaspoonful per cup of regular milk. Heat the milk over medium-high heat until it reaches about 182 degrees Fahrenheit, or whatever that is in Celsius. You need to hit 180 F but you don't need to go significantly over that temperature.
While the milk is heating, take a small bowl and dump in one measuring tablespoonful of yogurt for each cup of milk. Let it sit at room temperature while the milk heats up.
Also while the milk is heating, put some cold water in a larger pot/pan. This is how you're going to cool your milk.
When the milk is just over 180 F, take it off the heat and put the pan full of milk into the pan of cold water. Stir, measuring the temperature of the milk every so often. You'll need to replace the water with fresh cold water a couple of times. If the water bath isn't workable for you, you can just let the yogurt cool down by itself, but it takes much much longer and it's harder to keep track of the temperature.
When the temperature gets down to about 113-115 degrees Fahrenheit, take the pan out of the water bath. Pour a little warm milk into the yogurt you've set aside in a bowl and stir gently until it's nice and pourable. Pour this back into the pan of milk and stir very gently (vigorous stirring seems to make it more likely to curdle). Put a lid on the pan and cover the pan with two kitchen towels, swaddling it nicely to keep the heat in. Put the pan and its towels into a turned-off oven. If you have a pilot light or an oven light you can have that on for extra warmth, but it isn't necessary. Now leave the yogurt alone for 3-4 hours, depending on how warm the room is. Cooler conditions mean a longer time to set, which will make the yogurt a bit more tart but will also produce a smoother, creamier result.
When the yogurt is set, pour it into a storage container. This should be clean, obviously, but it does not have to be sterilized. I keep my yogurt in those inexpensive reusable plastic storage containers you can get at any supermarket, Target, etc.--I have kept a batch refrigerated for 2 weeks or more and I've never had it go bad.
If you want thicker Greek-style yogurt, put a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl, line it with a couple of layers or cheesecloth or a very thin smooth kitchen towel such as a flour sack towel, pour in some yogurt and let it drain for a while. A couple of hours and you get Greek yogurt, overnight or longer and you get yogurt cheese, which can be formed into little balls and rolled in dried mint and cracked pepper and is absolutely delicious.
Freshly made yogurt, in my experience, isn't very tart, but the longer you store it the tarter it will get. I like a tart yogurt so I tend to make a big batch and keep it a fair while. I also like to make big batches because where I live, there's always one supermarket or another that has milk on sale for $1.99 a gallon, so it's economical for me to buy a gallon, make yogurt out of half or more of it and drink the rest. I go through a lot of yogurt--even more now that I make it myself--and $1 for 2 quarts is a damn good price.
Making yogurt has, naturally, made me want to experiment with making my own cheese. Mozzarella seems to be quite easy (and definitely a case where you'll not only save money by doing it yourself, you'll get a better product) and I'm planning to try it as soon as I have the money to buy the rennet and citric acid that's required.
I also have plans, sometime in the next month or so, to make my own preserved lemons and pickles, both of these from recipes in Ottolenghi and Tamimi's Jerusalem cookbook. (Yes, I do fantasize about being one of those people who cure their own hams and make their own sausages from home-raised pigs, and make preserves with fruit from their own trees, and brew their own beer, and so on. If I could just find someone who wanted to do all the actual farming so I could stay indoors, away from the hot sun, and make delicious things . . . )
In baking news, I've finally found a focaccia recipe I like. It's from the Ottolenghi cookbook--I am still enthralled by all of Yotam Ottolenghi's books--with modifications by me. Below it the original recipe, with my changes afterwards.
Focaccia and Three Toppings (Ottolenghi)
Starter:
1.5 t active dry yeast
1 ¾ c bottled water, lukewarm
330 g bread flour
Dough:
330 g bread flour
1 T light brown sugar
2 T olive oil, plus extra for brushing
1 T coarse sea salt
Put yeast and water into bowl, stir until dissolved. Add flour and stir until porridgelike. Cover with damp cloth and leave 2 hours until doubled.
Mix in rest of flour, sugar and olive oil. Knead in a mixer on low speed 6 mins, then add salt and mix on high speed 2 mins.
Brush bowl with oil, place dough in, brush surface with more oil. Cover bowl and leave warm place 1 hour until dough has doubled.
Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and stretch and flatten into rectangle. Don't overwork. Take one of short edges and fold to center, take other end and fold it over first one to form 3 layers, like tri-folding a letter.
Brush heavy 12x16 baking sheet with oil. Lift dough into pan, seam side down, and flatten by pressing hard with fingers. Cover and let rise another hour. During this hour work dough 3-4 times, pressing and stretching to the edges of the pan. Should fill entire pan in a layer about ¾ inch thick and should have a bumpy surface.
Preheat oven 425 F. Add one of toppings. Place in oven and bake 10 mins, reduce temp to 375 and bake for 15-20 mins. Check bottom of bread to make sure it is baked through. When out of oven and still hot, brush generously with olive oil.
Parsley and Olive topping:
2 T olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
30 g parsley, chopped
50 g kalamata olives, pitted
Coarse salt
Stir together oil, garlic, and parsley, dot mixture over dough. Sprinkle olives over top, pressing into dough, sprinkle with salt.
Grape and Fennel Seed topping:
300 g seedless red grapes
50 g superfine sugar
2 t fennel seeds
Halve grapes lengthwise. Mix sugar and fennel. Stud dough with grapes and sprinkle with sugar mixture.
Red Onion and Goat Cheese topping:
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 T olive oil
100 g fresh goat cheese, crumbled
Coarse salt
Mix onion with oil and scatter on dough. Dot with goat cheese and sprinkle with salt.
Modifications: First, I use all-purpose flour, aka "plain flour," rather than bread flour because it produces a more extensible dough that you can stretch. And because breads are always better if they rise more slowly. I use only 1/4 teaspoon yeast to slow the starter down. (ETA: It's important to note that I use "rapid rise" yeast, which is stronger than active dry yeast and so always used in smaller quantities. I also use cold water rather than lukewarm to slow the rise still more.) I have also been known to let the starter begin to get bubbly, then refrigerate overnight before bringing it back to room temperature and getting it nice and bubbly again. You might want to use more like 1/2 teaspoon of yeast--I live at a high altitude which causes breads to rise faster.
I knead the dough by hand for about 10 minutes because I don't have a mixer, and then I refrigerate it (even if I've already refrigerated the starer) overnight before the first rise. This produces much more flavor, a crisper crust, and an internal texture that's less uniform and spongy and more airy, like artisan bread.
I usually divide the dough into two portions. You can do this right after kneading and freeze the portion you don't plan to use immediately (or rather, to use after its overnight refrigeration). For focaccia, I bake a portion in a 9.5 inch springform pan, removing the side piece after the first 10-15 minutes so the top will brown. I also usually leave the oven at 425 degrees and just bake it for slightly less time. I usually just top the focaccia with half a medium-sized onion, thinly sliced and tossed with a little olive oil.
This dough also makes a very nice pizza crust. I stretch out one portion (half a recipe) into a 9x13 pan. This makes a thickish crust, but I don't mind that, and also a larger pan wouldn't fit into my oven. Top it moderately and bake at 500 F for 15 minutes or so.
Now that I'm growing more comfortable with baking (a few years ago I was scared of baking and convinced I'd never be any good at it), I'm getting a bit more ambitious. Recently, to use up some chocolate the really needed using up because of the hot weather, I made another Ottolenghi recipe, Chocolate Krantz Cake. This is a rich yeasted dough that is rolled out flat, covered with chocolate and nuts, rolled up like a jelly roll, and then cut lengthwise in half and braided before baking. Oh, and then you pour sugar syrup over the finished cake. But it's actually not that difficult, and it's impressive and delicious. The recipe is reprinted here (the Ottolenghi website has the ingredient list but not the method, because they would quite like you to buy the book, and indeed all the Ottolenghi cookbooks are worth having). Do not, however, follow the blogger's recommendation to cut the amount of syrup. The cakes will absorb all the syrup and will not dissolve into mush. Brush the syrup over at a moderate pace. You'll get pools of syrup in the pan, but as the cakes cool they'll suck it all up and be moist and lovely.
My only suggestion is that if your kitchen is warm, it's a good idea to refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes or so after it's been rolled up but before cutting and braiding. Otherwise it will stretch a lot and you'll end up with a loaf that's too long for your pan. (If it happens, just cut the loaf in half and tuck them both in the pan side by side.)
I filled one cake according to the recipe, and for the other I substituted sesame seeds (toasted and coarsely ground to a chunky powder) for the walnuts. This tasted delicious but the sesame seeds were dry enough that that layers didn't hold together during braiding--next time I'll mix the sesame seeds into the chocolate. Or possibly use tahini mixed with sugar, because how luscious would that be?
It's worth making the whole recipe and getting two cakes, because while it's not hard it is rather a lot of work and the cakes freeze well. I recommend freezing the extra in portions that you can finish within a day or so, though, because it does go a bit stale if it sits out for longer than that.
What have you all been cooking? Read any good cookbooks lately? Eaten anything delicious? Mmm, food.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-08 08:31 pm (UTC)Mostly what I am cooking at the moment is uh-- okay, so I decided I wanted cold couscous salad, and we had parsley in, so I picked up fennel and diced it fine and a pomegranate and seeded it and some mint, and chopped up the parsley and the mint and put all the things in the couscous and that's nice -- and then this evening dinner involved scrambling some eggs with cheese and smoked paprika, and putting the eggs and some hot sauce and some of the couscous in a wrap, and LO IT WAS GOOD (and now I am eating strawberries, piecemeal).
no subject
Date: 2015-08-08 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-08 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-16 09:34 am (UTC)Now that I have a steady income my fridge ist fuller but it also means that I had to throw things out that had gone bad because I didn't finish them in time.
And that reminds me that I have some quark in my fridge that needs eating up. Guess I will make some cheese cake today. :)