French Bread (BBA)

Now that I am perhaps one of the farthest behind, if not the farthest behind in the BBA challenge, you'd think that perhaps I'd feel pressured to speed things up a bit and make more bread... Au contraire, mon frere! I feel no pressure at all, and am quite content to just keep chugging along at my own pace.
I made the French bread on the weekend.
This bread uses a pate fermentee to boost the flavor and maturity of the bread... it's basically a half recipe of French bread dough that you make ahead of the dough, ferment for an hour on the counter and then chuck in the fridge overnight to further develop. On baking day, you take it out of the fridge and let it sit for a while to remove the chill, and then mix it into your final dough. Both the pate fermentee and the final dough are made using a 50-50 mixture of bread flour and all-purpose flour. The idea here is to provide structure while maintaining tenderness.
The book states that large, open irregular holes are a sign of a properly handled dough... I think I may have messed up somewhere, as my loaves looked a little too much like the "French bread" you get at the grocery store, exhibiting (oooh, fancy words!) tiny holes... irregularish, yes, but tiny. This makes me think I probably could have proofed the dough slightly longer, or set it someplace a little warmer (we've been keeping the house on the cool side these days). Also, I probably could have been more gentle with it while shaping it, as I may have degassed it a bit.
Most people in the group seem to have made baguettes (which makes sense)... I chose to be a rebel make batards instead, the logic behind this being that there would be one loaf for me and one for my sister, or one that would fit in the freezer without having to be cut. I kinda wish I had tried the baguettes.
Anyhow, this bread is absolutely delicious, despite whatever happened to my crumb. I will definitely give it another go at some point.

On another note, don't forget to enter my giveaway for Paula Lambert's book The Cheese Lover's Cookbook and Guide. Only 5 more days left to enter!! Good luck!

Just Call Me Charlie

Day one went well people.
I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous going in, but everything was super chill. I mean, I guess if I'm honest I wasn't that worried, as the entire menu at the new place is roughly the same size as my station at my previous job. Also the new place only has 40 seats! I met everyone, did a little prep, learned one of the stations and cooked dinner for some fine folks.

Nothing super crazy to report, though I did manage to cut myself. Part way through chopping up some tomatoes for tomato jam, I must have knicked one of my knuckles with my santoku. I didn't notice until I saw blood (don't worry, it didn't get in the food, and on the plus side, that means the sucker is sharpity sharp). I'm blaming it on the 3 cups of coffee I drank just prior to my shift. And I'm gonna blame the coffee drinking on my nervousness... because of course coffee is great for the nerves... Did I mention that I almost never drink coffee these days? When I do, I get a mad case of the jitters resulting in shaky, shaky hands.

**Note to self: Either drink more coffee to become accustomed to the caffeine, or abstain completely.

Oh yeah, and after I introduced myself to the daytime dishwasher, she asked if she could call me Charlie.

Don't forget to enter my giveawaymy giveaway for Paula Lambert's book The Cheese Lover's Cookbook and Guide. The deadline to enter is 12:00pm PST on Sunday, November 22.

The Cat's Out Of The Bag

I'm finally ready to let you all in on my top secret news... Yeah , yeah, I know, I said I was gonna tell you a few days ago... but things are so busy, I mean, what with the packing and cleaning for the move. Have I ever mentioned that I loathe everything that leads up to moving? Because I really do loathe packing and cleaning.

Anyhow, back to the news:
I've accepted a new job as the sous-chef in an awesome little bistro-style restaurant! The restaurant is attached to a cheese shop, so I've got a ton of new cheeses to learn about, cook with, and eat...

Of course, being a sous-chef is going to translate into more work hours for me both in and out of the kitchen, so I'm not quite sure how this whole blogging thing is going to fit in yet. That said, I plan to take you all along for the ride. That is, I want to feature different cheeses on here, include you in my menu planning and recipe development, and share all the glamorous and gritty details of working in a kitchen... Whadya think?

So to kick this all off, I'm gonna have a little give-away.

The Prize:

The Cheese Lover's Cookbook and Guide by Paula Lambert. I've got this book on order for myself and am super excited for it- I mean, aside from all the recipes, it's got instructions for making your own cheeses at home!




Ways to enter:

1) Leave me a comment answering the following question: What is your favorite cheese, and how do you like to serve it?

2) For another entry, leave me another comment with a recipe or a link to your favorite cheese recipe- this doesn't necessarily have to be a recipe using your favorite cheese.

3) You will score an extra entry if this link happens to lead to your own blog, because I feel like hard work deserves a reward, and I know how much hard work goes into blogging. Also, it doesn't have to be a new post- it can be an old favorite you blogged about two years ago if you want. If you decide you'd like to post a new recipe because of this lil' give-away, you are by no means required to mention the give-away or my blog... I mean, you can if you want, that's cool, but I don't want you guys to feel like you have to pimp me out. (By the way, that link will lead you to one of the most hilarious pimp songs I have ever heard).


The Deadline:
Entries must be recieved by 12:00pm PST on Sunday, November 22. I will announce the lucky winner on November 23.

Good luck to you all, my pretties!
Now wish me luck, my first day at the new job is tomorrow! I'll let you know how it goes.

Playing Catch Up

Looks like I'm still stuck in the whirlwind. Life is really busy and there's lots of changes underfoot... For one, I'm moving into a new home on December 1st. Man, you guys should see the kitchen! It's a cook's dream, really. Everything is either stainless steel (counters, cupboards, appliances) or granite (floor, walls). There's a ton of open stainless shelving, a 4-burner professional quality gas stove, a garbage disposal, a dishwasher... As you can see, I'm kinda excited! As for the other changes, well, they're still top secret.
So, I realize it's been a looooooong time since there have been any recipes on here. I really have been cooking and baking, I swear.
Here's a quick look at what I've been up to in the kitchen:


Corn bread from the Bread Baker's Apprentice

I would like to point out that I am really far behind everyone else in the BBA Challenge group. Which is fine- the main thing that I liked about this baking group is that there is no set schedule... Anyhow, this bread was pretty awesome. I don't have a ton of past corn bread experiences to go off of, but it was moist and flavorful, a little sweet, and a little salty from the bacon. I omitted the corn kernels because I didn't have any, corn season was over, and there's no way frozen or canned corn will ever get eaten at my house... The texture was amazing! Not sure if that's because of the buttermilk, or because the cornmeal is soaked overnight. Either way I loved it. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to crumble the bacon into smaller bits and mix it right into the batter. You can find the recipe here.


Buttermilk Scones from Tartine

When I was down in San Francisco, I visited this bakery for breakfast- I got a morning bun, and a couple of cacao nib rochers. My friend got the quiche. After I had paid, and while we were waiting for the quiche, I spied the cookbook and thought to myself, "Well, that was silly, why didn't you grab that too?" I considered getting back in line, but it was stretching out the door, and I just don't have the patience for a double dose of that sort of thing.
About a week later, once I was back home, I stopped in at a foodie shop on my way to work, and there it was, the Tartine cookbook, just waiting for me! Yay!
Anyhow, I loved these scones... so much that I've made them several times in the past month and a half using raspberries and blueberries. One of these days I'll get around to making them with currants like in the book. You can find the recipe here. The author of the blog has also made the scones with something other than currants. The original recipe has 3/4 c. (3 /2 oz./100g) of Zante currants that have been plumped in a bowl with warm water to cover for 10 minutes. He's also reworded the instructions... just so you know.


English Muffins from the Bread Baker's Apprentice

I skipped the Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread. Yeah, I know, it's probably cheating on the challenge. But I have never met a celebration bread I liked, so why waste the time and ingredients, right? The English muffins were an epic fail for me. Everything seemed to be going well until I shaped them, then it was all downhill. I must not have covered the dough balls properly because they seemed to have formed a dryish skin by the time they were supposed to be done proofing. I nearly chucked them out, but thought maybe the issues would resolve themselves during baking. They didn't. What I ended up with looked nothing like English muffins. They were embarassing poohs of dough with sprinkles of cornmeal. Ughhh!. I couldn't bear to take pictures of my ugly doughy children, and threw them out before my boyfriend could see them even (he was all "where'd they go? I can smell 'em, but I can't see 'em?). I will be trying these again in the future, if not in muffin form, then as a loaf. You can find the recipe here Credit is given for the recipe down in the comments beneath it, and the author says the recipe is an adaptation. From what I can tell, in this case that means that the instructions have been reworded.


Nectarine Golden Cake from Gourmet Magazine

I've made this cake several times over the past couple months, and have used several different kinds of fruit in it. The first time I made it I had planned to use up some white peaches. I mixed up the batter, spread it out in the pan, and then took a knife to the fruit only to discover that the peaches had gone rotten from the inside out. Disgusting. I rummaged around in the fridge and found a couple of granny smith apples. Seeing as I'm not a huge nutmeg with apples fan, I substituted cinnamon in the topping. The end result was a wicked good cake, with a texture similar to Dorie Greenspan's Dimply Plum Cake. The second time I made this cake I actually followed the recipe verbatim, and let me tell you, there is something magical about the combination of nectarines and fresh nutmeg. Since then, I've made variations with different frozen berries. Try it, you'll like it. You can find the recipe here


Chocolate Pots De Creme from Tartine

This was part one of my quest for a delicious chocolate-pudding-like dessert. These were pretty easy to throw together, though I used a lot of dishes, which is a con considering how much I hate washing dishes. I checked mine at 20 minutes and they seemed like they were overbaked, as the center wasn't jiggly anymore. The finished dessert was obscenely rich and chocolaty. Definitely not pudding-like, they were really dense when served warm and really, really, really dense when served cold. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I chose to make these over the chocolate pudding in the book. You can find the recipe here. Sorry, no photos.


Chocolate Pudding from The Joy Of Cooking

After part one of my quest for a delicious chocolate-pudding-like dessert I decided to use an actual chocolate pudding recipe. The Joy Of Cooking has never done me wrong, so I figured it was my best bet. You can find the recipe here.
For part two of my quest, I followed the recipe verbatim, including the optional ounce of finely chopped chocolate (which is stirred into the hot cocoa, sugar and water mixture until completely melted just before you add the dairy). As a side note, this optional addition isn't mentioned on the blog my link will send you too, you'll just have to trust me. The results here were incredible: super chocolaty and rich without being too dense.
About a week later, I realized I needed to use up the heavy cream left after the pots de creme, so I made this pudding again, this time substituting heavy cream for the half and half. This yielded a dense, rich dessert that was somewhere in the middle of the pots de creme and the pudding in terms of density, and was probably my favorite of the three, although my boyfriend preferred the half and half version.


Vietnamese Pho From Into The Vietnamese Kitchen

The problem with making rad things for supper this time of year is that there is rarely enough light to take good pictures, and rarely enough food left to take photos during the next day. Anyhow, I made this for supper a few weeks back. The method for making the broth for me was pretty interesting, mainly because it technically classifies as a white stock what with the blanching of the bones before starting the stock itself. I haven't made one of those since culinary school. But later on, you add a charred onion and some charred ginger to the stock, which is something typical of brown stocks. So I don't know what you'd call this, but it was super delicious, and required seriously minimal effort seeing as the most intense parts of production are cutting things in half and letting things simmer on the stove. You can find the recipe along with a really awesome tutorial and pictures here.


Foccacia from The Bread Baker's Apprentice

I was really looking forward to making this bread after the epic fail that was the English muffins. It didn't disappoint. It was really easy to put together- the dough was smooth and silky, and really awesome to work with. My bread rose more than the one pictured in the book, which gave it a somewhat fluffy texture. I prefer a foccacia with a texture and height more like the pain a l'ancienne focaccia I made a few months back. That said, it was still super delicious, especially with my herb oil which I made using a combination of basil, rosemary, oregano, and thyme with garlic and chili flakes. I gave a 1/4 loaf to my sister. She took it to work and her vulture co-workers devoured it in record time, which either means they were starving or it's a testament to how delicious the bread is. You can find the recipe here.

I'm Back!

Hello!!!
I'm back! I mean, technically I was back home mid-September... But stuff just sorta piled up at home while I was away, so bloggin' got moved to the back burner for a while. Anyhow, perhaps you're wondering what I got up to, so here's a summary of some of my adventures.

Waaaaay back at the end of August, I went to San Francisco for a couple days. Love that city! I actually lived there for a while back in 2005, and it was great to hang in my old neighborhood (the Mission). Culinary highlights included dinner at Commis in Oakland, and at Flour & Water, a stop at Humphry Slocombe, fish tacos from someplace I can't remember, and all the kombucha I could drink (seriously love it, and we don't have it up here!)...

First, let me tell you about Commis. This place is just a few months old, and was opened up by James Syhabout, a 29 year old with a super impressive resume (Coi, Manresa, apprenticeships at The Fat Duck and El Bulli). The cuisine is local and season fare, and lies somewhere between traditional and contemporary, touching on the whole fusion thing, without heading into fusion confusion. They do a three course prix-fix menu for a cool $59, with wine pairings available for another $29. The menu is short, with 4 appetizers, 3 entrees and two desserts. We started with an amuse bouche, a teensy soda made with plums and red shiso- totally delicious and exciting. We also had house-made rolls and house-made salted butter.

Next up, we tried the cauliflower soup and the cured, smoked sardines. The soup was pretty awesome as far as soups go, texturally stunning, garnished with roasted sunchokes, and marjoram, and somehow it had really subtle curry notes. The sardines were wrapped around cucumber, set atop green tomato confit, and garnished bronze fennel fronds and fennel pollen. For me, this was something I could have eaten a whole lot more of. Every bite was perfect and slightly different based on how you mixed the components.

For our mains we chose lamb and duck, two of my favorite meats! Unfortunately I wasn't as impressed with the main courses~ they were good, but I'm a grill cook and am overly critical when it comes to meat and doneness. The lamb dish boasted a piece of loin and belly, served with huckleberries and quinoa. I loved the huckleberries, however the quinoa seemed like an afterthought and didn't really fit in with the dish. The meat was perfectly rested, but I felt it was underdone... I would have liked to see more sear on the loin, especially on the fat cap, and I think it would have been better served medium-rare to medium as rare lamb has a tendency to be super chewy (which it was). Additionally, with the inclusion of the fat cap and connective tissue on the loin, I personally would have cut it into thinner pieces- wrestling with that band of tissue with an ineffectual knife is a bit of a piss off. As for the belly, I would have let it render a bit more- the seared side was nice and crispy, but the 1/2" of pure fat beneath it detracted. The duck was served with sugar plum, chanterelles, bok choy and white beans. The combination of flavors was stunning, but again, the meat was underdone. Now I like to eat duck rare, but this was blue. There was barely any sear on the fat, and it didn't seem to have been rendered down at all (it looked like it had been trimmed down before searing)~ it would have been nicer if it were crispy. The other thing that puzzled me was the presentation. Maybe they were trying to be innovative? I recognize the fact that the fan of thin slices has been done to death, but to me it doesn't make sense to serve duck in such huge chunks, again because wrestling with an ineffectual knife at the table is a piss off.

For dessert we had both of the dessert offerings, a chocolate cake with avocado ganache and raspberry, and a creamy cantaloupe soup with candied melon, coconut cream, violas and mint. The cake was pretty darn good... still not sure how I feel about the plating as it was basically a mound of unidentifiable crumbles on the plate, but it was moist and super chocolaty and the ganache really made the plate. As for the soup, it was perfectly balanced and completely addictive. I actually hoarded it, choosing not to partake in more than a couple bite of the cake. In all, it was a fabulous evening spent in fabulous company. Big thanks to Mr.B for the photos!

On my second night in San Francisco, we went to Flour & Water. Word on the street it that this is supposedly the best new Italian joint in the Mission district. I can't attest to this as it is really the only Italian I've had in the Mission in the past 4 years. I will tell you this: my pizza was probably the best pizza I have had in my life. It was a pizza bianca- thin crust, no sauce, fiore de latte, olives, proscuitto, and a farm egg all baked in a wood oven until the white was just set, allowing for that awesome drippy, yolky goodness. Since I've been back I've made versions of this pie, never quite hitting the same height of fabulousness, as it is hard as hell to perfectly cook that egg and the crust. No photos of this night, though the dining room was dim, and it's unlikely they would have turned out had we taken any. Anyhow, if you live in the area GO THERE!! Get thee la bianca. I promise you won't be disappointed, even if you have to wait an hour for your table like we did.

Now about Humphry Slocombe... this place is doing some killer ice creams. I ate large quantities of three in particular. One was the Peanut Butter Curry, which tasted exaclt like a peanut butter cookie with a little zip of aromatic spices, and occasional surprise bits of shallot and garlic. Another was Blue Bottle Vietnamese coffee, which was like a frozen version of the best Vietnamese coffee you can imagine... it had the plus of being made using coffee from Blue Bottle (which, is particularly super-duper!). My favorite was the Secret Breakfast, a bourbon flavoured ice cream with crumbly cornflake bits in it that were more like crumb crust chunks than cornflakes. Must recreate! (yes, it's coming... I'm just struggling with the idea of having a whole bottle of Maker's Mark in my house... I mean I really love Manhattans... really, really love Manhattans).

After San Francisco, I headed north into Nevada for the ever fabulous Burningman Festival, hitting In-n-Out for the first time in my life on the way there... people rave about these burgers. Can't say I understand this as it seemed like a pretty average, processed tasting, fast-food burger, though apparently there are all sorts of secret codes you can use when ordering to make your burger better... Of course I found this out after.

In any case, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm not dead. Will catch you up on the rest of the past month as soon as I can!