Recipe Review from 2/2/09

Woot! We had a good week trying out new recipes! Hmm, all my photos came out on the blurry side. Sorry about that! Anyway, check out the great things we made this past week:



Dark Sour Bread (New Book of Bread, Bernard Clayton) 4.5
It seems as if there is a typo in this recipe somewhere, or else we had "user error". I consulted my favorite cooking bulletin board, and it appears as if it's the recipe. The problem came in with Step 2 (below). The Husband ended up with a bowl full of glop, not a "heavy and unresponsive dough" as described. He had to add AT LEAST and additional 1 1/2 cups of flour just to get it to form into a kneadable ball. So it was with dubious trepidation that we kneaded, let it rise and baked it up. Bread can sometimes be rather finicky.

Much to our surprise, the bread turned out really good. I had my doubts when I saw that initial bowl of lumpy brown glop, but DH just kept adding flour till he had a workable dough. Sometimes blissful ignorance is a blessing. This made two chocolaty boules with a light crumb and a beautiful crust. We'd make this again, with the corrections as noted.

Dark Sour Bread
Bernard Clayton

2 c flat beer (12 oz)
1/2 c H20
2/3 c cornmeal
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp salt
1/2 c molasses
2 pkg dry yeast
1/2 c each wheat germ and whole-wheat bran cereal
1 1/2 c ww flour (2 c ww flour)
1 c AP or bread flour (2+ c AP or bread; additional for kneading)

1) In a saucepan, bring beer to a simmer. Add the H20, Remove from the heat and stir in cornmeal, butter, salt and molasses. When it has cooled to 105-115*, add the yeast and stir to dissolve.

2) Stir in wheat germ, bran cereal, ww flour. Stir together with a wooden spoon. Dough will be heavy and unresponsive. Add white flour, a small portion at a time and work it in with your fingers and a dough blade. (Dough is too heavy for an electric mixer - hook will just spin futilely in the air.)

3) Continue to kneed and work dough by hand, adding white flour if necessary to control stickiness for about 8-10 minutes.

4) Drop dough into (greased) mixing bowl, cover and let rise 2 hours (1 hr 15 min) or until doubled in size.

5) Shape into baguettes or round loves. Your preference. Place on cookie sheet with parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal.

6) Cover and let rise 1 1/2 hours. (1 hr 15 min)

7) Bake 35-40 minutes at 350* or until loaves are crusty and almost black in color. (Bread was chocolate in color)

8) Cool.

We used Fiber One cereal (maybe should have crushed it?), AP flour, and Lienenkugels Fireside Nut Brown beer. I think this might have done fine in the electric mixer, especially since it was so runny initially that it would have made it easier to add the flour.




Mozzarella, Tomato and Pesto Pizza (Culinary i/t Country Blog)
Joe has been raving about Friday Pizza nights and the variations on the Whole Wheat crust he has been using. We tried the crust with the Double Mushroom Pizza and had to agree; simple to make and tastes great. While Friday nights are my "TGIF" evening and I tend to sink gratefully into the couch, we've started our own "Weekend Pizza Nights". Taking another page from Joe's blog we gave this pizza a try.

The crust took just over an hour to make, and that is including the time it took to rise. I was able to prep the toppings: slice the fresh mozzarella, slice the tomatoes, make sure my pesto was still good, and wash dishes in that time. Total baking time was maybe 15 minutes total.

This had a nice bright flavor reminiscent of a Neapolitan pizza. Next week I think we're going to make these Calzones or a variation on them: Two Cheese Pepperoni Calzones. Might substitute mushrooms for pepperoni. We'll see.



Sauteed Kielbasa with Apples (Cuisine at Home, issue ??) 4.0
We picked up our venison on our recent trip to Fergus, and much to our surprise and dismay we found ourselves the recipients of 25lbs of venison kielbasa. Now if there is one sausage I like, it is kielbasa; and if you think about it, 25lbs is only 25 packages. Since it freezes well, I figure no problem! Especially since we stashed most of it in the Folks freezer.

The Mother passed along this recipe quite some time ago, and it seemed fitting for this week. Very simple and quick, with a not overly sweet taste. Unami if you will - savory. My only complaint was that it was not a liquid-y as I thought it would be. Some extra sauciness would have been nice. I served it over plain wild rice with a side salad. It made enough for two of us for two dinners. Perfect!