Is that politically incorrect? Fine! Beans and rice then. First, sofrito dun my way, with jalapeno, cumin, and coriander. Those orange things down there are capsicums, not carrots. And in'nit purdy?
Tartine is fancy talk for open-face samich, a word wot I lernt on the interwebs. I intend to use this word often as possible to make people feel stupid, and then sniff arrogantly when asked to explain it.
* Carl's 1847 Oregon Trail sourdough bread, sliced thinly as possible
* St. Ándre triple cream
* Sweet onion sliced to one molecule thinness <--- br="" exaggeration="" molecules="" of="" possible="" several="">* Peperonata prepared previously, an alliteration that occurred randomly
* AeroGarden basil
* fresh tomato
* Sea salt.
Guests and I ate this standing in the kitchen. Sliced chicken and peeled shrimp lightly dusted with flour so the batter would adhere, then dipped into a thin batter of cold water, cold egg, three types of flour; a tablespoon of corn starch with double that amount of rice flour and double that of white AP four, with pinches of salt, pepper, and Jamaican jerk proprietary blend and a trace amount of baking powder. Batter adjusted to thinness with ice water. Most of the batter was rubbed off the bits, otherwise the narrow slivers of chicken would be too heavily battered, then dropped into vegetable oil heated to 360 ℉, carefully monitored, and removed following a few minutes cooking, and boy, oh boy, was the thirteen year old impressed! Or at least he said so, charming young fellow.
* straight honey
* sauce of soy + mirin + fish sauce + water. Mmmmmm, fish sauce.
Did you know an English muffin is properly pan fried sourdough bread? I have sourdough bread that has been baked, already available and sitting right here, so there is no point in working up a batch just for this. And there is no point in frying it either since mine is already baked. Add to that my strong preference for my own bread, and well, there ya go. I wonder what the British think of us calling these lazy-ass pan-fried bread things English. Do you think they're offended or amused? The British do not claim them. They were invented by an American. It's like Swiss meatballs. The Swiss never heard of them. How dare us invent something so no-class and then attach another nationality to them. Think of anything like that: Irish stew, Canadian bacon, French fries or toast, Italian bread, Polish sausage, and chances are, those countries had nothing to do with them.
As a friend says, "But I digest."
Although it is kind of fun.
Florentine.
* Minced onion and garlic into a small pot with a scant Tablespoon of flour and a Tablespoon of butter. Sweat and heat through. Toast the flour, cook into a roux.
* A half Cup of milk. Bring to simmer. This forms a loose sauce.
* Chop desired amount of spinach and add it to the pot to wilt.
* Grate Parmigiano Reggiano cheese . Remove the pot from the heat and add the cheese. With salt and pepper, this finishes the Florentine mixture. It would be good in a little pile all by itself. Consider sprinkling it with nutmeg.
I am wokless. La la la, I don't care. I'm making a stir fry anyway.
* White rice steamed in the usual way. Rinsed. Slightly less than double the amount of water brought to a boil, temperature cut to low, covered and steamed for 25 minutes, heat cut off, continued to steam another 10 minutes. The whole time of steaming the cover remains ON. No peeking, or this puppy here get's it ! To mold the cooked rice, moisten the inside of a small bowl by swirling water in it and dumping it out, then lightly pack in the rice, invert the bowl of rice over a plate and lift off the bowl, the rice will slip out but still hold the shape of the bowl, if you cooked sticky rice as above, if you used Uncle Ben's™ reconstituted, reconstructed, resurrected rice, then, well, pfffft, you're on your own. Converted. That's what it is. Converted. What? Did it used to be Protestant and now it's Jewish? Converted from what to what?
Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter, available here for free. Carl's Friends homepage here, updated with fresh new linkies on how to get started with sourdough, with links to photographs of successful loaves, various famous sourdough people who were early to putting up information for dissemination over this here interwebnetthingie, plus more information on fondly remembered Carl Griffith, famous among sourdough bakers, along with different types of bread and various techniques, ideas on approaches and methods including the no-fuss no-knead method, used here to produce the loaves pictured below, that has brought hundreds if not thousands new enthusiastic and eager bakers to the otherwise impenetrable and mysterious wonderful world of sourdough bread. Ha ha ha. What a loon.
The exhausted starter was removed from cold storage and rejuvenated incrementally and exponentially in the usual way already discussed at length in earlier posts. The weather was mild so the large storage tub containing the sponge was placed on the balcony for two days extended proofing in cold but not freezing temperature without the need to regulate. The sponge did that through slight fluctuations all by itself, although I did feel a need to monitor only because I'm just a little neurotic that way. It was brought inside to the warmth and comfort and temperature ideal for yeast cells to abandon all repression and really let themselves go in uninhibited undisciplined carefree orgiastic abandon and to fully proof as far and as fast as their food supply will take them which is considerable. The whole timing regimen was quite careless. Full use was made of the sponge's broad range for error, which is possible by knowing the limitations. Yay! * dances *
25% whole wheat flour milled at home, 75% flour specific for bread. Oddly, though, this particular mill markets flour for bread with the same protein level as AP flour. I have to assume the bread flour contains a blend of a higher mixture of hard grain compared to soft grain for the AP flour, without jacking up the protein level, but I'm not sure. I called the mill and asked about this puzzling situation that confounds me greatly, but I could not get a straight answer. I don't think there is a straight answer. I think they do the best with the grain they've got season to season following general guidelines, but they can not be nailed down to anything specific. They also market a higher protein flour for bagels and other dense bread that results in too dense a crumb, lacking in large open holes that are valued by us artisan bread bakers. The gluten level in that brand of high protein flour is ridiculous, and the resulting crumb too tight. Me no likey. Plus it's sold in 50 LB bags. I've gone through about eight of those 50 LB bags before switching to flour with lower protein, just to show ya how much fun I've been having.
A woman on my floor rode up with me in the elevator. She asked me, "Aren't you the guy who bakes all the bread?" I go, "Yup." She goes, "D'ya still do it?" I go, "Yup." She goes, "Don't you ever get tired of it?" I go, "Nope. I go through periods but I never get tired of it. As a matter of fact, I just bought some more flour" I pointed out the 25 LB sack of flour in the cart loaded with bags. She looked at the bag of flour closely. Her eyes widened. She goes, "I've never seen a bag of flour that big before." I said, "This is a half size." Ha ha ha ha ha. "Want some?" So she gave me her name and apartment number. Now, you have to admit, that's quite a conversation to have within the span of five floors, in'nit?
The loaves were baked two at a time, with the required amount of sponge cut from the bulk sponge as needed through three baking periods at 500℉, oh, how I do like to live dangerously. I aimed a fan directly at the smoke alarm just in case it was caused to scream at 5:30 am., which is when all this baking started. Wouldn't do to have the firemen roused that early, nor my neighbors wakened. By 9:30 am, two of the loaves were already given away.
We had a little group photo before they left.
I nicked a pineapple on Maui. This satisfied a life-long yearning and I do believe it was the most delicious pineapple I have ever eaten, possibly because it was pilfered.
I want this lemon pie to be a little bit foamy, not like thick lemon pudding, unless it's like a light and airy lemon pudding. I will avoid Eagle Brand condensed milk. It will contain eggs, cream, sugar, dash of salt, fourteen gallons of vanilla extract, which is possibly a slight exaggeration. Oh, and lemon, the juice and the scrapings from the lemon skin. It will have an ordinary pie crust but one that's extraordinarily flaky. I will put those flakes in there myself, one by one, and by hand. I will do this rapidly and efficiently without the use of specialized tools. It will be a thing of wonder.
