I’ve been having a huge bread jones these days. After lurking on www.thefreshloaf.com for several hours looking at all the recipes, tutorials, and message boards, I decided on making a plain white French bread. This French loaf uses only the simplest of ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt; yet, made properly, has a flavor that you would not expect from such a miserly array of ingredients.

I didn’t have to do all that much to get a recipe together that I liked. I took my inspiration from the blog’s creator, Floyd. Floyd’s daily bread is a very wet dough that produced a real nice loaf with a very good open crust. I wasn’t happy with the huge mess it made so I modified his daily bread recipe somewhat. I made some adjustments in the flour and water measurements he used, converted it to a more friendly and scalable format, IE grams/weight, and tested it out. The overall result was just what I wanted: open crumb, good flavor, and a great crust.

In modifying this recipe, I also got to learn a new way to prepare the dough. This dough is not kneaded in the usual sense. After the poolish has risen, all the ingredients are mixed together into a rather ragged dough and left to sit. This process is called autolyzation. While sitting, the gluten forms in the dough on its own without any outside assistance. After the prescribed amount of time, the dough is turned onto a flour surface and folded, much like puff pastry, and let to rest. The process is then repeated two more times and then the dough is shaped, proofed, and baked.

This new method of making bread helps create the open crumb structure that is much desired in an artisan bread. It’s also a good technique to keep in your bag of tricks if you want to make some bread and don’t have a mixer or the desire to knead for 10-15 minutes.

French Inspired White Bread
Recipe adapted from Floyd’s Daily Bread, http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/mydailybread

Poolish:
110 g flour
230 g water
1/8 teaspoon yeast

Dough:
520 g flour
300 g water
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoon salt
All of the poolish

To Make the Poolish:

Combine all the ingredients together and mix with a spoon until all the flour is incorporated. Leave overnight (8-16 hours) in a bowl covered with plastic wrap.

Making the Bread:

Combine all ingredients together is a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until all the ingredients are mostly incorporated. Cover the bowl with a towel and set aside 30-60 minutes (autolyse). The mixture will not look like a dough at this point, don’t worry, it will soon.

Flour your work surface generously and gently remove the dough from the bowl. Flour your hands and the top of the dough and gently stretch out to a rectangle. This will be a little messy, but work quickly and gingerly and you won’t get too messy. Fold the dough into thirds by folding the left side of the dough into the middle and the right side over the left. Fold into thirds from the top to the bottom in the same fashion.

Place in a bowl and cover with a towel and set aside 30-60 minutes.

Repeat the process two more times, flouring and folding the dough each time. Place the dough back in the bowl each time and let rest for 30-60 minutes.

Remove dough from bowl and preshape the dough. Allow the dough to rest for 5-10 minutes and then complete the final shaping. Allow the dough to rise until 1.5 times bigger. Slash bread and bake in 425F oven for 30-50 minutes.

Remember to cook the aromatics and season everything before the noodles are added!

Make sure the noodles are just cooked. They will continue to cook when they are added to the peppers and aromatics. At this point you can add some extra shoyu and adjust the seasoning if needed.

The month the Daring Bakers Cooks try out the Zuni Cafe’s Ricotta Gnocchi! Daring Cooks? You heard me right. The Daring Cooks are an off-shoot of the Daring Bakers. The ‘Cooks focus on savory dishes each month (around the 15th of so) and post their creations online. We’re a big community of pros, amateurs, and foodies all working on the same recipes. May is the first month of this gig, lets hope everything works out…

Ricotta Gnocchi is a weird beast: a small dumpling that is almost entirely made of cheese, slightly poached, and served with a butter sauce. It sounded like a good idea and the recipe didn’t look all that complicated so I decided to try it out. I had most of the ingredients on-hand so this should have been easy…I was wrong.

The gnocchi did not turn out at all like I expected. I should have made note of the tips much better than I did, especially that part where it said to use fresh ricotta if you could. I should have known there would be trouble using part-skim ricotta, but I soldiered on. I drained the ricotta, overnight, for about 30 hours, but it proved to help very little. I added the few ingredients required for the gnocchi and made a test: DISASTER. I tried the tricks in the recipe to get the batter to firm up, no luck. Eventually I resorted to cheating by adding flour to the batter to get it to firm up a bit and THAT didn’t work as expected either.

After all the fussing and fidgeting with the recipe, I was able to make about 40 gnocchi that almost stayed together. For some extra insurance, I placed them in the freezer for about thirty minutes to help them stay together a bit. After quickly poaching them in simmering water, they sort of came out and I garnished them with a butter sauce and some zucchini chips. They weren’t all that bad, but they seemed like almost souffle-like bites of cheese. After about 10 of them I had enough.

When I was all done, I did some research into other Daring Cook’s gnocchis and realized mine were probably WAY too soft to cook. I was also happy to see that I was not the only person to supplement a little bit of flour to get the consistency to the (not so) correct state. I’d consider this dish a failure but I figured someone would get something out of my disaster.

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi
From The Zuni Café Cookbook.

Yield: Makes 40 to 48 gnocchi (serves 4 to 6)

Prep time: Step 1 will take 24 hours. Steps 2 through 4 will take approximately 1 hour.

Tips:

- If you can find it, use fresh ricotta. As Judy Rodgers advises in her recipe, there is no substitute for fresh ricotta. It may be a bit more expensive, but it’s worth it.
- Do not skip the draining step. Even if the fresh ricotta doesn’t look very wet, it is. Draining the ricotta will help your gnocchi tremendously.
- When shaping your gnocchi, resist the urge to over handle them. It’s okay if they look a bit wrinkled or if they’re not perfectly smooth.
- If you’re not freezing the gnocchi for later, cook them as soon as you can. If you let them sit around too long they may become a bit sticky.
- For the variations to the challenge recipe, please see the end of the recipe.

Equipment required:

- Sieve
- Cheesecloth or paper towels
- Large mixing bowl
- Rubber spatula
- Tablespoon
- Baking dish or baking sheet
- Wax or parchment paper
- Small pot
- Large skillet
- Large pan or pot (very wide in diameter and at least 2 inches deep)

Videos that might help:

- Judy Rodgers Gnocchi Demo
- Making fresh ricotta demo
- Making ricotta gnocchi

For the gnocchi:

1 pound (454 grams/16 ounces) fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) unsalted butter
2 or 3 fresh sage leaves, or a few pinches of freshly grated nutmeg, or a few pinches of chopped lemon zest (all optional)
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi

For the gnocchi sauce:

8 tablespoons (227 grams/1/4 pound/4 ounces) butter, sliced
2 teaspoons water

Step 1 (the day before you make the gnocchi): Preparing the ricotta.

If the ricotta is too wet, your gnocchi will not form properly. In her cookbook, Judy Rodgers recommends checking the ricotta’s wetness. To test the ricotta, take a teaspoon or so and place it on a paper towel. If you notice a very large ring of dampness forming around the ricotta after a minute or so, then the ricotta is too wet. To remove some of the moisture, line a sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels and place the ricotta in the sieve. Cover it and let it drain for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. Alternatively, you can wrap the ricotta carefully in cheesecloth (2 layers) and suspend it in your refrigerator for 8 to 24 hours with a bowl underneath to catch the water that’s released. Either way, it’s recommended that you do this step the day before you plan on making the gnocchi.

Step 2 (the day you plan on eating the gnocchi): Making the gnocchi dough.

To make great gnocchi, the ricotta has to be fairly smooth. Place the drained ricotta in a large bowl and mash it as best as you can with a rubber spatula or a large spoon (it’s best to use a utensil with some flexibility here). As you mash the ricotta, if you noticed that you can still see curds, then press the ricotta through a strainer to smooth it out as much as possible.

Add the lightly beaten eggs to the mashed ricotta.

Melt the tablespoon of butter. As it melts, add in the sage if you’re using it. If not, just melt the butter and add it to the ricotta mixture.

Add in any flavouring that you’re using (i.e., nutmeg, lemon zest, etc.). If you’re not using any particular flavouring, that’s fine.

Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the salt.

Beat all the ingredients together very well. You should end up with a soft and fluffy batter with no streaks (everything should be mixed in very well).

Step 3: Forming the gnocchi.

Fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil. When it boils, salt the water generously and keep it at a simmer. You will use this water to test the first gnocchi that you make to ensure that it holds together and that your gnocchi batter isn’t too damp.

In a large, shallow baking dish or on a sheet pan, make a bed of all-purpose flour that’s ½ an inch deep.

With a spatula, scrape the ricotta mixture away from the sides of the bowl and form a large mass in the centre of your bowl.

Using a tablespoon, scoop up about 2 to 3 teaspoons of batter and then holding the spoon at an angle, use your finger tip to gently push the ball of dough from the spoon into the bed of flour.

At this point you can either shake the dish or pan gently to ensure that the flour covers the gnocchi or use your fingers to very gently dust the gnocchi with flour. Gently pick up the gnocchi and cradle it in your hand rolling it to form it in an oval as best as you can, at no point should you squeeze it. What you’re looking for is an oval lump of sorts that’s dusted in flour and plump.

Gently place your gnocchi in the simmering water. It will sink and then bob to the top. From the time that it bobs to the surface, you want to cook the gnocchi until it’s just firm. This could take 3 to 5 minutes.

If your gnocchi begins to fall apart, this means that the ricotta cheese was probably still too wet. You can remedy this by beating a teaspoon of egg white into your gnocchi batter. If your gnocchi batter was fluffy but the sample comes out heavy, add a teaspoon of beaten egg to the batter and beat that in. Test a second gnocchi to ensure success.

Form the rest of your gnocchi. You can put 4 to 6 gnocchi in the bed of flour at a time. But don’t overcrowd your bed of flour or you may damage your gnocchi as you coat them.

Have a sheet pan ready to rest the formed gnocchi on. Line the sheet pan with wax or parchment paper and dust it with flour.

You can cook the gnocchi right away, however, Judy Rodgers recommends storing them in the refrigerator for an hour prior to cooking to allow them to firm up.

Step 4: Cooking the gnocchi.

Have a large skillet ready to go. Place the butter and water for the sauce in the skillet and set aside.

In the largest pan or pot that you have (make sure it’s wide), bring at least 2 quarts of water to a boil (you can use as much as 3 quarts of water if your pot permits). You need a wide pot or pan so that your gnocchi won’t bump into each other and damage each other.

Once the water is boiling, salt it generously.

Drop the gnocchi into the water one by one. Once they float to the top, cook them for 3 to 5 minutes (as in the case with the test gnocchi).

When the gnocchi float to the top, you can start your sauce while you wait for them to finish cooking.

Place the skillet over medium heat and melt the butter. Swirl it gently a few times as it melts. As soon as it melts and is incorporated with the water, turn off the heat. Your gnocchi should be cooked by now.

With a slotted spoon, remove the gnocchi from the boiling water and gently drop into the butter sauce. Carefully roll in the sauce until coated. Serve immediately.

Variations: For the gnocchi, you can flavour them however you wish. If you want to experiment by adding something to your gnocchi (i.e., caramelized onion, sundried tomato), feel free to do so. However, be forewarned, ricotta gnocchi are delicate and may not take well to elaborate additions. For the sauce, this is your chance to go nuts. Enjoy yourselves. Surprise us!!!

Freezing the gnocchi: If you don’t want to cook your gnocchi right away or if you don’t want to cook all of them, you can make them and freeze them. Once they are formed and resting on the flour-dusted, lined tray, place them uncovered in the freezer. Leave them for several hours to freeze. Once frozen, place them in a plastic bag. Remove the air and seal the bag. Return to the freezer. To cook frozen gnocchi, remove them from the bag and place individually on a plate or on a tray. Place in the refrigerator to thaw completely. Cook as directed for fresh gnocchi.

I love ramen so much, I decided to write my recipe for this dish as a poem. A more detailed recipe for the charsu pork is attached at the bottom. Please do make the charsu, it is definitely worth it.

Ramen: A Haiku

Ramen with Charsu,
Bok Choi, poached egg, and tofu.
Delightfully yum.

Charsu Pork
adapted from Pomai’s recipe at http://tastyisland.wordpress.com

3lbs Pork butt trimmed of excess fat
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup water
3 Tbls sugar
3 star anise pieces
1 tsp white peppercorns
3-5 pieces licorice root

Lightly coat the entire pork butt with oil and season with coarse sea salt.

Heat a heavy bottomed pot to medium-high heat and sear the pork butt on all sides. Remove from the pan and pour all of the sauce ingredients into the pan, scraping the bottom of the pan to remove the charred up bits.

Place pork butt back in the pan; the sauce should barely come up to the halfway point. Lower heat to a simmer and cover the pot. Cook the pork 1 1/2 to 2 hours, turning the pork every 30 minutes so the liquid will permeate all sides.

Remove from liquid and slice thinly.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.

We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

This time around, the Daring Baker’s challenge contained two required elements: a chocolate flourless cake, the Valentino, and home made ice cream. We could make the cakes in any shape we desired and provide an ice cream of our choice just as long as it was homemade. There were too many possibilities that kept jumping into my mind so this month I went back to some of my basics. A small taste of dessert, a touch of ice cream, a few fancy garnishes, and a luscious fruit sauce.

The dessert consisted of a mini valentino cake, vanilla bean ice cream, sauteed bananas, and passion fruit sauce. I decided to go with a small taste of dessert because chocolate desserts are often rich and overpowering. The elegant plating was much appreciated by the eater and my apprentice.

As an added bonus, and because I missed last month’s challenge, I decided to incorporate last month’s DB challege, a vanilla tuile. The dragonfly pattern was cut out of cardboard and used as a template for the tuiles. I bent the wings while they were still hot and they cooled into shape.

The whole dessert seemed to balance nicely. The rich chocolate balanced nicely with the sweet, yet tangy, passion fruit sauce. The ice cream and the sauteed fruit rounded out the dish perfectly. The tuile completed the dessert and elevated this dish to restaurant quality.

Chocolate Valentino
adapted from Sweet Treats by Chef Wan

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}

Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C

Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

My past attempts at the perfect macaron have not all been met with success. Many of these cookies have suffered the fate of the trash can with their cracked shells and hollow centers. I’ve tried many online recipes and even tried going back to an original recipe I used back in my pastry chef days but all of them have yielded spotty results. In my vast online research I’ve been unable to find a consistent go-to recipe that works for most people. With frustration setting in, the eater has come to the recipe with a few reinforcements; French Macaron cookbooks.

Let me start with this disclaimer: I do not speak, read, or even really understand French. I’ve never been to France. I’ve never taken a French class. The closest to France I’ve ever been is Montreal where they speak French, but I still didn’t understand what people were saying. The cookbook I tried out was 30 Recette de Macarons; I’m pretty sure that means 30 recipes for Macarons.

This book is all macarons, all the time. It starts out with a two page primer on the correct way to make macarons and some pictures…at least that’s what I imagine it says. The following pages all follow a pattern: recipe on left page, picture of a macaron creation on right page. The recipes are all quite short and contain the macaron and the filling. With a little bit of help from google I picked out a macaron recipe to try out. The recipe went something like this:

100g almond powder
100g confectioners sugar
100g granulated sugar
100g (3) egg whites

There was a whole bunch of French directions that I glazed over after I saw the ingredients and, I confess, skipped one-hundred percent. I know I could have spent time typing everything into google to get a pretty bad usable translation of the recipe, but I was too excited about the new book, the simplicity of the recipe, and the excitement of trying yet another macaron recipe.

My haste, this time, did not produce any waste. My original method of making macarons, using the ingredient break-down listed, produced an almost perfect macaron. There were a few things I did pull out of the book while waiting for the little shells to dry out though:

The shells were a little bit larger than I normally make them
I cooked these at 320F.
I double-panned them while cooking.

As you can see, filled with a nice chocolate ganache, these macarons came out nicely. This recipe seemed to work, was easy to remember, and didn’t deviate from the techniques I’ve already learned. I think this book may be a keeper!

This soup is such a hit at my house, words can’t really describe it. This is one of the eater’s favorite dishes and it gets requested quite often. It’s easy to make, it doesn’t take long, and it tastes real good.

There isn’t much else to say, other than:

EAT.THIS.SOUP.

Pasta Fagioli
1/2 box of orzo (8oz)
2 14oz cans diced tomotoes
2 14oz cans of white beans (like great northern or cannellini) – drained & rinsed
1 onion – diced small
4-6 cloves of garlic – sliced
3-5 slices of hard cheese like romano or parmesan, preferably the
end of a block w/rind
1-2 stalks of celery – diced (optional)
olive oil
crushed red pepper
oregano
salt & pepper

In a med-large pot saute onions and celery(if using) over medium heat in olive oil until onions are soft and translucent.

Combine garlic, oregano, crushed red pepper, and salt & pepper with the onions and cook until fragrant.

Incorporate the tomatoes, white beans, and the whole piece of cheese with the onion mixture and cook a few minutes to combine flavors.

Add 4-5 cups of hot water to the pot and bring soup to a gentle boil.

Pour orzo into the soup and cook for ~10 minutes. Stir the soup every few minutes as the orzo tends to stick to the bottom of the pot. Let stand for a few minutes until the orzo thickens up.

This recipe is one of the most popular FoodGeek posts I’ve ever made, and with good reason, these burgers are excellent. It always surprises me that a simple veggie burger can trump such things as macarons and the multitude of pastries on this website. For all the fans of the original recipe, here’s another look at the best.veggie.burgers.ever.

The first time I made these burgers I wasn’t sure what to expect. Oats and nuts with a little bit of spice and some eggs just doesn’t sound like much of a burger to me. Believe me when I say this, I was very wrong. The combination of oats and nuts, first fried, and then boiled, make one of the meatiest, non-meaty burger you will ever have.

There were many questions last time around, hopefully this post will answer all the questions. First off, here’s the recipe.

Walnut Oatmeal Burgers
Adapted from The New Laurel’s Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition

burger mixture:
2 cups walnut pieces
2 cups rolled oats
4 eggs
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

for cooking burgers:
oil to brown patties
3 cups vegetable stock or water

Grind walnuts in blender and combine with the rest of the burger mixture ingredients.

Let the mixture rest in refrigerator for about an hour to let the flavors meld together.

Form the mixture into patties. The entire mixture will make 8-12 burgers depending on the size patty formed. It is recommended to use half of the mixture now, and reserve the rest for use in another recipe or for more burgers later.

Brown patties on both sides in a lightly oiled skillet, then pour the stock into the skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

Compared to the old recipe, I’ve made a few changes and was able to get the same results. This time around I skipped the breadcrumbs and the milk; I didn’t realize it until after I cooked them, but they came out great as well. I also settled on two cups of walnuts instead of a “cook’s choice” sort of recipe. I left out the sage, too, since you can take it or leave it. I left it out and they were still fantastic. I figure if there’s a spice you want in your burgers, you’re going to add it in anyways. Feel free to add whatever you’d like here; I think I used oregano this time and it worked nicely.

The recipe suggests first browning the patties on both sides and then simmering in veggie stock for another fifteen minutes. This is not a mistake and really does work. The burgers will hold shape and do not get soggy, wet, or fall apart. A few readers mentioned they just fried them and it worked well, too. I fried a bit by itself without steaming and I can confirm it works; the texture is slightly less meaty, but in a pinch it works like a charm.

I’ve yet to try a vegan version of this recipe but I believe you can substitue silken tofu for the eggs. It should work as a binder and have the added bonus of extra protein in the burger. You’ll have to change the name to Super-protein Walnut Oatmeal burgers though.

Has anyone else made these burgers? Have any suggestions? I’d love to see what everyone is doing with these burgers. Maybe we should have a veggie burger cook-off?

Crispy Pie Dough

PLUS

Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

EQUALS

COOKIE PIE!

Cookie Pie

1 recipe of your favorite crispy pie dough (pate sable)

2 eggs
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. finely packed brown sugar
1 c. butter, melted and cooled
6 oz. chopped chocolate

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Line tart pans with dough and set aside.

In large bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Add flour and both sugars. Beat until well blended then mix in melted butter. Stir in chocolate. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

EAT!

In an attempt to get some more cooking inspiration, I signed up for Taste and Create VII. The idea of Taste and Create is you are randomly paired up with another food blog, find a recipe listed on their site, make the recipe, and blog about it. I thought it would be a great way to try something new and get a little more involved in the community. For my first T&C I was paired up with Food and Laughter.

Food and Laughter is a blog mostly about Indian food. I find this fascinating because Indian food is something that I don’t usually cook but often eat out at restaurants. My lack of experience with this cooking style made this event even more exciting. The Eater and I checked out the site and decided to make a dish called Toovar Dal.

My first reading of this recipe I was a little bit overwhelmed with all the ingredients that weren’t familiar to me. I was worried that I was going to have to special order these ingredients and wouldn’t be able to finish the dish in time. After a little bit of research I found out that many of these ingredients just have different names in different parts of the world. Here’s some examples and what I did with the ones I couldn’t find:

toovar dal – Pigeon Peas
chana dal – Chick Peas
jaggery – a type of Palm sugar. I substituted regular light brown sugar here.
jeera - cumin

I didn’t have any real sources for these two:

kokum – this is similar to tamarind so I substituted chopped raisins
asafoetida ( heeng) – I had no ideas for this one, so I omitted it.

Cooking this dish was pretty exciting. The sights and sounds of the popping mustard seeds was something I was not expecting; they really pop and go everywhere. The dish came together quickly and quite nicely, there were no surprises after the mustard seeds. I opted for both dals but skipped the yams because I felt like it. I also decreased the spice level a bit because I was afraid it may be too spicy for the eater.

While I’ve never had this dish before, I don’t feel like my substitutions adversely affected the dish. In my mind, a large part of cooking is being able to adapt recipes to ingredients that you have on hand without sacrificing results. I’m sure I broke some sort of rules, but both the eater and I thought the dish was a keeper, as-is.

The pigeon peas really are the star in this dish lending a nice, subtle sweetness. The peanuts added a bit of a surprise crunch that I was not expecting even after cooking this dish myself. This really is a good dish, sweet, tangy, spicy, and a little sour, pretty much everything I wanted in a dish. I served up the dal with some long grain rice. I opted for a little extra spice on mine in the form of red pepper which worked out nicely.