Jalapeño Cheese Bread and a Giant Boule

Out of the blue, my dad mentioned he liked jalapeño cheese bread. Why not make some? But I was in my parents' kitchen without my scales,  rising buckets and other paraphernalia.  But I made up a recipe and also one for a plain boule so I could use maximize the use of the oven's heat. They turned out quite well.

For both, I used a really high hydration (wet) dough so I could use the no-knead method I favor for flavor as well as laziness. Mix the ingredients together, put in a covered bucket (my mom's biggest pots), cover and refrigerate overnight (or three). I folded grated cheese and diced fresh jalapeños into one batch and left the other unadorned.  I gave them each a turn before going to bed, and another early in the morning.

Around noon, I  split the cheesy dough into thirds and shaped, and rose each in a mixing bowl nestled on a sheet of parchment paper; I shaped the unflavored dough into a giant boule in a big Le Cruset pot, also on parchment.  Both were left to rise two or three hours until the dough weakly sprung back from a poke in the side: the were risen enough but not too much.

I preheated the oven as high as it would go with three large pyrex mixing bowls and a giant ceramic crockpot insert inside it to get screaming hot, and when at temperature, carefully lowered the boules into their right-sized pots, using the parchment as a sling.  I covered them lightly with foil to retain moisture to encourage a lofty oven-spring.

They rose beautifully. After a half hour, I removed the foil to let them brown.   It's a ton of good bread and is going fast at the house.

This giant boule used 6 cups flour and is bigger than my head, or our giant Crypto. It's the most massive loaf I've made to date. 

Christmas 2015 Capon Stuffed with Duck, Sausage, Cherries

After watching Jacques Pepin's video of deboning a chicken ("it should take no more than one minute", hah!) we knew we wanted to do a ballotine -- a bird stuffed in a bigger bird. So for Xmas 2015, we asked M&P to pick up a capon (a castrated chicken, a very large bird) and a duck. We deboned the capon per Pepin's technique, and did likewise for the duck even though we didn't need to.

The deboning took at least 2 hours as the muscles and tendons of capons and ducks were much more developed than chickens, but we were practicing our technique. We separated the meat from the duck skin, and cooked up a log of pork sausage for the center. We laid out the sausage and duck meat on the opened deboned capon, then sprinkled with dried cherries.

We then rolled it up tight, ensuring the skin covered as much as we could, trussed it up tight and let it rest uncovered in the fridge overnight to ensure the skin was thoroughly dry to improve crispness.

The next day, we put it on an open rack over a shallow pan; it started breast side down since the white meat would tolerate less heat. We cooked it as low as the oven would go -- 170F; we were hoping to achieve an effect like we'd get with sous vide cooking: evenly cooked all the way through, avoiding drying out the exterior before the dense dark-meat ducky interior was thoroughly cooked. We had a temperature probe embedded in the center and watched it rise about 10F every half hour, and -- sure enough -- it rose from fridge temperature (maybe 35F) at noon to our target of about 165F at the designated dinner time of 6:00PM.

A blast under the broiler gave it a beautiful burnished look.

Then we cut off the strings and carved it for serving. Since it was cooked long and low (like sous vide) there was no need to rest it like conventional cooking. The meat held together well (even without transglutaminase, aka "meat glue") and maintained its shape.

Ed, Marge, Scott, Irene, Pat and I enjoyed it with roasted potatoes and green beans, and a gravy Irene elaborated from a stock she made from the bones. 

One disappointment we didn't expect was that capon skin is much thicker than chicken, so although it browned attractively, it was much too tough to chew through. This is definitely something we'd do again but I think we need a more domesticated bird to get the crisp skin.

Lime Frozen Yogurt Deconstructed Pie from Lucky Peach

We made this Lime Frozen Yogurt deconstructed pie from Lucky Peach magazine and really liked the zingy taste and rich body. The graham cracker crumbles were OK, but weren't so special. The lime yogurt froyo is fine as it is, or it makes a great key lime style pie. I'm taking it verbatim from their new web site, because I can never find it in my print magazine.


Makes 8 servings

LIME FROZEN YOGURT

2 C simple syrup
1/2 C + 2 T lime juice, strained
6 oz plain yogurt
3 1/2 oz sour cream
+ ice cream maker

MAKE THE LIME FROZEN YOGURT

Combine the yogurt ingredients—syrup, lime juice, yogurt, sour cream—in a large mixing bowl, and process with an immersion blender for one minute, until everything is completely homogeneous.

Churn the mixture in an ice cream machine for 20 minutes, or according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Freeze for at least a few hours, preferably overnight, before serving. Serve with graham cracker crumble and toasted meringue.