Pullman Loaf Sandwich Bread

I got Irene a couple Pullman Loaf pans for making square cross-section bread, very fancy. I have adjusted my go-to recipe from Peter Reinhart's "Bread Bakers Apprentice" to fit. The recipe that came with the Pullman tin uses about 600 g AP Flour, so I'll scale my recipe to that.  Here, I'm doubling Reinhart's White Bread Variation 2 that I always use, omitting the sugar which IMHO makes it too sweet. It should barely fit in my KA mixer which I regularly use for 1Kg flour batches, and fill our 2 Pullmans or 4 standard glass/metal loaf pans.

8 1/2 C     38 oz   1100 g  100%  Flour
    1 Tbs  0.8 oz     22 g    2%  Salt, kosher
    2 tsp  0.3 oz     6 g   1.1%  Yeast
    2        4 oz    115 g   11%  Eggs, large or extra large
  1/2 C      4 oz    115 g   11%  Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    3 C     24 oz    680 g   62%  Milk, skim, whole, or butter work

Instead of the EVOO you can use melted butter or even bacon fat (!); I've used skim and whole milk, but water makes for a boring bread.  
The eggs and milk make this about a 70% hydration dough.

You can add the dry ingredients to the mixer and combine, and separately combine the liquids and drizzle in, or you can simply dump them all in at once -- all work fine. 
Knead 10 minutes, separate into two rising buckets, and rise covered about 2 hours until doubled.
Shape and place each into 2 lightly oiled Pullman tins, or split again and add to 4 standard loaf tins. 

Rise covered again for 1-2 hours until doubled, or until the dough is almost at the top of the Pullman tin; for Pullmans, slide the lids on.
Bake in preheated oven 30 minutes at 325F, slide off Pullman lids and bake another 30 minutes.
Remove from pans and let cool on a rack so it doesn't steam.

Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls

I've been jonesing for these staples of my childhood (always store-bought) and used a recipe from King Arthur Flour which turned out pretty well. I used their cups and measured the grams and milliliters recorded here so it will be easier for me to repeat.

3 1/2 C    535 g  Flour, King Arthur all purpose
    2 tsp    7 g  Yeast
  1/4 C     16 g  Potato Flakes (instant mashed potatoes)
    3 Tbs   18 g  Nonfat Dry Milk
    1 Tbs   16 g  Sugar
1 1/2 tsp   12 g  Salt, Kosher
    4 Tbs   55 g  Butter, melted
  2/3 C    160 ml Water, luke warm
  1/2 C    120 ml Milk, whole, luke warm

Mix all ingredients and knead 10 minutes. I had to add extra water to get a soft smooth dough, but it was still more stiff than my usual enriched bread dough.
Rise in covered bowl or bucket 60-90 minutes until doubled.
Divide into 16 pieces, and roll each into a ball.
Place 8 each into 2 8-inch round cake tins; I used an angel food tin with the center post taking up some of the space.

Cover and rise another 60-90 minutes until doubled and rolls begin to touch.
Bake at 325F convection for about 35 minutes until well browned.
Brush with additional melted butter, let rest a minute to absorb, and tip out onto cooling rack.

Gricia: simple but challenging -- pasta, guanciale, pecorino

Gricia is a rewarding Roman dish with just three ingredients; it's a challenge to develop the creamy sauce.

Rigatoni, guancial, pecorino -- that's all you need

Like cacio e pepe, it's a surprisingly simple Roman dish with minimalist ingredients -- just pasta, guancial (cured pork jowl with assertive piggy flavor), and pecorino (sheep) cheese.  (Cacio is even more austere, dispensing with the guanciale). The pasta is the star, and needs to provide enough starch to bind the fat from the guanciale into a creamy sauce, so use a good one pressed through bronze dies. Likewise, use good quality pecorino, since it brings the sharp sheep cheese edge.

We knew we needed the starch released by the pasta, so we used the minimum amount of water we could to boil the pasta, a technique espoused for any starch-thickened sauce by Serious Eats.  This pasta took about twice what commercial pasta requires, about 20 minutes, to get to al dente -- plenty of time to work on the guanciale and emulsion. Finish off heat or the cheese will separate or clump rather than form a creamy sauce.

You may not need to salt your pasta water if your guanciale is very salty; realize that any salt in the pasta water will be concentrated by boiling and a second reduction in the emulsion. 

In Barcelona, we get 100 g packages of guanciale at Bon Breu; it's got lots of fat. Aldi has "Mancini" brand Rigatoni in 500 g bags that is die-cut and has enough starch to to create a good emulsion with the fat. Proportions below are based convenient quantities of these.

For 2 dinner portions:

166 g / 6   ounce Rigatoni, extruded through brass dies
100 g / 3.5 ounce Guanciale, sliced thin
 60 g / 2   ounce Pecorino Cheese, grated very fine (half for sauce, half for serving)

Slice the Guanciale thin into strips or match sticks.
Add a bit of Olive Oil to a pan and sauté Guanciale to render fat; I find a skillet is easier to toss the emulsion than a high-sided pan used in these photos.

Guanciale, a bit of oil, and starchy pasta water forming emulsion

Cook the Rigatoni in a minimal amount of water so you can collect the starch that's thrown off; ours took 20 minutes.
As the pasta cooks, transfer some of the starchy water into the fat, oil and guanciale, and swirl to start creating the emulsion for the sauce.
Continue like this until the pasta is al dente; your emulsion should start looking like a credible but small sauce.

Minimal water (barely covering pasta) ensures plenty of starch

Add the pasta to the pan with the emulsion, I use a slotted spoon and know the extra water is just what I need.
Crank up the heat on the emulsion, you should hear some sizzling.
Swirl and flip the pan to agitate the emulsion, building the sauce.

Flip it, flip it good!

You may want to add more of the now-highly-starchy water to the pan to build more sauce.
Continue until the sauce is a little thick, coating the pasta.

Off heat, grind some black pepper and drizzle in half the grated cheese, a bit at a time, swirl, and drizzle, repeat until you've used all half the cheese; it should merging with the sauce, and you don't need much cheese.

Finish with pepper, cheese in multiple additions

Swirl and toss well with each addition of cheese to form sauce

Serve immediately, garnished with the remaining cheese.