"Thaidig": a Thai variation on Persian crunchy rice

We really enjoyed Samin Nosrat's Tahdig, a foolproof way of getting crunchy Persian rice. We wanted to see if we could take it somewhere untraditional, with Thai flavors and asian rice. It worked really well, the flavor combination and the additions to the rice made for a fun and satisfying meal. 

Our first question was whether Jasmine rice would crunchify like Persian Basmati rice; with Samin's yogurt hack, this was a definite "yes".  For the Thai flavor, we started with coconut milk, then added chilis, galangal, and some salmon we had.  This made plenty for four people as a complete dinner.

Crunchy top conceals coconutty rice with salmon and squash

  2 C      Jasmine Rice
  4 Quart  Water
1/3 C      Kosher Salt

  1 C      Coconut Milk
  1 Tbs    Thai Shrimp Paste
  1 piece  Galangal root, thumb-size, sliced thin
  3 whole  Thai Chilis, de-seeded, cut thin

  1 whole  Kaffir Lime leaf, bruised

  3 Tbs    Oil, neutral flavored

  3 Tbs    Butter

  3 Tbs    Yogurt

 10 ounces Wild Salmon, cut into 1-inch bitesized pieces

 10 ounces Butternut Squash, cubed and cooked
  2 Tbs    Thai Fish Sauce
  2 Tbs    Lime Juice

Rinse the Jasmine Rice in cold water in a fine sieve several times.

Bring the Water and Salt to boil, then drain and add the Rice; cook 6-7 minutes until al dente (Jasmine seems to take a bit less time than Basmati, don't overcook). Drain in sieve and run under cold water to stop cooking, then drain again.

While Rice is boiling, heat the Coconut Milk, add and dissolve Shrimp Paste, and add Galangal, Chilis, Kaffir Lime Leaf, and cook to coax out the flavors.

Heat the Oil and Butter until melted and frothy in a 12-inch non-stick skillet. 

Remove 1 1/2 C par-cooked Rice and gently mix with the Yoghurt, then add to hot skillet and line the bottom of the pan.

Gently fold the Salmon, Squash, and Flavored Cocount Milk into the remaining Rice. Add to the base layer of rice in the skillet, trying not to disturb it as it forms a crust; spread evenly, then poke 6 holes to the bottom of the skillet to let moisture escape and the rice to crisp up. Splash the Fish Sauce and Lime Juice over the top.

White base on the bottom, flavored and stuffed rice on top

Cook 20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes to heat evenly.

Check the edges for browning; add a bit of oil around the outside if needed. Cook another 15-20 minutes until the crust is formed and well-browned. 

Edges browned, white foam shows salmon is cooked

Invert a serving platter over the skillet, and with confidence and gusto, invert quickly; the finished dish should easily fall onto the platter. 

Look at that crust! Brown spots are where we punched holes for steam

Serve.

Adjustments

The intensity of the Coconut Milk was just right -- noticeable but not over-powering. The proportion of Salmon and Squash seemed good. We couldn't detect any heat from the Chilis, though they were plenty fierce before cooking, so add more.  The Fish Sauce and Lime Juice were barely noticeable, so bump these up too.

Future directions...

With this under our belt, we're interested in trying even more silly variations, like Gumbo-inspired (roux for flavor, with andouille sausage and okra), middle eastern, etc. Will regular American short-grain rice work? We don't think Italian arborio (risotto) would work as it's designed to get creamy; asian sticky rice might be fun; Spanish bomba rice could but its virtues are probably best expressed as paella.

Do we need the yogurt? Would unflavored coconut milk also provide coherence and browning? Would the butter and oil be enough by themselves?

We'd also like to scale down the recipe for two people. For 1 Cup Rice, my math says an 8-inch pan provides the proportionate area.

Samin Nosrat's Tahdig (Persian-ish crispy rice)

Samin cooked Iranian/Persian basmati rice to develop the crunchy bottom, the coveted "tahdig", on the cooking show Salt Fat Acid Heat. I love that stuff, so was happy to find her adaptation which is so easy. It uses Yogurt to help bind and brown the crunchy layer, and parboiling so you can finish cooking -- and develop the crust -- in a low skillet instead of deep pot. I've adjusted it a bit for our pans, over-sizing the crusty rice base a little. It makes enough for four, but we found the leftovers heated up OK, but were not quite as fragrant.

We mixed in some small cubes of cooked squash to the second Rice addition and it was a fine complement to the rice. 

Crunchy rice!

  2 C   Basmati Rice
1/3 C   Kosher Salt (depending on saltiness)
1/3 C   Yogurt
  3 Tbs Vegetable Oil
  3 Tbs Butter

Rinse the Rice several times until the water runs clear; easiest to do this in a fine mesh sieve in a bowl.

Bring 4 Qt Water to boil with salt, it seems like too much Salt, but it doesn't cook long and most of the water is discarded. Boil the Rice 6-8 minutes until al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking.

Heat a 12-inch non-stick skillet, add Oil and Butter, and melt; it'll turn frothy.

Remove 1 1/2 C Rice and mix with Yogurt. Add to skillet and flatten to cover the bottom: this will become the crust.

Add the rest of the Rice on top, mounding slightly to the center. (Poke 6 holes through the rice to the bottom of the skillet to allow steam to escape so the rice dries out.

Cook 20 minutes over medium heat, turning a quarter turn ever 5 minutes for even browning.

Check the edges to ensure they're browning, if not, add a bit more oil around the edges. 

Edges starting to brown; we added some cubed squash

Cook on low heat another 15-20 minutes until the rice is done, crunchy on the bottom.

Place a platter over the skillet and bravely invert: the rice should detach easily and form a beautiful display. Serve.

Deconstructed Fruit Cake Ice Cream

We received a Grandma's Gourmet No Sugar Added Fruitcake which was loaded with fruit, but tooth-achingly sweet. We decided to take it apart and make an ice cream from its components. I started with my Saffron Ice Cream, which is a standard custard-style, proportioned to fit in our cheap churn. I reduced the sugar since the cake has a lot, and reduced the egg, because the cake in the cream mixture helped thicken it.

Ice cream tastes like fruit cake, fruit and nuts mixed through

 17 ounces Fruit Cake
1.5 C      Whole Milk
  2 C      Heavy Cream
1/2 C      Sugar (down from 1 C)
  2 whole  Eggs (down from 3)

  2 Tbs    Brandy

Add Milk and Cream to pot; break apart Fruit Cake, trying to keep fruit and nuts intact, and add to the pot.  Warm pot and allow cake to dissolve into cream, stirring gently to separate fruit and nuts.

Strain through coarse strainer.

Separate nuts from fruit, reserving fruit; bake nuts until toasted (it's OK if some of the cream sticks to the nuts).

Whiz the cakey cream in Vitamax blender; add in Sugar and blend; add in Eggs and blend until smooth. 

Heat gently in the pot to 170-175F, stirring frequently so the Eggs start to set but do not overheat and curdle them.

Pour into bowl, cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, pour base into spinning chilled ice cream maker churn; when it starts setting up, add Brandy to loosen a bit, so it doesn't tax the motor too much. If you've got room (and motor), add fruit and nuts; otherwise, stir them in before adding to freezer tray. Churn 20 minutes, it should swell as air is introduced.

Add churned ice cream to one or more flat-ish freezer containers and freeze overnight.

Buttermilk Scalloped Potatoes

 I wanted rich Scalloped potatoes without cheese, not a gratin, and wanted the potatoes to "gel" instead of slip-sliding past each other. This uses the brine from the buttermilk marinated chicken. 

  2 Pounds Yukon Gold Potatoes
3-4 Cups   Buttermilk marinade from chicken
2/3 C      Heavy Cream
           Salt
           Pepper
           Nutmeg
  2 clove  Garlic, minced

Heat the Buttermilk in a pot until simmering, taste for Salt and adjust; add Pepper, Nutmeg, Garlic;

the buttermilk will start separating, but once the potatoes start cooking in it, the starch will bring it together again.

Peel and rinse the Potatoes.

Slice 1mm thick on a mandolin and add to the hot Buttermilk.

Cover and cook at a gentle simmer about 5 minutes until slightly tender but not in danger of falling apart.

With a slotted spoon, layer them casually into a 4-5 casserole.

Pour over with remaining Buttermilk, then Cream.

Bake 80-90 minutes at 325F; you can probably go higher so it can bake at the same time as the Chicken.

Let sit 10 minutes to "gel".

If you do this in advance of the Chicken, you can reheat after gelling and cooling.

Buttermilk-Marinated Roast Chicken

This comes from Samin Nosrat's Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (video) -- the chicken roasts up an appealing burnished brown, with moist flesh; it's surprisingly easy to make. You can make Scalloped Potatoes at the same time with the used Buttermilk, but they take longer to bake than the chicken.

Chicken on rack over cast iron pan: save those juices!

3-4 pound Whole Chicken
  2 Tbs   Salt
  4 Cups  Buttermilk

Generously salt the Chicken, inside and out; let sit an hour to absorb.
Put in a large bag and add 4 Cups Buttermilk; seal and fridge overnight.
Drain and save the Buttermilk for Scalloped Potatoes.
Put chicken on a rack, breast-side up, over a pan and let come to room temperature for an hour.

Heat oven to 425F/220C, non-convection.

Point the chicken legs to the corner, bake 20 minutes, reduce heat to 400, bake 10 minutes, point the legs to the other corner, and bake another 30 minutes.

Let sit 15 minutes before carving.

Save the pan juices! Pour out, scraping all the bits, let cool and separate. The fat has good flavor, but OMG, the concentrated juices firm up like precious demi-glace and is super tasty!

Zucchini Carpaccio

A refreshing and rather fancy-looking light appetizer for two.

1         Zucchini (we used green)
1 tsp     Salt, Kosher
          Lemon Juice from 1/2 Lemon
2 Tbs     tasty Olive Oil (we used smoked EVOO)
2 Tbs     Pine Nuts

1 Tbs     Mint or Basil leaves, chiffonaded

6 slices  Pickled Shallots (optional)
6 pieces  Parmesan Cheese, shaved

On a mandolin, slice 3 slices from each side of the Zucchini, about 1mm thick; these will be seared so they need a bit more substance than the rest, and searing will make the skin more interesting. Slice the rest thinner on the mandolin. If you don't have a mandolin, you can cut the thick slices with a knife, and the thin ones with a vegetable peeler.

Toss the zucchini with Salt in a bowl, and let sit for 30 minutes or so to draw off excess moisture. Drain then dry on paper towels.

Return to bowl and squeeze Juice from 1/2 Lemon, and drizzle Olive Oil; combine gently and let marinate in the fridge for an hour.

Toast the Pine Nuts.

Cut the Mint or Basil into fine strips, a chiffonade.

Pull out the 6 thickest pieces of Zucchini and sear until you've got some appealing black spots and it's heated through. Arrange on plate as a base.

Gently mix the Pine Nuts, Mint or Basil with the remaining Zucchini strips to combine. Top the seared strips with a loose mound of the remaining, seasoned Zucchini, and top with shavings of Parmesan and Pickled Shallots.

Fresh Pasta: Dried vs Just-Rolled

We make our own pasta dough and roll it out with a manual pasta roller and cutter; it's  easy enough we can do it on a weekday evening, and good therapy after a busy day. The dough can be made ahead and frozen in dinner portions, then thawed fairly quickly. 

One time we rolled it with a rolling pin, then floured it, rolled it into a loose jelly roll, and cut the noodles with a knife. We happened to let it air dry on the top of a warm fridge for a few hours while we prepped the rest of the meal. This turned out to be some of the best pasta we've made, with an excellent "bite".

Is there a difference between pasta that's been left to dry, versus just rolled and cut before boiling? We tried it out.

We cut the same lump of dough (equal parts AP flour and coarse semolina, and egg) into two pieces. I rolled one out and cut it into Fettuccine, dosed it with flour, and arranged it in a loose nest on a kitchen towel. We let it dry out for about 7 hours. 

We got two pots of salted water boiling, then repeated the rolling and cutting with the second lump. 

We then put both sets of noodles in separate pots, cooked until done, and served. We sauced some of it with pesto from our garden's basil, but left plenty exposed to try "naked".

The air-dried pasta was more toothsome, and seemed a bit more golden (possibly oxidized?); the freshly cut pasta had a softer texture.  They both seemed to taste the same. Interestingly, as the meal progressed, sauced with the pesto, the dried pasta retained it's firm texture, while the just-cut pasta became a bit too soft -- at least in comparison.

Our take-away is that both are good -- we eat the just-cut frequently -- but if you have the time, it's worth air-drying. This also opens opportunities for pre-making pasta before friends come over, and letting it dry until they arrive, then just boil: you don't have to be throwing flour around on your friends as you make last-minute pasta.  

Larb Kai: Thai Chicken Salad

This Thai dish is refreshing, especially on a hot day; we serve it cool to room temperature. The toasted rice is important -- without it there's a big exotic aroma you'll be missing. Have some extra lime juice and fish sauce to adjust the taste when done. Serve over lettuce leaves and rice like Jasmine or sticky rice. Other variations of the spelling use Laab and Gai. 

80 ml     Lime Juice

50 ml     Fish Sauce

15 g      Brown Sugar

40 g      Toasted Rice Powder (see below)

 2        Kaffir Lime Leaves, julienned thin

10 g      Galangal, julienned fine

 2        Spring Onions, sliced, including green parts

 6        Thai Red Chilis, sliced

 3 sprigs Mint, leaves chopped

handful   Coriander, chopped

370 g     Chicken breast, chopped fine with a knife

500 ml    Chicken Stock (reuse previous batch of cooking liquid)

Mix Lime Juice, Fish Sauce and Sugar to dissolve; set the dressing aside.

To make toasted ("parched") rice, "dry fry" rice (preferably sticky/glutenous) in a skillet until it starts turning an attractive toasty color and releasing a nutty aroma. Grind in spice grinder. You can make extra and save it for the next time. 

Julienne very finely the chewy Kaffir Lime Leaves and fibrous Galangal.

Slice the Chilis and chop the Mint and Coriander.

Slice and chop the Chicken Breast by hand -- it doesn't take more than a few minutes, and a machine turns it to mush. You're looking for a size maybe a bit smaller than a pea, but consistency isn't important.

Cook the Chicken gently in the Chicken Stock; it doesn't take long, since it's so fine -- don't overcook it.

Drain through a sieve and collect the turbocharged stock, save for the next time.

Combine the cooked chicken, liquid dressing, vegetables and toasted rice;

you may want to hold back some of the chilis, depending on your pain tolerance :-)

Stir well, the toasted rice will absorb some of the dressing. 

Adjust flavors with Lime Juice and Fish Sauce.

Arrange Lettuce Leaves on a plate, top with cooked Rice, then mound the Larb Kai.

Eat while the flavors are fresh and zesty.

Wendy's Cherry Pickles

1 C Pickling Salt
5 Quarts Water

Boil 5 Quarts Water, add 1 C Pickling Salt

(This may go after "2 heads dill": plus handful [dried ...?] over jar.)

Put whole pickles, 2 heads dill to 1 Qt and cherry leaves into crock.

Pour brine over, let stand for 2 weeks, skimming and occasionally.

Take pickles out, discard soft ones, cut into chunks, put in jars, turn jars upside down to drain.

Boil 2 C Sugar and 1 C Vinegar.
Pour over pickles after adding 1 tsp pickling spice to each Quart of pickles.

Pita Bread

We're trying to get nice chew, but with a pocket. The oil in this makes it more tender than a bread (or our pizza dough) without any fat.

The Smitten Kitchen blog has a thoroughly tested version, which we tried on cast iron in the BBQ, and they almost puffed. I'll start from hers, show bakers percentage to compare with my usual 66-70% hydrations, and maybe try some  based on Mallmann's "chapa bread" variations like we've been doing with left-over pizza dough, because they don't require rolling.

455 g Flour, All Purpose
295 g Water, at room temperature (65% hydration)
 30 g Olive Oil (7%)
 13 g Kosher salt (2.9%)
  5 g Yeast (1.3%)

Knead in a stand mixer 10 minutes.
Rise in the fridge overnight in a covered container.
Split into 6 or 8 pieces and let warm and rise;
you can freeze these in zippy bags, and let warm a bubble 30 minutes before cooking.
Cook on hot cast iron on one side, flip, finish the other side.
It should puff up nicely.

Licorice Ice Cream

The flavor of Fernet reminded me of licorice, and that made me think of a Chocolate Fernet gelato I made. So why not Licorice ice cream? I'd never seen it, but the interwebs say it exists and there are recipes like this one from Epicurious.

I used licorice by Wiley Wallaby, as it seemed less like synthetic candy than Twizzlers. I also got some Pontefract Cakes from the UK which are more intense and less sweet, so I'll try that next. I've got some Brewers Licorice which I'd also like to try but need to understand how much to dilute it, as it's definitely not a candy: "will burn your mouth... wear gloves"!

Here's our first take on licorice ice cream; sorry, no pictures this time.

140 g       5 oz   Licorice
360 ml  1 1/2 C    Milk
360 ml  1 1/2 C    Heavy Cream
175 g     3/4 C    Sugar
pinch              Salt
  4         4      Egg Yolks
2.5 ml    1/2 tsp  Vanilla

Melt the Licorice in the Milk, slowly, stirring frequently; I got impatient and blitzed it with an immersion blender.
The licorice contains flour so it thickened the Milk quite a bit.
The licorice dye turns the Milk a ghastly gray-green color somewhere between camo and radically overcooked peas; if you have it, a few drops of Black Food Coloring would help.
Add Cream, Sugar, Salt, Vanilla and heat to dissolve.
Adjust heat to under 82C/180F -- higher than 85C/185F will curdle the Eggs.
Whisk the Egg Yolks.
Temper the Yolks by adding some of the hot liquid to them while whisking, then add this back to the hot Cream mixture.
Heat to 82-85C, 180-185F so the Yolks will thicken the Cream.
Pour into a container; it has a disturbingly gelatinous texture, like wallpaper paste, but should be fine once churned. The taste is good, like very sweet licorice; serving cold should balance out the sugar.
Cool overnight.
Process in an ice cream churn, put in a container and freeze overnight.
The thickness caused our churn to really struggle, but the finished texture came out fine.
Taste was good, not as intense as I'd like, but definitely a decent and slightly unusual dessert with an uncommon flavor profile.

Pizza Dough for a Crowd

We built a clay pizza oven in the back yard; it gets hot enough for Neapolitan pizza which by law needs to be 430-480C (800-900F), and results in beautiful pillowy crusts. Since it needs a lot of wood and a couple hours heating time, we need a large crowd to justify firing it up.

This recipe makes enough for 12 140g pizzas, which is about enough for 6 sedentary adults, or 4 hungry younger folks. The volume pretty much maxes out my Kitchenaid stand mixer. The international regulations specify a hydration percent between 55.5 and 62.5%, but I tend to go a bit higher, 66-70% hydration; here, I'll go with 66%, as wetter dough more difficult for inexperienced pizza makers to handle.

Before: 6 buckets each wit about 1.7Kg dough

After: 6 buckets risen to about 3L each

It's worth finding the proper pizza flour from Italy: the 00 grind is very fine and makes for a better result. We have found it at a very good price at a restaurant supply store, and at Literi's Italian market, and also bought it from a Neapolitan-certified pizza restaurant. It comes in 55-pound bags. Caputo is a fairly common brand, and it has 12.5% protein.

About 55 pounds of 00 pizza flour

1000 g Italian 00 Pizza Flour (2.2 pounds)
 660 g Water (2 3/4 C)
  30 g Kosher Salt (2 1/2 Tbs)
   5 g Yeast (2 tsp)

Knead 10 minutes.
Place in covered 2L container.
Let rise in the fridge 1-3 days.
The day of the pizza fest, pull the dough out about two hours before eating time and let warm up.
Divide into 12 pieces and roll into tight balls.
Let rise a while, covered; we do this in an inverted under-bed box.
Shape, put on cornmeal-dusted peel, sauce and top, then fire: they should be done in couple minutes if the oven is hot enough.

Pizza just put in the oven

Mallmann's Mustard Lamb

Lusty flavors and a a deep char give this a great taste on the BBQ; quick and easy. Adapted from Francis Mallmann's "Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way". Serves 2.

 16 oz  450 g     Lamb Leg
                  Salt
                  Pepper
1/4 cup  60 ml    Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup  handful  Fresh Oregano, fresh (omit if you only have dried)
  1       1       Lemon
                  Oil

Cut one or two inch-thick slices from the Lamb, across the grain; if you end up cutting more small pieces, that's fine.
Remove any obvious gristle and excess fat.
Cover with cling film and pound flat to an even 1/2 inch thickness.
Season both sides generously with Salt and Pepper.
Brush both sides evenly with Mustard.
Press chopped Oregano onto one side only, and press a thin Lemon slice on each piece.

On the BBQ, get a cast iron griddle or pan ripping hot.
Drizzle with oil and when smoking, slap on the Lamb, Lemon/Oregano-side down.
It will smoke a lot.

Let cook undisturbed until the Lemon and Oregano are charred (you'll have to peek carefully).
Flip and finish cooking to your desired internal temperature, about 135F is good: it should retain a bit of pink.
Serve with a rich Malbec, and vegetables grilled on the griddle.

Banana Bread

This is tasty, easy, and adaptable --  you can use a mixer, food processor or do everything by hand. From The Kitchn. This makes two loaf pans, with 4 to 6 very ripe bananas.

  1 C    100 g  Walnuts (optional)
 16 Tbs  230 g  Butter, softened
  2 C    450 g  Sugar
  4        4    Eggs
  2 t     10 ml Vanilla
  2 tsp    8 g  Baking Soda (Baking Powder works too)
1/2 C    120 ml Milk
4-6      550 g  Banana, chopped or mashed
  4 C    625 g  Flour

Preheat oven to 325F/165C convection or 350F/175C regular.
Line 2 loaf pans with parchment to make a sling and mist with cooking oil spray.
Chop the walnuts (you can do this with a pulse or two if you're using a food processor); toast until fragrant.
Cream the Butter with Sugar in the food processor, or just melt Butter and combine with Sugar.
Whiz or mix in Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Soda.
Chop or mash the banana: a pastry cutter or potato masher work well; don't use a food processor as it makes them too wet.
In a large bowl, combine the sugar-butter-egg mix with Milk, Banana, Flour, and stir to combine; don't over-work, it's OK if a little flour isn't incorporated thoroughly.
Pour into lined bread pans, shiggle to even out the thick batter a bit.
Bake for about 60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Pull out with paper slings and let cool on rack.

Gâteau Basque #1

This was a terrible recipe, but a tasty result. The technique was fussy and involved a piping bag to place the pastry bottom and top -- that's actually what attracted me. In the middle is an orange aromatic pastry cream, it's really quite luxurious. It's funny to me there is an entire festival about this dish, so it seemed important to try it.

I'm re-writing the recipe to use metric consistently, and order the ingredients the way you need to use them. For my 8-inch tart pan, I needed a little more Cake mix to cover, but it baked up adequately. There appear to be two variations, one with pastry cream, the other with Black Cherries, but here I used the cream and sour cherries which worked nicely. But really, next time, I'll use a more traditional and proper-bakers' recipe: the pastry is rolled normally and the cream is piped in, not the other way around!

Pastry Cream
300 ml     Milk, whole
  1        Orange, Zest
  1 whole  Egg
  1        Egg Yolk
240 g      Flour, all purpose
 15 g      Corn Starch
 60 g      Sugar
  5 ml     Vanilla extract

  ? ??     Sour Cherries

Cake
240 g      Flour, all purpose
  1 tsp    Baking Powder
160 g      Butter
160 g      Sugar
  2 whole  Eggs

Glaze
 1         Egg Yolk
 60 ml     Milk

Simmer Milk and Orange Zest to flavor the Milk.
In separate bowl, mix Egg, Egg Yolk, Flour, Corn Starch, Sugar and Vanilla to form a paste.
Add hot Milk mixture to mixing bowl, quickly stir to combine but not cook the eggs.
Return to saucepan, whisk over medium heat until it thickens to a pastry cream or custard texture, with out curdling the eggs.
Strain through fine sieve, cover, and chill in fridge.

Butter and dust with flour an 18 cm / 7 inch cake tin; I used an 8-inch tart pan which was just a bit too large diameter, but it worked.
Mix Flour and Baking Powder in a bowl.
In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat Butter with Sugar until smooth and creamy.
Beat in Eggs, one at a time.
Gradually add the Flour and Baking Powder and continue mixing; this is too dense for a cheap hand mixer.
Transfer into a piping bag, and pipe a spiral onto the bottom off the pie tin.
Pipe a line up the side to create an edge.

Fill the center with the cooled Pastry Cream and smooth.

Add the Sour Cherries.
Pipe the top using the same spiral technique; I didn't have quite enough to cover.
Chill while you preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.
Whisk the Egg Yolk and Milk and paint the Glaze on the top of the pie;
use the tines of a fork to carve a slight diagonal stripe pattern in the top.
Bake 45 minutes until dark golden; it will rise quite a bit.
Cool.

Julia Child's Pastry Dough: Pate Brisée

Irene's adaptation from Julia Child´s "The Way to Cook", using the food processor, converted to metric. Makes 2 9-inch crusts (our Pyrex pie dish says 23 cm). Julia uses 1 tsp Salt and 2 Tbs Sugar for sweet pies but Irene uses salt only so extra dough can be frozen and used for savory pies later.

210 g   1 1/2 C    All Purpose Flour
 70 g     1/2 C    Cake Flour
  6 g       1 tsp  Kosher Salt
170 g       6 oz   Butter, chilled, cut into chunks
 56 g       2 oz   Lard or more Butter
120 ml    1/2 C    Ice Water

Whiz Flours, Salt, Fats in food processor.
While running, drizzle in Water.
Form into ball on counter, dusting with flour if needed.
Wrap in cling film and chill for 2 hours.

Hot Dog Tamales for Cinco de Mayo

The world did not need this, but it seemed fun, worked well and they tasted pretty good! We had to scale up the recipe from Serious Eats due to my misreading of masa dough for masa flour, but the amount of dough was just right for a package of hot dogs from Costco (in a taste test, we preferred the snap and flavor of Costco's to the name brand). They're typically made with lard, but we also had some flavorful veal fat so we used a mixture.

450 g    3 3/4 C      Masa Harina flour

600 ml   2 1/2 C      Veal Stock or other stock for hydration

280 g   10     oz wt  Lard and Veal Fat

 12 g    2 1/2 tsp    Baking Powder

 15 g    1     Tbs    Kosher Salt

300 ml   1 1/4 C      Stock 

Mix the Masa Harina flour in the large quantity of Stock; let rest 15 minuts to hydrate.

Whip Lard, Salt and Baking powder for a minute until fluffy; if your fat is soft, as our Veal fat was, it won't fluff as much as harder Pork Lard.

Beat in 1/4 of the hydrated Masa at a time, until it's all used.

Add the final Stock and whip: it should be the texture of hummus, cover and rest 1 hour.

Hydrate at least twice as many corn husks as you have hot dogs.

Spread a portion of dough on each husk, put a halved dog on and wrap; fold up the bottom and tie to seal.

Steam about an hour.

Serve with condiments like avocado, cortido, and salsa.

Pan De Mic(he): bread for a pandemic

The pandemic lock-down has us cooking more than normal, but we've been making our own bread for years, some sandwich bread and some rustic round loaves or "miche" style. Many folks are picking up baking, and it's gotten hard to find flour and yeast now, so I figured I'd try propagating the yeast from a previous batch for this one; this is a pâte fermentée (old dough). The use of a pre-ferment is commonly done, with firmer or wetter starters, factory or wild yeast, salt or unsalted: biga, poolish, barm, etc. I'm going to start simply with old dough: maybe later I'll try it with a purpose-made pre-ferment or a wild yeast sourdough starter.

I reserved 100 g from my last pizza dough, an Italian 00 flour base with 70% hydration and about 2% salt (bakers percent). I froze it for a couple weeks, and it revived happily when brought to room temperature. I'll use this as my starter, instead of adding yeast, and save some of this batch to start the next. This keeps the math and procedure easy, since I don't have to worry about different hydrations in the pre-ferment versus the final dough: both are 70% and contain salt.

This time, I'll try something else new for me: give the flour and water a mix and overnight rest to allow the enzymes to break down some starches, which should improve flavor; keep the salt out of this rest so it doesn't inhibit the enzymatic reaction.

We've got some Whole Wheat flour that needs attention, so I'll add some of that into the mix for flavor. I use my usual high-hydration, low-knead, long rise technique. Here goes!

100 g  Pre-fermented Dough, 70% hydration, salted, frozen
800 g  All Purpose Flour (King Arthur, 11.7% protein)
200 g  White Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur, 13% protein)
700 g  Water
 20 g  Salt, Kosher

Bring the fermented dough saved from a previous batch out of the freezer and put in the fridge to thaw.
Mix the Flours and Water, cover and let sit at room temperature overnight to let the enzymes break down starches to sugars; you can just leave this sitting in your mixer's bowl for convenience.
The next day, add the Salt to the rested Flour and Water.
Cut the saved, fermented dough into bits and mix into the bowl with Flour, Water and Salt.
Mix to combine well: I use a Kitchen Aid with dough hook, but use a minimal knead.
Put into a plastic bucket with lid and leave at room temperature to let the pre-fermented dough activate.
Once it's risen a bit, put in the fridge to rise (ferment) until doubled for one to three days. The longer and slower the rise, the more flavor will be extracted from the flour.
Take the dough out of the fridge a few hours before you plan to bake, to allow it to warm to room temperature.

Reserve 100 g of this actively fermenting dough in a tub for the next batch!  Put in in the fridge if you'll bake again soon, or the freezer if more than a few days.

Divide remaining dough into two balls and shape -- as a miche, boule, baguette, whatever you like; cover and let rise.
I'm going to make a miche in a "cloche", because the intense heat and trapped moisture give a good rise and crust with little effort.
I find it convenient to rise the shaped rounds on parchment in a mixing bowl, so I can use the paper as a sling to transfer them into the hot pots.
Pre-heat the oven to 500F with a pair of heavy lidded pots; I use a Le Creuset Dutch Oven and a clay Rummertopf.
When the bread's risen, carefully remove the pots from the oven, remove the lids, and transfer the dough on their parchment slings into the pots; replace the lid and put back in the oven.
Bake for about 30 minutes; the hot environment and trapped moisture will give a good oven spring.
Remove the lids, and bake another 30 minutes at 400F so the center bakes through.
Remove pots, transfer bread to cooling racks.
Enjoy the sound of the crust cracking as it cools.

Results: disappointing, yeast exhausted?

The pre-ferment revived nicely, rising in its tub, and the bread rose well, initially, but after a punch-down and redistribute, it failed to rise much in the final rise. The only reason I can imagine this happened is that the dough had over-risen, and when punched-down, there wasn't enough food left for the yeast to eat and rise again.

This resulted in rather flat loaves. The short stature was also abetted by splitting the dough into two cloches so they spread rather than rose; I should have put the entire batch into one cloche for more loft. 

I'll try this again, but will try to watch my timing so that the pre-ferment is very active, and I don't over-rise the dough; maybe don't bother with a punch-down, just shape and rise for the cloche.

Mahi Mahi Pil Pil #2 sous vide: lower temperature, less oil

We discovered that Mahi Mahi releases the emulsifier (like Bacalao) that builds the creamy Pil Pil sauce. This time, we'll try lower fish-friendly temperature and less oil, since the sauces expands like a mayonnaise. We're using sous vide again to control the temperature and minimize oil; this turned out very well.

Mahi Mahi with Pil Pil sauce, served with asparagus and patatas bravas

Our previous work with Bacalao and Mahi Mahi used temperatures from 90C/194F down to 65C/150F, and this time we'll go to 60C/140F.  We got a vacuum packed pair of filets, skin on; we believe the emulsifier is under the skin, but cannot prove it. We freeze a bit of oil, and vacuum bag it with the fish, traditional garlic and chili. It doesn't take long, about 30 minutes.

312 g       Mahi Mahi, as 2 skin-on filets
100 ml      Olive Oil
  4 cloves  Garlic
  2 whole   Chili
            Salt

Put 50 ml of Oil into 2 bowls and freeze hard so it doesn't get sucked out when vacuuming the bag.
Chill the filets of fish in the freezer so they won't lose water when vacuuming, or leave frozen if they came that way.
Use two vacuum bags, and place a filet in each, with a frozen Oil puck, 2 cloves Garlic, 1 Chili each; seal.

Cook the bags in a sous vide bath heated to 60C/140F for 30 minutes.
Strain off the oil into a tall narrow container like a skinny glass: you hopefully should have some white proteins, the precious emulsifier; let it settle out and slurp the protein into a small bowl or glass with a turkey baster.

Note the protein, the emulsifier, settling to the bottom

Building the emulsion

Leave the fish in the bags, hanging in the water to keep warm for service.
In a warm skillet, whisk the protein to whip in air; after a while -- about 5 minutes -- it should start foaming.
Drizzle in some of the fishy oil, a little at a time, and whip until you form an emulsion.

The sauce has incorporated most the oil and come together beautifully

Continue adding oil and building the sauce; if it starts to thicken, whisk in some warm water; season with salt as you whisk. We used all the oil from the bags and it made a proper amount.
Plate the fish, top with the sauce, add the garlic and chili as a garnish.

Results, Next Time

The texture of the fish came out well at this low temperature, but the thicker piece could have used a little more time under the skin. 

The skin on this fish was a distraction, it was soggy but a bit chewy; next time, remove the skin while the fish is raw but put it in the sous vide bag because we believe that's where most of the emulsifier is. (I think it would be more difficult to remove the skin after cooking, as the fish is fragile, and it would cool down.)

This was a perfect amount of Pil Pil sauce, so the reduced oil was the right proportion.

Consider adding some lemon juice to the Pil Pil in addition to the water too give it some zing; maybe this violates some Basque law...

Pizza party indoors: stone, cast iron, quarry tiles

We are jonesing for a pizza party but COVID-19 quarantine's put the kibosh on having a big group over, so we improvised indoors. We experimented with a pizza stone, cast iron griddle, and quarry tiles to see which produced the best crust.

Irene stuffed cheese in the crust, kinda fun actually

I made my usual pizza dough with Italian 00 pizza flour and a hydration of 70%: 500 g flour, 350 ml water, a teaspoon of yeast, and a tablespoon of kosher salt. The dough looked a bit dry, so I added a touch more water, but this turned out to make the dough a little too slack. We let it rise overnight in the fridge as we always do. In the morning, we divided and put individual balls in oiled plastic containers for the day to rise slightly.

An hour before baking, I heated the oven as high as it would go, 550F plus convection. I have a big heavy pizza stone on the bottom shelf, a thick cast iron griddle in the middle, and lined the top shelf with quarry tiles. Each pizza would sit on a hot surface and also be heated from the hot mass above. I let the oven preheat for about an hour so all the thermal mass would come up to temperature.

Top: quary tiles; middle: cast iron griddle; bottom: pizza stone

The dough in the containers slipped out easily so were a breeze to shape. We topped them then put them in the oven and compared the crust.

Irene topping the first pizza, done on cast iron griddle, middle shelf

Our pizzas took 4-5 minutes, compared to 1-2 minutes in the pizza oven. None of these puffed up like they do in our outdoor pizza oven, which gets to 800-1000F. We were surprised that the griddle produced the best crust. It was much less expensive, and more versatile, than the very heavy and thick pizza stone. The inexpensive quarry tiles did OK, probably about equal to the stone. Lesson learned: save your money, you don't need the pizza stone.

Nice browning on Irene's pizza, done on the cast iron griddle

Why didn't our pizzas puff? It may be that my extra hydration made them too slack, not enough structure. The lack of heat and thermal density may also have contributed. But we also realized that we didn't let the dough rest covered after shaping into balls, as we do outside.

Chris pizza done on stone

Chris' pizza on quarry tiles

While these pizzas were a far cry from the puffy, silky Neapolitan style pies we get from the outdoor oven, it was definitely quite good, and worth doing again.

Next time we do this inside, I won't be tempted to add water to my 70% hydration, and we'll let the shaped balls rise covered before stretching and topping.  I might move the stone to the top shelf and put our other cast iron griddle in the oven.

Pesto, fresh oregano, kalamata olives, bell peppers, mozza -- really tasty