Quarantine Cooking

[Charly]

[...] so today I made a batch of Pain de Campaigne, a French bread, for her.

In France, we call it "pain de campagne"
You made a mouth watering meal ! Congratulations.

 

[plantdude]

What do you think is appropriate mulch? I was thinking straw.

@GreenDragon is correct - anothing that keeps it from freezing. Straw, shredded bark, wood chips, pine needles, etc. think light and fluffy and something that won't hold a lot of water. Wrap the whole mess with a thin rag or piece of burlap to keep it from blowing away.

@GreenDragon is also correct about it being brisket season - now I want some!

 

[GreenDragon]

Burbure chicken and rice with fresh corn fritters.

 

[deluxestogie]

Are the corn fritters just fried cornbread (or muffin) dough?

Bob

 

[GreenDragon]

Are the corn fritters just fried cornbread (or muffin) dough?

Bob

Kind of: I took three whole ears of corn and cut the kernels from the cobs. Mixed 1 cup stone ground corn meal with 1.5 cups boiling water and let sit for 10 minutes to hydrate. While that was sitting I sautéed the fresh corn in a skillet in butter salt and pepper until slightly colored. I then mixed the corn into the hydrated cornmeal, added an egg, a half cup of flour, and some milk to thin. Then fried up in a cast iron skillet. These are great with anything but especially crumbled into a bowl of chili, bean soup, or stew on a cold night. I personally love them with butter and cane syrup as a side dish.

When I don’t have fresh corn frozen or canned works well too. Normally I would have made a green veg to go with the chicken and rice, but then I remembered the corn in the fridge from last week, so I needed to cook them before they went bad. Oh darn!

 

[deluxestogie]

Dinner tonight was waffles (made in the toaster) and bacon. As soon as I turn the bacon, I start the toaster. I knew the bacon was ready when my kitchen smoke detector began to permanently damage my high-frequency hearing.

Margarine and syrup complete the meal. [Sorry about the late photo.] The spoon allows me to cut both waffles and the crispy bacon, as well as scavenge the extra syrup.

Bob

 

[GreenDragon]

Son #2 announced tonight that he wanted to make apple fritters. Oh darn, time for a cooking lesson!

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I don't really know what I was expecting when I bought a case of unfermented olives. This is going to be a big ordeal.

Basically, 2tbsp salt per litre, changed three times. I'll probably go triweekly. Then marinated in various tasty things.

I did one big jar, once. I got this.

 

[GreenDragon]

Tonight's repast is beef chili with corn cakes. Stew beef was coated in S&P and flour and browned in peanut oil. Then sautéed onions, celery, and garlic in the leftover oil, deglazed with red wine, added a can of chopped tomatoes with chipotle, two cans of kidney beans, and spices (chili powder, etc.), then low simmered for 4 hours till beef was tender. Turned out very good!

 

[GreenDragon]

Tonight we dined on fresh bread, pan fried pork chops, green beans, and red wine poached pears for dessert. The vultures descended on dinner before I could get a pic. Here’s the bread though:

 

[GreenDragon]

Waste not!

I made some blueberry liquor over the weekend: Filled a quart mason jar with crushed blueberries, cranberries, a few dark cherries, a piece of lemon peal, and 1/4 sugar. Fill with vodka and let sit 3-5 days. Drain fruit, filter the liquid, and enjoy.

Lots of flavor left in those berries though, so I cooked them down and made pan fried pocket pies. Yum!

 

[deluxestogie]

Never eat pocket pies and drive!

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Breaded and Fried canned Sardines (in oil)
with homemade tartar sauce and poor man's squshpuppies.

I'm missing some ingredients. Improvise!

Canned sardines are excellent nutrition that stores forever, but only occasionally appear appetizing enough for me to open a can. These have been dredged through seafood breading mix, then pan fried. This can of sardines bore the shortest "best by" date: 2023.

For the squshpuppies, I mixed up part of a bag of Martha White cornbread mix (just add water), with herbs and spices, and fried tablespoon dollops of it as well.

The tartar sauce is mayo, mustard, diced capers, anchovy paste (less than the amount of toothpaste you would put on a toothbrush), diced homemade pickles, garlic, herbs, spices, more garlic, and a few drops of lemon juice. No added salt--it's got a ton.

An egg in the squshpuppy mix would stick it all together better, but maybe next time. (This time, I cheated, and sprinkled a bit of cigar glue into the mix! Thanks, Don.) And the tartar sauce is missing diced black olive. Sigh.

Finally, I have plenty of bread flour and packets of yeast. I do have 7 month old sourdough starter that I've been nurturing all these months. The sourdough starter smells wonderful, but as the only leavening in a bread mix, it takes up to 2 days to adequately rise, which is longer than my baking attention span. I guess I should bake some bread one of these days. I'll probably use a combination of the starter plus the commercial yeast.

Bob

 

[GreenDragon]

An active starter will rise bread ready to bake in 3-5 hours. Just wake it up a day or two before you are ready to bake: throw half away, add back fresh water, flour etc and leave in a warm area. For a strong starter refresh it once a month.

 

[deluxestogie]

You say, "an active starter...", as though that's a specific thing. My sourdough starter can sit at room temp for two days, and definitely show trapped bubbles, but not a whole lot, and not much rising. I refrigerate it, then bring it out to the kitchen counter for 24 hours, then refresh it weekly. Crummy microbes. I've mixed in whole wheat flour, bleached bread flour, masa harina, sometimes sugar. It's just not impressed with my efforts.

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

You say, "an active starter...", as though that's a specific thing. My sourdough starter can sit at room temp for two days, and definitely show trapped bubbles, but not a whole lot, and not much rising. I refrigerate it, then bring it out to the kitchen counter for 24 hours, then refresh it weekly. Crummy microbes. I've mixed in whole wheat flour, bleached bread flour, masa harina, sometimes sugar. It's just not impressed with my efforts.

Bob

I have the same problem. I’ve seen others roiling around like a hot 70’s lava lamp but mine isn’t that active nor is the rise very impressive.

 

[GreenDragon]

You say, "an active starter...", as though that's a specific thing. My sourdough starter can sit at room temp for two days, and definitely show trapped bubbles, but not a whole lot, and not much rising. I refrigerate it, then bring it out to the kitchen counter for 24 hours, then refresh it weekly. Crummy microbes. I've mixed in whole wheat flour, bleached bread flour, masa harina, sometimes sugar. It's just not impressed with my efforts.

Bob

Sorry about that. What I mean by "active" is a starter that has come out of the fridge, been "refreshed" (thrown half away & topped up with fresh flour, water, etc), and has resumed bubbling. As long as you don't put it back in the fridge, it will stay in an "active" state, i.e. ready to start munching on a food source, for about 5-7 days, then should be either "refreshed" or put in the fridge. I usually only refresh ours about once a month.

Note: if you are in a hurry and still want that sourdough flavor, you can take the sleepy starter out of the fridge, and refresh it. But don't throw the discarded half away; use it to make bread. Just add a packet of yeast to the dough. There is a lot of sourdough flavor packed in that resting starter, the longer in the fridge, the more concentrated.

And remember, yeast don't like the cold. Anything below 75F they really slow down. One trick I like to use in the winter is to put my starter or dough in the oven and place a pan of boiling water on the oven floor. This creates a moist warm enviro that the yeast love. Just reheat the water occasionally as necessary.

 

[GreenDragon]

Sourdough Rolls - Start to Finish

I got quite a few questions this week regarding my sourdough. My eldest Son, Thing #1, is coming over for dinner tonight with girlfriend and grand-cats, and they requested Sausage and Hamburgers for dinner. So I decided to thoroughly document the process in case anyone is interested in the nuances of the dark art of sourdough.

Our sourdough was "started" 10/31/2010 (will be 10 years old tomorrow!). It lives in the refrigerator, not the counter, in a quart mason jar. At least once a month we remove it from the fridge and refresh it. This may mean we make bread, or we just refresh it and stick it back in the fridge.

There is an infinite variety of bread recipes. Today I'm making hamburger and hotdog buns. For us horrible Americans, this means a soft, fluffy bun. How do you get that using sourdough? Keep reading...

So last night around 9pm'ish I got the starter out of the fridge. I dumped the supernatant (liquid floating at the top) and replaced it with non-chlorinated water, stirred it up, and dumped the whole mess into a bowl. I added a couple Tablespoons of powdered milk and instant mashed potatoes, a cup of flour, and non-chlorinated water to make a loose paste, and covered it with a shower cap. (Don't judge me! I got this tip from a professional chef. You can use saran wrap or a kitchen towel, but this is very convenient.) It was then placed in a safe (from the cats) location to wake up overnight.



The (mostly) empty mason jar goes back into the fridge. Do not wash it! Why? Because this is your insurance. There are billions of yeast and bacteria clinging to the inside of the jar that you can use to resurrect your starter if something bad happens while you are using it.

This morning I found a lovely bubbly starter, and could smell a nice fermenting/alcohol odor wafting up.



I divided the starter into two parts; half into my mixing bowl, and half back into the mason jar to return to the fridge.



To make soft fluffy bread you usually "fortify" it with fats and proteins. So, to the starter in the mixing bowl I added a cup of warm milk, 2 Tbsp of melted butter, and an egg yolk. I then added enough flour to form a medium firm dough. You will know you've added enough flour when the dough ball starts cleaning the sides of the bowl and starts climbing up the dough hook. If you are kneading by hand, you will be able to tell by the feel of the dough. I remove the hook and put the shower cap back on.



The house was 62F this morning, which is too cold to make bread in a reasonable time. So for the first rise I placed the bowl in the middle of the oven and put a pot of boiling water on the bottom of the oven and closed the door. This incubated for an hour.



I punched the dough down and divided it into 12 equal (mostly, too lazy to weigh it like the wife does) pieces, and formed hamburger and hotdog bun shapes. These went back into the warm oven to proof (about 45 minutes).



Ready to bake!



Fresh from the oven. (375F for 15 minutes)

 

[deluxestogie]

Excellent narrative. Thank you.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Today, after a multi-day ordeal with my sourdough starter, that included 48 hours of warming, and with a last resort of adding a packet of commercial bread yeast (properly reactivated) during the final 6 hours, I carried the resulting "bread" to the edge of my yard, and donated it to the local wildlife.

I have failed.

Bob

EDIT: I actually sat on my porch, and watched several critters approach it, then continue their foraging for something that is edible.