35 posts tagged “baking”
Pizza is one of those things I'd like to get really good at. And reading the Breadmaker's Apprentice has helped. You've gotta have a good dough, for a good pizza. Slowing things down in the fridge for a day or two (probably more) allows the yeast to work its magic, and create a bread that actually tastes really nice — because it's not just the toppings that makes the pizza. The bread itself is very important.
Here's a shot of the underside — it's important (I think), to get a good crust. I don't like floppy pizzas. I mean, I'll eat Roundtable occasionally, but real pizza is different from that. Well, that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. =)
But it's damn good eats, mind you.
Still, I had originally intended to blacken the salmon before adding it to the sauce -- I just ran out of time -- so I might yet have another attempt at this.
There's just nothing better than collective cooking... When friends get together and cook together, that's the ticket, in my opinion. And if your friends happens to be better cooks than yourself, well, that doesn't hurt, either, heheheh.
This was another naan attempt by me. And they were quite decent. It seems that every time I make naan, I make some sort of mistake -- which is a good thing, since you only learn from mistakes. Like chess. But nevermind about the naan; the kebabs were the showpiece of this meal. These kind of minced meat kebabs are amazing. I encountered them first at Abdul's Takeaway in Manchester; as Seekh Kebabs -- that is, lamb.
Essentially, seekh kebabs are the equivalent of hamburgers -- uncomplicated, ground meat products. The only reason why us Westerners end up adoring foods like this, is because the equivalent food in our culture has become so commercialized, homogenized, trivialized and generally bastardized, that they no longer taste very good. (I mean, hell, I make hamburgers, and I'd put 'em up against any McTurdburger, any day of the week -- and I don't even think my burgers are all that spectacular, to be honest.)
The naan was -- as always -- very interesting. They tasted great. But the damn tile shattered. I initially did my naan on a pizza stone, in the weber kettle grill, but the poor ol' pizza stone eventually cracked. So I started doing them in the oven (on a much better pizza stone, that I didn't dare risk using on the grill). But as good as I thought my naan got in the oven, I still thought it'd be better over a genuine charcoal grill. So I went back to the grill, but using some cheap tiles.
The problem with a grill and a pizza stone/tile is, it heats up too fast, and cools down too fast -- and there's nothing much you can do about it. Or at least nothing that I've thought of, so far. I heat the coals up in a chimney, so when I spread those out and put the griddle on, and the tile/pizza stone, things get very hot, very fast. In an oven, the heating up process would be a lot slower. After the naan is cooked, I'd remove the tile/stone -- and that'd cool it down very rapidly also; much faster than what you'd get in an oven (the reason why I'd normally remove them, is because I'd cook something else on the grill, after the naan were done).
This time around, I learned two things about naan: you've gotta oil the dough before you rest it in the fridge. I read that the dough should be covered with oil so that it could expand without getting stuck to anything, but this sounded kinda dumb to me. I was right. But there is another reason why the dough should be covered with oil -- so that it won't develop a "skin." I rest my dough in a "tupperware" type container, which I figured would eliminate any coagulated skin problem -- I was wrong. Covering the dough with oil is important.
The second thing I learned was, there really is no need to do any fancy-pants hand-stretched forming of the dough. Roll the stuff out with a standard rolling-pin (or a freakin' wine bottle -- it makes no nevermind) -- if your dough is good, and it has had time to do its magic, you can roll it hard and rough, and it'll expand and puff up wonderfully. Even on shattered tiles. I'm getting a hang on this whole naan business, methinks. :)
Another great recipe from America's Test Kitchen. It's very similar to a quiche, but it's less "eggy" -- and it holds a helluva lot of caramelized onions, which really makes a difference. I'm not sure if the crust is all that different though -- I'd better go check my recipes, I guess. Mind you, the way America's Test Kitchen works, there probably is no difference, and French Tart is merely America's Test Kitchenise for quiche.
Was seriously considering adding some of that salmon that I smoked (well, really just slow cooked), but I'd done eated it all, I did. Oh well.
Those little cherry tomatoes look great, with the green inside 'em. Should have added some sour cream alongside it, with the scallions.
It was just a matter of convenience, but I was curious to see how the dough would react to being put back in the fridge for storage, after the whole proofing process.
One noticeable difference was that the -- oh, I'm not sure what the word is, elasticity or whatnot -- of the dough was such that it tore a lot easier. It wasn't as sturdy. So I got some holes -- you can see the hole at the top there, with the two, charred bits on either side. But below it, there is another "tear," except it doesn't go all the way through the naan. The rest of the naan is also marked by a lot of similar, irregular tears all over its surface. It seems the integrity, or sturdiness (or whatever the right culinary term is) was adversely affected by this prolonged storage. This had no negative affect on the taste of the naan though. And it actually had a positive affect on the surface texture -- I like a slight crust on my naans, and a variation in thickness of the bread itself, as well as an irregular surface texture is really very nice.
Well, this bread was anything but deflated and dense. In fact, it was far airier and fluffy than the one I stretched. It didn't have the interesting, pock-parked crust -- but then again, it didn't have holes surrounded by carbonized dough, either.
This was extremely interesting to me, since shaping the dough with a rolling pin is FAR easier than stretching it by hand. I rolled it out fairly thinly, but I didn't want to take it too far, in case it would burn. Turns out I was too timid -- this naan actually ended up fluffing up and becoming far thicker than the stretched naan. Also, it developed some of those typical bubble puff-ups that restaurant naans have.
I guess I'll go back to rolling them again next time around -- and I'll try not to be timid about rolling them really thin.
Man, you learn something every time you cook. Unless you're smart enough to get it right the first time around of course, but what fun is that? :)
This particular bread was used to accompany a Meen Kari, which is a very aromatic, and slightly hot fish soup (at least this recipe is -- there are variations). And what I wanted, was a thick naan, to soak up the soup. Shaping a naan is just about as important (and, I have discovered -- as difficult) as all the other elements that goes into creating the thing. In a way, I guess it's pretty much like shaping a pizza dough. The consistency and general attributes of the dough itself obviously influences what you can actually do to the dough. I'm reasonably confident (but by no means certain) that my dough is right at this point -- but my abilities to shape it leaves a few things to be desired. This is a little frustrating: I didn't realize I'd have to become a pizza pie-tossing, juggling acrobat just to create a simple naan bread.
I think this certainly is better than a typical restaurant naan. The air-bubbles in the crumb are bigger, which creates a lighter, fluffier feel to it. The crust is crispy. But most important of all, the crumb has an actual taste to it.
I fear I may have gone too far with this one... It's like Mr. Angelfood meets Mr. Cheesycake. Luckily, I screwed the crust up by trying to incorporate bittersweet chocolate morsels, in addition to the honey graham crackers, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon. The chocolate made the crust dense, bitter, and dry. And that's a good thing, or else I'd risk people trying to suck down three or four of these buggers for pudding.
Update: Okay, here's my recipe. This is the result of a LOT of experimentation. I may add a step-by-step demo with pictures at a later date.
This is an extremely light and fluffy cheesecake. The "secret" to it, is to beat the egg whites separately from the rest of the batter, and to use more egg whites than yolks.
I use a traditional springform pan for my cheesecakes. Some people use a shallow tart pan, which I admit results in a quite elegant, petite cake -- but it'll only yield about eight servings, compared to about twenty for my springform cake. And it's the same amount of work, so you do the math... Besides, going through the effort of creating an excellent cheesecake, only to end up with no leftovers is just too traumatic to contemplate.
The crust is flavored. This is important. Too many commercial cheesecakes have these boring crusts that brings nothing to the party.
For the crust:
1 package Graham Crackers (These typically come in a box with three packages, total weight 14.4oz, so that's about 4.8oz for one package).
3 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons melted butter (more if needed)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF.
2. Before opening the package, crush the crackers with your hands. Then pour it into a food processor and pulse it until you have coarse crumbs -- don't overdo it, or else the crust will become too dense.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse it a few more times. Make sure there is enough butter to make the mixture stick together.
4. Brush the bottom of a spring-form pan with melted butter (to prevent it from sticking), and add the mixture.
5. Press the mixture into the pan -- I use the bottom of a glass, and then a spoon around the edges.
6. Bake in oven for approx 12 minutes, and let cool.
For the filling:
3 8oz packs of cream cheese
7 eggs
1 cup white sugar (or more, according to taste)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Preheat oven to 200ºF.
2. Separate egg yolks and whites, but discard two of the yolks (otherwise, it will become too rich. If you like it rich, only discard one yolk -- but using an equal amount of yolk and whites makes it too rich for my taste).
3. Beat the cream cheese until smooth (I use a hand-held electric mixer, but obviously a big, standing mixer works just as well.)
4. Add everything else, except the egg whites. Beat until smooth.
5. Clean your mixer and beat the egg whites until stiff peaks.
6. Add egg whites to the cream cheese mixture and mix thoroughly with a spatula. You do not want to merely FOLD it in gently, as this would leave you with patches of just egg white in the cake -- it has to be mixed until it is completely homogeneous. Yes, a lot of the air will be mixed out of the egg whites -- but enough will remain to ensure a fluffy texture.
7. Brush the sides of the spring-form pan with melted butter.
8. Pour mixture into pan, until it fills it to the top (there may not be enough room for all of the mixture).
9. Bake for 2 hours at 200ºF (for a browned surface, increase to 300º during the last 10-15 minutes).
10. Place on a rack to cool for 2 hours, covered with aluminum foil to slow down the cooling process. Then, chill overnight in the refrigerator.
11. To help release the cake from the pan, heat a thin knife with hot water from the tap, and then run the knife around the edge of the pan.
Serving suggestion: I like to add some fruit jelly, preserve or sauce -- strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, plum etc.
This recipe intentionally overfills the pan, making the cake balloon up almost like a soufflé. However, it will shrink back to its normal size as it cools -- but it won't shrink so much that it starts pulling away from the walls of the pan, causing unsightly cracks in the surface (this was an accidental discovery).
I've settled down with a recipe that combines a CIA recipe with one from Cooking for Engineers, with various modifications. The CIA recipe creates a very thin or low cake, which I'm sure is fine if you're a professional who makes half a dozen cakes in a batch, but if you only make one, it takes almost no extra effort to create a bigger cake that will give you twenty servings, rather than ten. So I increased the ingredients; almost doubling them. I think I can safely double them, now.
Another thing I learned this time around, is that there's a very good reason why some recipes calls for using fewer egg yolks, than egg whites: it creates a lighter flavor. One of my goals has been to create a light and fluffy cake (hence my whisking the egg whites separately, into stiff peaks, and folding them in). I just thought it would be a shame to throw away egg yolks, so I decided to keep them in. This created a really rich flavor -- which is nice; nothing wrong with that -- but it wasn't what I was looking for.
Well, I think I'm getting close to my perfect cheesecake...
The recipe calls for 25-35 dried chilies, without making ANY comments as to what kind of chilies are to be used -- exactly how hot should they be? If I used 25-35 dried chilies of the variety I've got, the meal wouldn't be edible (I used 10, which turned out to be pretty close to the upper limit for my dinner crowd -- fiery, indeed).
But the rest of the ingredients (both green AND black cardamom, and a helluva lot of cloves) just didn't work for me. Oh well, they can't all be Cadillacs.
What DID work though, was the naan. I'm starting to get this feeling as if I kinda know what I'm doing with these suckers, at this point. Making bread is (I think) just about the absolute pinnacle of cooking: cold hard knowledge and technique, artistry, and pure fecking magic. But unlike cooking a meal, I feel like there's still an awful lot more to understand, even if I get it right once or twice... If I get a meal right just once, I most often feel fairly confident that I can recreate it -- and I'm mostly right. But with bread, it's a different story. Still, I have hopes that I'll truly figure it all out. And I'll share it, of course.
