Life has been pretty steady recently, but cooking is still coming in spurts. We've had two snowmaggedons here in Atlanta since the new year. Both have resulted in a few days at home, one with a trek to the store to get half n half to fuel my coffee!
Probably the most important thing to happen to me culinarily is that a friend at work gave me a sourdough starter, which I promptly named Boris, despite thinking about it more later and realizing that, of course, a "mother" should be a girl. Too bad. My starter is named Boris.
He lives in an old mayo container with a plastic screw on top. I've been reading about how you should keep your starter in a wide mouth jar or crock, but since he is easy to get out when I need him and it's big enough to dump in flour when I feed him (using the trusty flexible measure I got for Josh), he's good where he is. Except I think his jar needs washing.
Boris lives in the fridge. I feed him 4 oz of King Arthur all-purpose flour and 4 oz of water, heated 15 seconds in the microwave every three weeks or so. If I want to bake with him, I take him out a couple days in advance and feed him the same except every 12ish hours instead.
He seems to be rising quite aggressively to my eyes, and I think I can bake with him after two feedings. I am not sure how true that is.
My first bread baking experiment yielded the picture above, which came out rather well. I took the pain au levain recipe in the King Arthur (KA) book. While I later learned that baguettes are considered rather advanced, it was the only thing I really knew and it sounded like I would want to eat it after I made it.
I had been feeding Boris during the latter snow storm with the intent to make bread, but it all came together randomly. I ended up starting the bread shortly before I had to go out to dinner, which meant that I went through a couple steps only to need to put the dough into the fridge. (It was also after I had decided to give up on the kneading step that my trusty bread consultant found a recipe in the KA forums that recommended kneading in the KitchenAid. Lifesaver!)
That was Thursday. On Friday, Josh came back in town and we went out to dinner. My bread friend recommended taking the dough out and folding it. So I did that and back into the fridge.
Saturday morning, I took the dough out, did some folding exercise, and then left the dough to proof at room temperature. The KA book talked a lot about steaming and heat and such and such. I decided to make using Jim Lahey's method, putting it into a pre-heated dutch oven at 475. I have a Lodge cast iron pot that has up til now been unused, but now it has new purpose!
Bake for 45 min, and then done! This first bread came out well. Nice crust, big holes.
Last week, I made a second bread from start to finish on a Saturday morning. Between all the half hour and hour rises plus the proofing, it took about six hours. And then, it was not quite as good, I feel. I've read a lot about how the time in the fridge enhances the flavor.
I looked back on the community recipe that talked about the KitchenAid kneading. Instead of the 3 hours of rising time and 2 hours of proofing, it cuts the time way way back to about 3 hours total, plus baking time. I'm considering trying this timeline next time, as well as her changes to the recipe, because it has increased hydration which leads to bigger crumb, which is what I like, too.
I do not yet consider myself a baker, but am rather proud -- unlike I've been about anything I've put on the table recently -- of the bread when it comes out of the oven and then when it's finally cooled and been sliced.
In other cooking news, I made a rather nice chicken tagine the other day out of Claudia Roden's Arabesque. We don't normally use chicken for tagines, but that's what they had at Whole Foods. I used the last of my preserved lemons (though Josh believes he spied another jar in the outside fridge). I trimmed the lemon peels this time (which I don't remember ever doing before) so that there was no pith. Josh said it was great.
It's getting on springtime, at least I hope so. We are spoiled to have such a short cold season, but I am definitely tired of it. I have seedlings growing in the Aerogarden: four types of tomatoes (one cherry, one for canning, and two for eating), cucumbers, eggplants, zucchinis, padrons, shishitos, and some herbs. Last time I looked, all but one of the tomato plants (something like 12-16 plants total) have sprouted, and all the veg except the padrons and eggplants. The zucchini are doing so well that I think I will need to transplant them soon with the cucumbers following shortly thereafter.
I have strawberry, potato, and onion plants (seed potatoes actually) arriving this coming week so I will do at least some gardening this weekend. I may sprinkle in some kale and spinach as well and see how it does before the tomato planting begins. We will see how it goes.
Come on, Spring! I'm ready!
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