Bread Test Run

This weekend, I will be attending a gathering of fellow BBQ enthusiasts from around the Northern California and surrounding states. I offered to provide bread dough, which, means I had to get a biga started. I did that today, it will sit out for a few days, hopefully improving during that time. I started this one with commercial yeast, active powder type, two packages, along with one cup of honey pale ale and 1/2 cup warm water. I like to not use chlorinated water, but, I didn't plan well. Here is the active Biga after 3 hours.

I decided to take this and run a test, so I added 1 cup of it to 3 cups of flour, 2 cups of bread flour and one cup of AP flour. I also added 1 teaspoon of active dry yeast, since the Biga is very young. This was combined and mixed until tight. I then kneaded it in the bowl for 5 minutes, until it pulled from the sides cleanly.

Onto the granite, some light flouring, since I use a highly hydrated dough, I can use up to 1/2 cup flour during kneading. I need this. (get it? :-p) Anyways, I then decided to get lazy, stuffed it into the bowl of the Kitchenaid and put the dough hook on. Three 5 minutes bursts for kneading with 2 minute rests and the dough was ready for a final few minutes by hand. There is no substitute for this. The last 4 to 5 minutes must be by hand, as you can feel the dough become softer and silkier. This is how to tell when it is time to rest the dough. I was going to make 4 small rolls, which changed after I got home and saw the rise. Here are the little balls.

So, this decision resulted in my having rather poorly formed loaves. Oh well, a bad decision. I tried to recombine the balls into two loaves, which I spread with some garlic sauteed in olive oil, some fresh cracked Phu Quoc black pepper and some kosher salt. I get the black pepper from Rob at Red Boat Fish Sauce. It is a great spice. The loaves were cooked at 450F in the oven for 35 minutes, sort of. I checked it and pulled it when it hit 200F internal temperature. Here is what came out.

As you can see, not pretty loaves at all. But, lookie inside.

Since I make the dough without salt, which I believe gives a better texture, as salt is toxic to yeast. I add the kosher salt to the dough before I shape it, it gives a more capriocious saltiness, as the kosher salt doesn't dissolve that much during cooking. Each bite will be a bit different, the bread evolves with each bite. The idea of a salt-less dough may seem odd, but, it is not so unusual when you look at traditional beads, such as those made in Tuscany. At one time, salt was very expensice and bread was for the masses.

This bread had a fine crumb, a soft elastic tooth and a crisp crust. You could hear it cracking as it cooled. There was the expected richness of the garlic and olive oil, the punch of the black pepper and kosher salt varying with each bite. A very good loaf.

My Other Life

This past weekend, I got to visit an old project I worked on years ago in Benicia, California. Back in 1993, the firm I worked for got hired to administer and be the on-site representative for a project that would eventually become the Benicia Community Park. While the design landscape architect was another firm, I was on site daily to insure that the City's interests were protected. To that degree, I had the influence on several occasions to affect design of some site elements. One of the elements that required some 'site engineering' were these cooking grills. I made some 'tweeks' to make sure these units would last, were more functional and easily maintained. It was good to see that after 18 years of use, they function as well now as they did when new.

There are four of these units, each with the capacity to cook very large meals. The grates easily adjust up and down and will hold their adjustments perfectly. The actual mechanisms were designed and manufactured by a now defunct local company, what a great product that guy was making. I posted this at the BBQ Brethren forum and someone made a comment about all of the good food and good times shared around these. I am sure there have been many. But, this put in my mind, at this partucluar intesection of my two passions, cooking and landscape architecture, why I am still, after 30 years, passionate about what I do for a living. I have designed and worked on multi-million dollar residential estates, fabulous corporate campuses and some very interesting one-off buildings. But, my passion has always been park, school and playground design.

As cool as these grills are, and as cool as all the food I have cooked, and as much as I love when folks tell me that they love my food, it all pales to when I walk onto a park I worked on or designed and I see a dozen kids playing and laughing.

In fact, far beyond the food from these pits and all of the families that might have enjoyed them. I am a landscape architect whose passion has been designing parks, playgrounds and ballfields for public use. I have hated nearly every fabulous corporate campus or high end residential as a necessary evil to satisfy my need for earning a living. But, when I work on a park project, I know that for the next 20 to 30 years, and maybe even more, thousands of children will pass through each of them, laughing and playing, maybe making their first team, scoring their first goal or maybe just getting away from a real world that holds nothing but sadness for them.

I was recently asked why I have no passion for the 'art' of landscape architecture and I gave a useless answer. But, in truth, I have little use for the high end of design just for the sake of art, I am happy to leave that to other people. I have done probably close to 250 parks, schools and playgrounds over the last 30 years, multiply that by even just a 1000 kids per park (and that is probably a very low number) and I have fed the soul and joy of over a 300,000 children and they have fed my soul back everytime I go to any park and think about it all.

Yeah, I like these grills and they are terrific to cook on, but, they are all about fun for me. They are just a small part of a larger whole that has meant far more to me. When I took these photos, my nephew was with me, he wasn't even born when I did this work. He was quite taken and my nephew thought the whole park, especially the baseball fields, were amazing. My work never fails to enrich me in ways money has never done.

My name is Bob, I am a landscape architect and I make places were children laugh and play.

Four Ingredient Challenge

It's that time of the month again, The Four Ingredient Challenge, wherein, I cook a meal using ingredients that I would never use together to make a meal. This month the ingredients are:

Tofu
Melon
Peas
Potatoes

I was not really sure where I was going to take all of this, but, I recently had gone out on a fabulous night to a restaurant named Millenium, in San Francisco, which featured smoked tofu that had a texture and flavor I have not been personally able to recreate, thinking it might be the tofu itself, I decided to buy a Vegan tofu product that was presmoked, one that is common to the type of folks that might eat at a luxurious Vegan restuarant.

Since we are talking ingredients, here are the main players, I found a terrific smelling cantaloupe, which I hope means ripe and sweet, some Organic Yukon Gold potatoes, organic onion and garlic, the aforementioned smoked tofu, frozen peas and a few supporting players, as usual, the Red Boat fish sauce will be along for the ride.

I made two spice blends, both based on a blend of Madras curry powder and a version of Japanese curry powder. In light of the melon and peas, I think a the Japanese curry powder will support the sweet flavors a little more. There is lime powder, dry mustard and chile powder in both, with the potato spice also receiving some dried thyme, which goes great with potatoes. I will also add some of the curry spice mix to the peas.

As to the peas, they were dresses with 1/8 cup of Arbequina olive oil, a splash of cider vinegar and a drizzle of palm syrup. Then one clove of garlic split, kosher salt and some water was added. These were then allowed to sit as the peas thawed. Then a little puree and strain action, and pea sauce is achieved.

Potatoes were sliced, coated with olive oil and spice blend, salted with kosher salt and given a drizzle of fish sauce. Sliced onion and a little bit of fresh garlic was added to bridge some of the flavors. This was all done in a hobo pack to get some cooking and caramelization on the kettle.

I think one of the things I liked about the Millenium dish was the texure of the tofu in small dice, it almost took on a feel of ham chunks. A sort of hobo ragout was my solution. A mixture of carrots, fresh cranberry beans, zuchinni, shiitake, onions, garlic and a drizzle of the olive oil, a splash or two of Red Boat fish sauce and some Phu Quoc black pepper along with the curry seasoning. Since there was to be something of a potato galette to serve over, there didn't seem to be a need for any starch in the 'ragout'.

On to the melon, I could just serve this as melon, or grill it and call it done, but, I really like the idea for these challenges to be integrating the elements in some manner that makes them truly interesting. And I could have gone the savory Asian melon route, but, too easy for me to do that. So, integrating a sweet fragrant melon into a smoked and curried dish it shall be. I decided on a brandied melon 'relish'; essentially heating up 1/2 cup of brandy, adding in some finely diced onion and then cooling it. I added the diced melon and gave it a vigorous stir to combine and then chilled while the hobo packs cook.

I really need to stop plating stuff and just dump it on the plate, I swear it would look better if I just did that. It looked a lot better before I messed around with the pea oil sauce. The brandied melons really worked great with the slightly herbal pea sauce and the smoked tofu ragout was just the right texture and flavor. Here is the better shot...note the lack of plate...

In this shot, you can see the olive oil and pea oil sauce a little more clearly, I really like the cold melon in contrast with the ragout. There are some crunchy beautifully caramlized potatoes in there as well. This is defintely going to be done again.

Larry Gaian of The BBQ Grail - Entry Here
The BBQ Grail website was created in 2007, initially to document the author’s quest to find the perfect backyard BBQ experience. Since that time The BBQ Grail has become one of the more popular BBQ blogs on the internet and is listed on Alltop.com as one of the top BBQ blogs.

Paul Haight of No Excuses BBQ – Entry Here
The No Excuses BBQ website was started in January of 2009 as a way to record the author’s goal of cooking outdoors at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world. Somewhere along the way things got out of control…

Chris Grove of Nibble Me This - Entry Here
Nibble Me This is Chris Grove’s blog about his misadventures in live fire cooking. ”I have no culinary training….I’m just entertaining myself with fire and food”.

Marc Van Der Wouw of Grill Adventures - Entry Here
Grilladventures by broadcastmarc is started on march of 2010.I started the BBQ thing when I was 30,before that we eat a lot outside.have fun,but when the kids came in our life We start serious cooking.Most of it is realy healthy I think;-)The grill has a special place in my heart,We love to do things outside..Everything I make is an adventure,and sometimes we use the books.We try to grill as much as we can year round.

Jerry Russel of Cooking by the Seat of my Pants - Entry Here
Cooking by the seat of my Pants began life as a way to document our culinary misadventures. Since then it has become our way to encourage people to cook without boundaries or recipes. To just get in the kitchen and cook something from the heart.

Better Recipes “The Daily Dish” - Entry Here
Kristina has been writing “The Daily Dish” for www.BetterRecipes.com for the past two years. The blog covers a wide variety of recipes, but firing up the grill truly lights up her passion for food! She was named “America’s Next Pork Personality” by Guy Fieri for one of her grilled pork dishes, won the outdoor grilling division of the National Beef Cook-Off, and her winning grilled lamb-burger took her all the way to the land Down Under with Meat and Livestock Australia. The “4-Ingredient Challenge” is a fun and exciting way to get creative on the grill!

Curt McAdams of Livefire - Entry Here

Livefire cooking is about taking ordinary cooking and adding the flavor of fire to it, whether in high heat grilling, low heat smoking or indirect heat for baking. It’s about taking the primitive element of fire and harnessing it to make great food.

Pulled Pork Overnighter

Well, due to a lack of planning and foresight on my part (I know, can you believe it?) I am now just getting started putting a fire to the kettle and settling the temperature to cook some butts. How did this start you ask, well, it started with Martinis and Manhattans and a certain woman named Blanca and has ended up with me volunteering to do some pork butts for a Friday evening event. Of course, tomorrow would be the one Friday in a month that I am busy all day, so I need to cook them tonight. Here are three mediocre prok butts from the local supermarket.

This kills me primarily because I have two beautiful 10 pound bone-in prok butts in the freezer that I could have used, if I had remembered that I volunteered to cook before tonight at 5pm. I seasoned them up with a mix of my own pork rub and Simply Marvelous Cherry rub, I sure hope this works right. The rub sure looked right.

And then onto the kettle. I am going to run them at 250F for most of the late night and into the wee hours, after that, all bets are off. I should set up the Maverick, which I normally do not use, but, for an overnight, I better get the insurance going in case of pit temperature drop. Pulled them after 9 hours, running at 235F up to 250F, these cooked pretty fast as they were not large and seemed to render quite quickly.

When I pulled one of them, it actually tore into pieces, still, initial testing determined that the butt was cooked perfectly and there was still loads of moisture.

Flat Bread

Tonight, I wanted something simple, so I made some flat bread. A very simple process, using a biga, 65% hydration bread dough with a mix of AP flour and Bread flour to get a nice soft crumb. The dough was made last night and allowed to slow rise overnight. It was lightly kneaded this morning and panned.

The dough was topped with sliced grape tomatoes, chopped celery and garlic, some Todd's Dirt BBQ rub (very herbal), kosher salt and some fresh ground Phu Quoc black pepper. Then it was drizzled with Red Boat fish sauce and local olive oil, Arbequina Olives I believe. Into a 520F oven (yes, no kettle today) and baked for 14 minutes. Ta daaaa!

Randomly chunked up, this bread had a very nice crumb, with a very crisp exterior, thin crust that you could hear crackling as it cooled. The interior crumb was tender with just the right elasticity and pull. The toppings were just right for this type of bread, which was not quite foccacia and not quite ciabatta.

I plated with a dribble of black currant infused balsamic vinegar and some of the olive oil. This bread, with it's herbal and savory components was very nicely offset with the sweet, almost port-like character of the vinegar and the smootness of the olive oil. I could not be happier with the crumb.

Masumoto Farm Peach Pie

Poobah Rib Sandwich

The McRib, modern cultures ridiculous take on the idea of a rib sandwich. Why would anyone think a bunch of formed pork trimmings could stand in for real ribs in any guise. But, what to do with the craving for a rib sandwich? How would one go about making a rib sandwich. Well, presented with this question, Phil Rizzardi, founder and owner of The BBQ Brethren, one of the most popular BBQ and outdoor cooking forums on the 'net decided it was easiest to just slap a rack into a loaf of bread. While this is clearly a good idea, here is my riff, in honor of Phil.

I purchased a rack of baby back ribs, I prefer quality pork so these were selected at my local butcher shop, I was greatly encouraged as when he picked up the rack, it bent in half forming a upside down U. How much easier is it to make tender ribs when starting with tender ribs?

These were given a little prep work, essentially just removing the membrane and washing them off. Then a rub was applied, I went with Simply Marvelous Cherry Rub spread on twice, one an hour before the other, the second application happening just before going onto the kettle. I did grind on some additional Phu Quoc black pepper as well, it just adds a nice punch to everything.

From here, onto the kettle with chunks of peach wood, cooking at 220F initially and ramping up to 250F over about two hours or so. It was then removed and plopped onto some foil. Yep, I foiled my ribs, competition style, which is not something I normally do. But, since this was for Phil, and he loves his competition BBQ, foil it would be.

On the other hand, I am eating them, so I added some coconut palm syrup, some more rub and freshly ground pepper and some Red Boat Fish Sauce and Lucky Dog hot sauce to the foil. The ribs went meat down onto the foil, was wrapped and put back on the cooker for about 45 minutes. Here is came off the kettle after another 45 minutes un-foiled. These looked and smelled great. Initial samples verified that the meat was very tender, the surface was very balanced between sugar, salt, savory and smoke.

Beautiful pink color in that sliced meat, with excellent texture and a pull from the bone texture. I really think anyone would be happy with these ribs, just enough pull to come clean with a slight tug, melt in your mouth texture. Here is the section of the rib slab I selected for dinner, I truly think I could compete with these, but, boned and placed on bread, this was going to be a good dinner.

 

I added some hand sliced apple cabbage slaw to top off the sandwich and clean up the diet by claiming I had veggies with dinner. The slaw was left pretty crunchy and basically seasoned with Phu Quoc black pepper.

I give you the Grand Poobah Ban Me sandwich. (sorry, had to taunt the mods a little here)

This sandwich really did have a great flavor with a nice smooth smoke and very balanced flavor and texture.