Simple Elegance

Driving home from work, I was considering the various leftover options I had for dinner, and none of them really appealed to me. I mentally worked my way around the refrigerator, and noticed the buttermilk. Pancakes! But that's a big load of carbs; for dinner I want something to go with it ... how about eggs? But how ... scrambled? Over easy? Some sort of omelette?

Then it hit me ... let's step it up a bit, go for something a little more elegant than just "eggs and pancakes". So I give you, "Oeufs al'Antoine":

Buttermilk Pancakes
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar

2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp butter, melted

Stir the dry ingredients together in one bowl, and the wet in another. Pour the wet onto the dry and stir just enough to bring together. There will be lumps, but that's ok. As Alton always says, "Just walk away." Let the batter rest while your griddle warms up to 350°, then use a 1 oz disher to scoop batter out. Cook the first side until you see bubbles popping on top of the batter, and the edges start to dry. Flip once and cook the other side. Store in a cool oven on a plate or cookie sheet with a towel over the top while you finish cooking the whole batch.

Once the pancakes are all cooked, heat a nonstick skillet with a tight fitting lid over medium to medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, give it a light coating of butter or oil. Depending on the skillet size, crack one or two eggs, doing your best to center the yolks. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on top of the eggs and cover with the lid. In about two minutes or so (depending on the heat) the tops of the eggs should be set. Slide an egg onto each pancake and top with fresh parmesan.

Bon appetit!

Come on down to Tony's Diner!

We're cooking up burgers today! Not just any burgers, but good old fashioned roadhouse "sliders" on fresh baked potato rolls!

To start with, we need the rolls. Good bread takes time, but even so this recipe isn't all that intensive. Mostly it just needs time to rise:

1 pkg (1/4 oz) yeast
1 1/2 cup warm potato water(1)
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup potatoes, mashed(2)
4-5 cups all purpose flour

In the bowl of your stand mixer, proof the yeast in 1/2 cup of the potato water with 1 tbsp of the sugar. Once the yeast is foamy, add the remaining water, sugar, salt, and butter, and beat until well mixed. Add the potatoes and continue mixing for 2-3 minutes. Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time, allowing each addition to fully incorporate before adding the next. At around 3 or 3 1/2 cups, the dough will be thick enough to switch to a dough hook if you have one. Continue adding 1/2 cup of flour at a time until the dough is pulling away from the bowl. Depending on the humidity, this should be at about 4 or 4 1/2 cups.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until you have a smooth, satiny dough. You may have to add up to another 1/2 cup of flour. Once it is smooth, form into a ball and place into a buttered bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours.(3)

When you are ready to continue, take the dough out and punch it down, then let it rest for 10 minutes. Prepare a 9 x 13 baking dish with baking spray or butter.

To prepare the rolls, place the dough onto a cutting board. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into equal sized portions and arrange those portions into your baking dish.(4) Place in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk.(5)

Bake at 400° for 16-20 minutes until golden brown.

Once these babies are in the oven, we start preparing the meat. We're doing regular hamburgers as well as grilled chicken, portioned out to fit nicely on the rolls.

Following Alton Brown's instructions from his "Man Food Show" episode, we roll a pound of ground chuck out nice and thin (using a sheet pan, or just eyeballing the size and shape). We sprinkle the top with kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, and onion and garlic powder, then fold the meat over longways, pat it together, and cut into eight squares with a pizza cutter. Finally we put them on a 350° griddle for 3-4 minutes on a side.

For the grilled chicken burgers, we take a split chicken breast and cut each side into three pieces. The thicker portions get flattened out a bit by folding a piece of waxed paper over each piece, then hitting them with a rolling pin a few times. With a bit of olive oil on the griddle we cook them like the burgers, 4 minutes on a side at 350°.

Each burger is served with a bit of your favorite sauce (mayo is mine), some grilled onions, and a slice of cheese. They're small but packed with flavor! Come on down and order yours now!

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(1) This is the water you cooked the potatoes in.  Since I do a lot of potato bread, I'll boil up five or six potatoes at a time, then portion both the potatoes and the water into baggies (1 cup of potato or water in each) and freeze them so I can get out just as much as I need at baking time.

(2) Don't add any salt or butter. This isn't a side dish, it's an ingredient.

(3) Potato bread is a wondrous thing. It does its first rise in the refrigerator, and you can let this go until the next day, allowing you to prep the dough the day before a big dinner. The next day you just get it out, let it warm up, and pop it in the oven.

(4) For the sliders, I went with 16 fairly large rolls by cutting the dough into halves four times. You could also do 24 more dinner-roll sized rolls by cutting the dough first into thirds, then cutting those into halves three more times.

(5) If you refrigerated for the minimum 2 hours, the second rise should take 40 minutes to an hour. If you refrigerate longer, the rise will take longer as the dough has to warm up, so allow enough time and watch the volume of the rolls. I find it helps to put the oven on "warm" (about 170°) for about 5-10 minutes to create a good rising spot. I cover the pan with a towel a spritz a tiny bit of water onto the towel to keep the top of the dough moist but not wet.

Baketoberfest!

Yesterday I decided that it was time to do some baking. I got my shopping done, washed all the dishes, organized the tupperware, and straightened the kitchen. This morning I got up, emptied the dishwasher, lined up my various ingredients and tools, and started in.

First off I needed breakfast, and two overripe bananas beckoned to me ...

Banana Bread
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 very ripe bananas
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together. In another bowl, cream the butter with the sugar. Add the eggs and bananas and mix well. Combine the lemon juice with the milk (the milk may curdle a bit). Alternately add the flour mix and the milk to the main bowl starting and ending with the flour, stirring well after each addition. Stir in the nuts, then pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the loaf.

Besides the bananas, I had the remains of a pint of strawberries, two plums starting to shrivel up, and an apple. I skinned the apple and plums and diced all the fruit up into their own bowls. Each got 2-3 tablespoons of sugar and bit of flour (plus the apples got some cinnamon) and all got set aside to macerate. Yes indeed, later there will be fruit pies!

While the fruits gave up their juices, I prepared the filling for the meat pies. This is essentially a sloppy joe mix, with a little less liquid than you might use for sandwiches, since I was planning to bake it into pies.

Sloppy Joes
1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 oz tomato paste mixed with 1/4 cup water
1/8 cup ketchup
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp black pepper

Brown the meat in a heavy skillet. Add the onion, celery, and garlic and cook until the onions are clear. Add the remaining ingredients, stir well, and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

This mixture got set aside next to the bowls of fruit while I prepared the pie crust. At this point, my brain went in an odd direction, and I made not one, but two complete batches of the WRONG pie crust recipe ...

Pie Crust #1 (Great for large dish pies, not so good for pocket pies)
6 tbsp butter
2 tbsp shortening
6 oz flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup ice water (preferably in a spray bottle)

Cut the butter and shortening into small pieces and place in the freezer for about 5 minutes. Pulse the flour and salt in a food processor to mix and aerate. Add the butter and pulse 4-5 times to mix. Add the shortening and pulse another 4-5 times. Add water a tiny amount at a time to the processor and pulse 2-3 times after each addition. The best way to do this is by spritzing it from a spray bottle, which adds it as a mist rather than all together. Continue adding water and pulsing until the dough is just wet enough that it holds its shape when you squeeze a ball together into your fist. Once it reaches that point, give one more addition of water, then pour the mixture into a gallon sized zip top bag. Compress the flour mixture into a tight ball, then close the bag and refrigerate for 5 minutes to allow the flour to absorb the water.

Bring the bag out and open the top, but do not remove the ball.  Press it flat in the center of the bag, and then use a rolling pin to roll it out. Once the dough is rolled out to the full size of the bag, use a knife or scissors to open the bag.

I rolled out the first batch of dough and started to cut rounds for the fruit pies ... then when I tried to fold the dough over to seal the pies I noticed it was too dry and flaky ... I managed to get a couple made, but it was clear something was wrong, though I hadn't yet figured out what.  While I pondered that, I decided to make some cookies:

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies with Oatmeal
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 cup sugar
2 weggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips

Cream butter with both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a food processor and pulse several times to mix and aerate. Add in small batches to the creamed butter mix and combine well after each addition. Once everything is well combined, stir in the oats, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips. Use a spoon or a disher (3/4 oz for smaller cookies, 1 oz for larger ones) to drop dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes at 350°.

While baking the cookies, I finally realized that I had been using the wrong pie crust recipe. I found the correct one and made another two batches:

Pie Crust #2 (Awesome for pocket pies)
10 oz flour (about 2 cups)
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 oz shortening
3/4 cup milk
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water

Pulse the flour, baking powder, and salt in a food processor to mix and aerate. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add the shortening and mix with your hands to distribute the shortening through the flour until you get a crumbly texture. Add the milk all at once and stir with a spatula to bring it together. You may have to add a small amount of additional flour to get it dry enough to roll out.

Lightly flour the countertop and roll the dough thinly. The dough will be very springy, and will get more so the longer it rests and even more so when you gather scraps and re-roll for additional pies, so work quickly and carefully.

Cut the dough into disks with a cookie cutter. Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons of your filling into the center of the disk, brush the edges with the beaten egg wash, and fold over. Use the tines of a fork to seal the edges, then dock the pie once or twice with the fork. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350°.

Two batches of this gave me enough to make my meat pies and plum pies.  For the meat pies, I used a 6 inch diameter disk which I filled with 3-4 spoonfuls of the Sloppy Joe mix and about 1 1/2 tablespoons of shredded cheddar. The plum pies went on 4 inch diameter disks, with 1-2 spoonfuls of plums and a little of the juice.

I didn't have enough flour left for another batch of pocket pie dough, so I tried to get creative for the apple and strawberry. I rolled out a batch of the original pie crust and cut it into disks which I used to line the cups of a muffin tin. I spooned apple and strawberry filling into seperate cups and baked it along with the pies.  Unfortunately, the dough didn't really firm up right ... it could be the humidity, might be the small amount of whole wheat flour I used along with the white flour, or maybe the oven temperature (the pie crust would normally have baked at 450°, but I didn't want to change the oven temperature while I was baking everything else). When I tried to remove the tarts from the muffin tins, the dough just disintegrated.  So I just dumped it all into two bowls (one for the apple, one for the strawberry), stirred it up, and called it "crumble".

So that's it, Baketoberfest 2009. 6 hours, 3 dozen cookies, 1 dozen large meat pies, a half dozen plum pies, a loaf of banana bread, and a small batch each of strawberry and apple crumble. My feet hurt, but I had a good day. Now I just have to find someone willing to help us eat all of this ...

Eggsperimentation!

OK, yeah, I know. It's not even original. Sometimes you just go with the classics, though. :)
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Several years ago, we had to work on a Saturday to do a major software upgrade; the installation and testing were going to take most of the day, so the head of IT kept us fed.  For breakfast, in addition to the usual assortment of bagels, he had something the breakfast shop called "Breakfast Pizza".  It turned out to be a buttery biscuit base with scrambled eggs and sausage toppings. Once I had made Alton Brown's biscuit recipe, the buttery taste made me think of that "pizza", so I decided to try to make one of my own.  It wasn't quite what I was after, but it's a step in the right direction.  I'll give you what I did, then below tell how I plan to change it next time out.

Breakfast Pizza, version 1

1 recipe Alton Brown's biscuits

6-8 strips bacon

1 - 1.5c cheddar cheese, shredded

8 eggs

Cook the bacon, cut into pieces, and set aside. Preheat the oven to 450°. (1)

Prepare the biscuit recipe and spread it out in the bottom of a greased 9x13 baking dish(2). Top with 2/3 of the shredded cheddar and the bacon.   Scramble the eggs and pour into the pan, then top with the remaining cheese. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the biscuit is cooked and the egg set.

It turned out quite tasty, but the dough really rises a lot. Also, the egg cooked up more like a quiche than scrambled eggs (which I should have expected, really). Next time I think I'll only use half of the dough recipe in a 9x9 pan, then add the first bit of cheese and start the baking. While it's in the oven, I'll cook the eggs in a pan to get them mostly set as scrambled eggs. At about 8 minutes I'll pull the pan out, add the eggs and bacon (or maybe sausage), and return it to the oven to finish everything off. It'll take a bit of timing to do right, but I think it'll be worth it.  I'll report back when I try it.
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(1)  I cooked the bacon in the oven (laid out on a cooling rack set over a cookie sheet to catch the drippings, oven set at 450°), so that it was already hot enough for the biscuits.

(2) This is easier said than done. The dough is too wet and sticky to roll out, but too thick to spread like a cake batter. Use a silicone spatula and be patient. It won't be smooth, but you can get a pretty even layer if you work at it.

Brisket Tacos

No stories today, just a nice report of an improvised recipe. One of our many former housemates used to use green chilies to make a very flavorful but non-spicy stew.  During my weekly "What should I cook this week?" conversation with Dorothy, she mentioned that.  I decided to make a variation to use as taco/burrito filling, and it turned out quite nice.  I did this on Sunday afternoon, when I could let it cook for a long time; with the right cut (and shape) of meat, you could do this in the slow cooker just as well.

Green chili brisket tacos
1.5lb flat cut brisket beef (1)
2-3 medium baking potatoes (or 5-6 new potatoes), diced into bite-sized pieces
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, bruised (2)
1 5oz can of diced green chilies
Vegetable or beef stock (about 1 cup depending on your dish)
Red wine (optional) (about 1/2 cup depending on your dish, or to taste)
Olive oil, salt, pepper
Corn or flour tortillas
Oaxaca cheese

Preheat oven to 325°.

Oil a baking dish large enough to hold the meat and vegetables. Salt and pepper the beef and place it in the center of the pan. Arrange the potatoes, onions, and garlic around the meat. Spoon the chilies across the top of the meat. Pour in enough of the stock and wine to come about halfway up the  meat. Cover with aluminum foil or a lid, and cook for 2 hours. When the meat is cooked, remove it from the dish and shred it. Return to dish and mix well with the vegetables. Return to the oven for another 15-20 minutes to let the meat soak up the remainder of the liquid and blend the flavors. Serve on tortillas with oaxaca.

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(1) I'll be honest here, I didn't pay close attention to the actual cut; I asked my butcher if he had anything good for brisket on sale, and just used what he gave me.
(2) I just set the flat of my big knife across the clove and give it a light hit. The idea isn't to smash it flat, just open it up and release some of the oils.
 

Sometimes magic sounds like tape

I have quite a collection of pots, pans, bowls, and cooking utensils. Most of the time I only need a fraction of them, though I do find times to use each one, based on size and shape.  I could do with fewer, I suppose. I could lose the smaller mixing bowls and just use the larger ones; I really only need a couple of spoons, or a single ladle. But every now and then, the stars misalign, and things don't go quite as planned. You have to press some extra equipment into duty to get the job done. Sometimes magic sounds like tape (around 4:45 here, in case you don't get the reference), and sometimes cooking sounds like muffled curses and extra pots and pans.
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I have a number of cookbooks and websites I read not to actually cook the recipes, but just to kickstart my imagination.  Left to my own devices, I'll slowly work myself into a rut of cooking the same two or three things every week; when I realize I'm doing it, I start reading my cookbooks and searching sites for ideas.

One of the books I have is of the "30 minute meals" variety. It features ways to use various frozen vegetables, canned soups and sauces, and premade biscuits(1). One of these was a chicken pot pie, using leftover chicken (from a presumed prior chicken meal), canned Cream of Chicken soup, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, and a famous layered biscuit-in-a-tube to make the crust.

Since my purpose is to cook (for fun, health, and profit(2)), I decided to make my own pot pie. Starting at the top, I realized that the only choice for a crust was Alton Brown's amazing biscuits, which I so enjoyed when I made the fruit crostada. For the filling, I had to come up with meat, veggies, and sauce. Since I don't cook a whole chicken very often, and since Dorothy doesn't care for dark meat anyway, I decided to roast and shred a chicken breast. I went with a standard mix of vegetables: potato, celery, carrot, and garlic, with some green onion mixed in, just for fun. Instead of a cream-soup based sauce, I decided to instead do a roux thickened stock.

Thus, with plan in hand, I got to work. Things started out pretty well, but as I was free-wheeling it, I made some mistakes, and had to go into Emergency Management mode. Hence my thankfulness for the extra pots and bowls. Ready to start keeping score?

I started off really well. My timing was nearly perfect. My chicken breasts were frozen from an earlier purchase(3), so I thawed them in the microwave [small dish] then put them in the oven to roast [cookie sheet with aluminum foil].  While that was going I chopped the vegetables and set them aside [cutting board, medium mixing bowl]. Then I made a roux and added some chicken broth [medium heavy pot]. Once I got that to simmering, I added the vegetables to precook and to let the starch help thicken the sauce. About that time, the chicken got done cooking, so I took it out and shredded it, set the meat aside [baking dish], and turned the oven up to 450°.

After a while, the sauce seemed to stop getting any thicker.  It wasn't quite where I had hoped it would be, but I decided to just bully on.  I went to pour the veggies and sauce into the baking dish, and discovered that it was way more volume than I had intended, so I divided the mixture into two portions [baking dish #2]. Both dishes were still nearly full to the top, leaving little room for the biscuit topping; plus, I just wasn't happy with the consistency of the sauce: it was too thin and soupy. I decided to go back and try to fix it, so I strained the sauce out of the meat and vegetable mixer [colander, reuse mixing bowl from before] and returned it to the heat [reuse heavy pot from before]. This time I cranked the heat and let it boil. I put the meat and vegetables into baking dish #1, and without the thin sauce it actually fit exactly how I had expected it to. I packed it down just a bit, and waited for the sauce. Eventually it did come together, and I poured it over the meat and vegetables, just to the top.

While the sauce was thickening, I made the biscuit dough [food processor, mixing bowl #2 and #3 (because I had to mix the wet and dry separately)]. I knew I was going to have some trouble with it, as it's a very wet dough. Dorothy suggested basically cutting biscuits and laying them across the top(4) which sounded like a great idea. Unfortunately, the dough isn't really cuttable; I gave it a good try, but then couldn't effectively lift the dough roudns. In the end, I just ended up spooning it onto the top of the dish and making a layer that way. Into the oven (finally!) it went, and 15 minutes later, it was done.

Final score: cutting board, food processor, cookie sheet, dish for microwave; three mixing bowls; two baking dishes; colander; several wooden spoons; various knives, forks, and spoons. Next time I'll be able to reduce the overall damage, I think. Planning ahead I'll be able to make more efficient use of my equipment.

Despite the issues with the sauce, ultimately I ended up with a wonderful pot pie, and I'll definitely make this again. Next time, though, I'll know to precook the vegetables, then strain them immediately and finish thickening the sauce, and reduce the overall pot and utensil count.

Chicken Pot Pie
1 whole split chicken breast
3 new potatoes, chopped small
2 carrots, chopped small
3 celery stalks, chopped small
1/2 bunch green onions, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 quart chicken broth
1 recipe Alton Brown's biscuits
 
Bake the chicken breast in a 350° oven for 15-20 minutes, then shred and place in the bottom of a 9" baking dish. Once the chicken is out, turn the oven up to 450°.

While the chicken cooks, make a roux from the flour and butter in a heavy pot, then add the broth.  Bring to a boil and add the potatoes, carrots, celery, green onions, and garlic. Cook for 5-10 minutes until the potatoes have softened. Strain the vegetables out and stir into the chicken. Return the broth to a full boil and reduce. When the sauce is thickened sufficiently, pour over the meat and vegetables.

Prepare the biscuit dough and spoon into a layer on top of the meat and vegetables. (It is going to rise quite a bit, so don't make it too thick unless you want a LOT of bread with your meal. Use the leftover dough to make a crostata or just some extra biscuits for tomorrow's breakfast. Yum!) Bake for 15 minutes, then let cool before serving.

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(1) In fact, it is filled with very specific suggestions as to which of these to use.  I suspect the publisher is related to a particular packaged foods distributor, though I haven't cared enough to actually research it.

(2) The profit is theoretical, in that cooking from fresh ingredients should be cheaper than precooked stuff. Whether that turns out to be true or not I haven't determined, but it's generally tastier and more fun.

(3) I had had plans to make chicken alfredo last week, but things happened, and I ended up having to freeze the chicken for later. Guess what? It's later!

(4) As Alton Brown himself actually did on Good Eats, though with a different (much drier) biscuit recipe.

A beer is a just a beer, but a stout is more like a meal!

Yesterday (with some trepidation) I chilled and tasted the stout that I recently made. Part of the trepidation is the "recently" part -- the recipe I followed calls for a single ferment stage of two weeks, and then two weeks bottle conditioning.  I really doubted that a stout would come out with such a short rack.  The other part of the trepidation was that when I took the specific gravity reading at bottling time, I ended up with a net expected alcohol content of only 3%.  If true, what I ended up with was definitely not going to be "stout". But I bullied on, bottled it up, and let it sit.

When I opened the bottle, I was greeted with a good stout aroma, which gave me hope.  I poured it into a pint glass and LO! A lovely stout head formed, and stuck around for a pretty good time for a non-nitrogen pour. My heart lifted as I took a sip -- and was rewarded with a lovely flavor.  Feeling much better about it, I sat down to enjoy the glass.  By the end, I decided that I must have made a mistake on one of the readings, because there was definitely more than 3% alcohol in that glass. Joy!

The recipe is "Ms Bessy's Moo-Moo Milk Stout" from The Brewmaster's Bible, a marvelous book with a load of information for the aspiring brewer and a ton of beer recipes for every style of beer. The name is an intentionally silly reference to the addition of lactose to the brew to give it a creamy mouth feel. I think it also does a nice job of arresting some of the sharp roastiness (that coffee-like flavor) of many stouts. The only variation I made to the recipe was because I couldn't get unhopped dark malt extract, so I used hopped extract and reduced the additional hops down to 1 oz.

So now my beverage fridge is filled with the brown ale from last month plus this stout.  In another two weeks there will be a new batch of cider to chill as well. It's going to get a bit crowded in there!