What's Cooking

[GoingMyWay]

Nice, you had the best of both worlds!

 

[Cheese]

Ron, I've been quietly waiting for many years for you to weigh in on this What's Cooking thread...I'm a patient person and I know you have more cookbooks than God but maybe now your real-deal Italian home cooking recipes will start to flow. I can only hope & pray.  [cool]

I'm not Italian so I have to live & cook vicariously through a couple of my Italian neighbors.  [big grin]  One from Brooklyn & one from Rome...but enough of that octopus crap.

 

[GoingMyWay]

Last month I made a homemade pico de gallo.

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It was good, but I made way too much and added too many serrano peppers, which resulted in a pretty spicy pico.

I made some BBQ chicken tenders with loaded air fried broccoli.

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Also made some caldo de pollo soup.

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[GoingMyWay]

Last week I made 3 attempts to make Spanish Pan de Cristal.  I watched how to make it with this video from King Arthur Flour:


It was fairly easy, but took about 6-7 hours from start to finish.  The bread didn't come out as light and airy as the video, but I've discovered that bread making usually is never as easy as it appears in YouTube video watching someone who know what he or she is doing.  I thought part of the problem might have been the fact that I used 2+ year old Red Star Yeast, but I tested it in some warm water after the fact and it was in fact still alive.

Part of the problem seems to be that our house is always on the cold side and especially dry in the winter.  I decided to give it another attempt today using the exact same recipe and yeast, but this time I used 100-105F water (yesterday I used 80-85F) and I also proofed the dough in the microwave after I heated a mug of water for 2 minutes.  This yielded a much lighter dough, but still not quite as airy as the video.

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I bought some new fresh active dry yeast and gave it 1 more attempt.  This yielded a very light and airy loaf, though the crumb still wasn't quite as airy as the video.  I sightly overcooked the bread, but this is probably my most successful endeavor into bread making.  I usually don't have much luck.

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King Arthur Flour recently released a Ciabatta bread video

I thought about making this, but it takes 2 days to make and we're honestly a little tired of bread after having made the Pan de Cristal 3 times last week.

[member=61712]six-point socket II[/member]  I had no idea about the benefits of baking in ceramic like the Emile Henry pans until I started watching a bunch of videos from King Arthur Flour.  I may have to pick up one of these "Festool" of ceramic bakeware.

 

[six-point socket II]

I haven't watched the video, I will do later - but does he give temperatures for the ingredients & dough while/ after kneading? If he does, definitely use a thermometer to check/verify. Probably the "cheapest" gadget, but so, so, so important when baking bread. And yes, tempering ingredients, a warm (or sometimes cold) place for resting the dough are very important as well.

Yes, your results will benefit from the ceramic bakeware.

I think your Pan de Cristal looks really good, and if it tastes like it looks, that's gotta be an amazing piece of bread!

In the end, it's all about time. Great bread needs time, as the flour needs that time to develop and pass the flavor. The flour itself matters as well, you won't believe how that can actually alter your results, even if its the same type, but coming from different mills.

Enjoy the journey!

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[GoingMyWay]

He mentions the water temperature in the Ciabatta video.  There are tips regarding the water temperature and the temperature of the dough in the written Pan de Cristal recipe:https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/pan-de-cristal-recipe.

It was a really nice piece of bread that didn't require that much effort like rolling, shaping, scoring, etc.

I've started watching all of the "The Isolation Baking Show" videos from King Arthur Flour.  They were streamed live back in 2020 and they answer some of the questions that came in during the broadcast.  There are so many gems of good information in those videos.  It's nice to listen to 2 professional bakers share all the knowledge they've built up over the years.  In one of the videos they talked a little bit about the chemistry behind why you shouldn't use bleached flour.  We currently have Gold Medal All Purpose flour in the pantry, but I'm thinking next time I'll buy a bag of King Arthur All Purpose Flour (it apparently has a higher protein percentage than other AP flours).  They also explained how bread with "self steam" when baked in covered ceramic or cast iron, which is a good way to try to replicate a steam oven like a professional bakery has.

The Ciabatta should have a better taste since it uses a biga that you make the night before.  I cold ferment the pizza dough we make and that has a lovely taste.

This past Sunday we made Sopa de Res.

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Last night I made a ham and cheese souffle.  I believe this is the first savory souffle that I've ever made.  It turned out pretty good, but it was rather rich.

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[Cheese]

The chicken tenders & broccoli look delicious.  [cool]

I like to make pico de gallo when the vegetables are absolutely fresh starting in the spring. With NO canned ingredients, the pico de gallo takes on this super freshness/brightness and a lightness that I just can't get enough of.

For a summer breakfast I love poached eggs with some pico de gallo on top and some fresh buttered toast.

I keep the pico de gallo simple: tomatoes, jalapeño, red onion, avocado, cilantro, pinch of kosher salt and a splash of lime juice.

 

[GoingMyWay]

Thanks [member=44099]Cheese[/member]!  I think that was the first time I've bought actual chicken tenderloins.  Normally I'd just slice up a chicken breast into strips.  We weren't that crazy about the bbq tenders, probably because we used Primal Kitchen BBQ Sauce.

I used 7 plum tomatoes, 4 serrano peppers, 1/2 white onion, a head of cilantro, and the juice of 1-2 limes.  We ended up with a lot of pico de gallo.  I normally hate cilantro, but I didn't mind it in here.  Eating all the pico de gallo definitely didn't help my heartburn!

Pico de gallo on top of buttered toast sounds like a twist on an Italian Bruschetta.

 

[Cheese]

I think that was the first time I've bought actual chicken tenderloins.  Normally I'd just slice up a chicken breast into strips.  We weren't that crazy about the bbq tenders, probably because we used Primal Kitchen BBQ Sauce.

I used 7 plum tomatoes, 4 serrano peppers, 1/2 white onion, a head of cilantro, and the juice of 1-2 limes.  We ended up with a lot of pico de gallo.  I normally hate cilantro, but I didn't mind it in here.  Eating all the pico de gallo definitely didn't help my heartburn!

Pico de gallo on top of buttered toast sounds like a twist on an Italian Bruschetta.

I'm with you, I normally just slice up chicken breast but last week I was in a hurry and decided to try the tenders instead because 90% of the prep was already done. In a chicken & vegetable stir fry, they were good but certainly not any better than chicken breast but they were significantly more expensive. Just another option if needed.

Ya, that's funny...I used to always make the mistake of making too much pico de gallo because I'd start with an onion or jalapeño and just keep adding ingredients until the proportions were about right.  [crying]  A few years ago I decided to start with the tomatoes instead and that made things a lot better.  [big grin]

 

[Tinker]

For 21 years, my wife made all of our bread. Mostly rye, whole wheat and sour dough. She made our bread all thrue our kids high school years. I built a shelf behind the wood stove that she could heat up the bread dough on. She did the bread dought in our kitchen where it was little cooler. I did not know how cold or hot the dough had to be. But the results were so delicius.
Tinker

 

[six-point socket II]

Scampi with mushroom-cream-sauce on puff pastry.

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Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[GoingMyWay]

That looks incredible!

 

[six-point socket II]

Thanks!  [smile]

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[six-point socket II]

Chicken sweet & sour. Caramelized purple/red onions, scallions, sweet peppers, pineapple - strips of chicken breast filet.

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Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[six-point socket II]

To me it's the one fish to rule all fish ... And if not that, definitely one of the best fish you can end up with, to fix a meal from.

The angler/ European angler (Lophius piscatorius)

For this dish, it's rubbed down with lemon and oil, put on a baking grid and inserted over the baking plate that holds your garlic potatoes. When finished, take it out & keep warm and give the potatoes some minutes under the grill alone. It's all served with a Noilly Prat sauce. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noilly_Prat )

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Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[GoingMyWay]

I had to look up what a Lophius Piscatorius fish was.  Turns out it's also known as a monkfish, which is also sometimes referred to as a poor man's lobster.  My friend lives in Texas and he just sent me this picture of a whole monkfish for sale at the HEB grocery store this past Saturday.

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I had never heard of Noilly Prat sauce before either.  That's a nice thick piece of fish.  The potatoes look great too.

A while back my wife made low carb "scones."

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She also made a chicken fricasse a while back too.

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Last week I finally got to make some pastina.  I had never heard of the pasta or dish until very recently.  It's apparently often referred to as Italian penicillin and it's in very short supply because Ronzoni discontinued it, leaving 1 less supplier of this pasta.  I couldn't find any locally so I had to use Acini di Pepe pasta instead.  The Acini de Pepe looks almost like thin spaghetti that's been finely minced up.

I had seen a couple of different versions of the dish.  1 way is just pastina pasta in chicken broth with parmigiano reggiano cheese.  Another version is the same, but very thick almost like a porridge.  The version we made was with a vegetable stock.  I used a food mill to puree all of the veggies.

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Yesterday my wife made Doenjang-jjigae (fermented soybean paste stew) and kind of a Korean take on a Japanese rolled omelette.

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[six-point socket II]

I wasn't sure if angler or monkfish was the more commonly used name for that fish.

It's a really delicious fish, no bones except the spine and a consistency that is indeed similar to thick lobster or scampi meat. Can almost be cut like steak.

It's also an important part of the sailor's dish we make from time to time.

Are they really selling it for 5,97 per pound? Like 1 pound being 0,45kg? As I can read it's from New England so it obviously isn't transported very far. But man, 5,97 per pound. That's crazy.  [big grin] We pay like between 20 and 25 Eur per pound. Then I do understand where the "poor man's lobster" comes from.  [big grin]

My mistake, just noticed they are selling the whole fish. Never mind, that explains the difference in price.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[six-point socket II]

Today, local take out. Doner kebab. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab )

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Back in the day, we would get these in breaks, after school or when we were skipping classes. 3 Euro got you one of these. Today it's 6 Euro and per their "Union" it should actually be 7,XX Euro to break even. Where's the time. ...

Still, one of the best "fast food" snacks you can get - and very healthy in comparison.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Jackson dee]

Yeah. It was really nice

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

[rmwarren]

Did some experimenting today. We have a local butcher shop on the same block as Ace Hardware (selling bacon grease!), what's not to love? The experiment was cooking 1# strip steaks in cast iron pans in a little wood-fired pizza oven.

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Overshot the runway slightly (removed @ 120-ish but left them on the pans), this was the least-cooked portion. Crust was about perfect though.

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Rendered beef juices ala bacon grease is awfully tasty.

RMW