Almost No-Knead Bread (from Cook’s Illustrated)
December 22, 2007
I’m a frustrated bread baker. I long for the crusty, open textured artisianal breads that only seem to be available at specialty breadshops in large cities. And I don’t live in or near a large city. Those wonderful chewy crusts and open texture, airy crumb breads have always been elusive to me. But wait! A no fuss recipe has been introduced that revolutionizes home baking. In November 2006, New York Times writer Mark Bittman published a recipe developed by Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhattan. J. Kenji Alt of the Cook’s Illustrated staff, in the January/February 2008 addition, took this recipe and improved the taste significantly, with the addition of beer for the yeasty flavor and vinegar for the tang. I’ve made this recipe several times, and it is everything they say. The only downside is that it does use some unbleached white flour. But I don’t believe in being too rigid, so as a treat (and what a treat it is), here is the home made bread that looks and tastes like it has been produced in a professional bakery.
Almost No-Knead Bread (makes 1 large round loaf)
An enameled cast-iron Dutch oven with a tight fitting lid yields best results, but the recipe also works in a regular cast-iron Dutch oven (this is what I used) or heavy stockpot. Use a mild-flavored lager (non-alcoholic lager also works). The bread is best eaten the day it is baked, but can be wrapped up and stored in a cool, dry place for up to 2 days.
3 cups (15 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for dusting work surface. (If you want, you can replace 1 cup all purpose flour with 1 cop whole wheat flour.)
¼ tsp dry yeast
1 ½ tsp salt
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons water at room temperature (add 2 tablespoons honey to this when making the whole wheat version)
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons mild-flavored lager
1 tablespoon vinegar
- Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Fold mixture together, scrapping up dry flour from the bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours. NOTE: This dough is WET! But it needs to be. As the dough autolyses (autolysis is the rest after adding water to the flour but before kneading), enzymes naturally present in wheat act like scissors, cutting the balled-up proteins into smaller segments that are easier to straighten during kneading. This straightening out and alighning is usually accomplished by kneading. The more water there is, the more efficiently the cut-and-link process takes place
- Lay a 12 by 18 inch sheet of parchment paper inside a 10 inch skillet (or pie plate – don’t use a totally flat surface, use something with a slope to help the bread rise) and grease with coconut oil or lard. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined skillet (pan) and grease top of bread with coconut oil or lard. Cover loosely to keep from drying out and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size – about 2 hours.
- About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place your 6-8 quart heavy bottomed Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees. Note: my oven runs hot, so I use 450 degrees. Lightly flour top of dough and using a sharp knife, make a 6-inch long, ½ inch deep slit along the top of dough to “open it up”. Carefully remove very hot pot from oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower gently into the very hot pot. Cover pot and place in oven. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees (400 degrees in my oven) and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot, transfer to wire rack to cool.
I have not made the following variations, but they sound wonderful.
Almost No-Knead Bread with Olives, rosemary and parmesan
Follow recipe for Amost No-Knead Bread, adding 4 ounces grated parmesan (about 2 cups) and 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary (I’d probably use 1 tsp dry if I didn’t have fresh) to dry flour mixture in step 1. Add ½ cup pitted, chopped green olives with water in step 1.
Almost No-Knead Seeded Rye Bread
Follow recipe for Almost No-Knead Bread, replacing 1 3/8 cups all-purpose flour with 1 1/8 cups rye flour. Add 2 tablespoons caraway seeds to flour mixture in step 1.
Beef Carbonnade (beef, beer and onion) Stew
December 10, 2007
Another great recipe from Cooks Illustrated. WOW! Intense flavor and a real winter comfort food. Serve with a good crusty bread and a glass of cold (raw) milk. It doesn’t get any better than this.
3 1/2 lb. chuck roast, cut into cubes 1″ thick, trimmed of gristle and fat.
3 tablespoons fat (lard, coconut oil or butter)
2 pounds yellow onions (3 medium), halved and sliced 1/4″ thick (about 8 cups). Use yellow only (purple or white onions are too sweet).
1 tablespoon tomatoe paste (tip: save unused tomato paste by putting 1 tablespoon sized mounds on parchment paper and freezing until hard. Take off paper and wrap individually and put into a labeled bag or container. When needed, just grab one out of the freezer and pop into your stew, etc.)
2-4 medium garlic, finely chopped or pressed through garlic press.
3 tablespoons flour (whole wheat is okay)
3/4 (or more as needed) high quality beef stock. See stock note below.
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 1/2 cups (12-ounce bottle) beer. See beer note below. Just any beer won’t do.
4 sprigs fresh thyme, tied with kitchen twine (or 1 tsp. dried thyme)
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
This can be made in the oven or on top of the stove. If using the oven, adjust rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 300 degrees. Dry beef thoroughly with paper towels, then season generously with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tsp fat in large heavy bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until beginning to smoke; add about one-third of beef to pot. Cook without moving pieces until well browned, 2-3 minutes; using tongs, turn each piece and continue cooking until second side is well browed, about 5 minutes longer. Transfer browed beef to medium bowl. Repeat with additional 2 tsp fat and half of the remianing beef. If drippings in the bottom of the pot are very dark, add about 1/2 cup of above listed beef or chicken stock and scrape pan bottom with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits; pour liquid into bowl with browned beef, then proceed. Repeat once more with last 2 tsp fat and remaining beef. Don’t be afraid to use more fat for frying if you need to.
2. Add remaining 1 tablespoon fat to now empty Dutch oven; reduce heat to medium-low. Add onions, 1/2 tsp salt, and tomato paste; cook, scraping bottom of pot with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, until onions have released some moisture, about 5 minutes. Increase heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are lightly browned, 12-14 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add flour and stir until onions are evenly coated and flour is lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Stir in broths, scraping pan bottom to loosen browned bits; stir in beer, thyme, bay leaves, vinegar, browned beef (and accumulated juices) and salt and pepper to taste. If putting into oven, increase burner heat to medium-high and bring to full simmer, stirring occasionally, cover partially, then place pot in oven. Cook until fork inserted into beef meets little resistance, about 2 hours. If cooking on stove, bring to a full simmer and then turn back down to low/medium low to continue cooking.
3. Discard thyme and bay leaves. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper to taste and serve.
Stock note: I used homemade beef stock and a big teaspoon of “Better Than Boullion” chicken base mixed in water. Don’t let the lack of homemade stock stop you from making this dish, but the better the stock, the better the flavor.
Beer note: Light beers will NOT work here. Use dark ales, very dark ales or stout. I used a bottle of Guinness and it was wonderful.
Our blog is back!
December 9, 2007
One thousand apologies to everyone. Server problems combined with slack blogging on my part resulted in a long dry spell.
A dry summer (again!) was followed by the most glorious fall that we a have had in many years. The rains started at the very end of July and continued well into September. Our pastures were spectacular! And the cows responded!
We bit the bullet this year and installed a pod irrigation system. Believe me, we didn’t want to do it from several perspectives. Although grass irrigation is considered near zero loss from a ground water perspective (a small amount is lost to evaporation), the cost of digging a high capacity well and buying the pods, the time spent moving the pods (every 8 hours) and the monthly electric bill from running a motor 24 hours is not insignificant. That said, we believe the increased grass growth gained from our own highly mineralized soils will be worth the money and effort. It sure better be.
From the poultry side, we had serious problems with owls beheading our pastured meat birds. We probably lost 50 plus of the chickens and 15 turkeys. We know it was owl because they love the head and internal organs, and will leave the rest of the carcass. It is really discouranging to find a beheaded, gutted chicken almost every night. Soon after we moved the turkeys out to pasture, we found 10 (yes, 10!!!), beheaded turkeys. Wow. We tried several tactics, but the most effective was to simply go out every night at dusk and push the birds into their huts and wrap the huts in poultry netting. What a pain! Frankly, I’m not sure what we are going to do next year. We obviously have a healthy, well fed owl in the neighborhood now, so we have to assume he/she will be at it again next year. Oh well, we have 6 months to think about it.
Egg production is down, as usual for this time of year. I anticipate a nice increase in production as the days get longer in early January. Please keep in mind that we do NOT use articicial light to stimulate our chickens to continue to lay (thus the down time). We believe this rest period is essential for the health of the chicken, and will result in a better production period once they start up again.
To Brine or not to brine the turkey
December 9, 2007
Those of you who had perused my blog prior to “server interuptus”, know I had brining information courtsey of Cook’s Illustrated. It’s such good information that I am going to put it all in again. Call it good typing practise.
All-purpose guide to roasting turkey.
Quick Brine Overnight Brine
Table Salt 1 cup 1/2 cup
Regrigeration time 4-6 hours 12 hours (max 14)
Use the brining formulas below no matter the size of your turkey. 2 gallons of water will be sufficient for most birds. Larger birds may require 3 gallons.
Use the times below as guidelines. Gauge doneness according to internal temperatures. Roast the turkey until the legs move freely and the thickest part of the breast registers 165 degrees and the thickest part of the thigh registers 170-175 degrees on an instant read thermometer.
If cooking an 18-22 pound bird you may choose not to rotate the bird. In that case, roast it breast-side up for the entire cooking time.
12-15 lb. 15-18 lb. 18-22 lb.
# of servings 10-12 14-16 20-22
Oven Temp. 400 deg. 400 deg. 425;reduce to 325 after 1 hr
Breast side down 45 min. 45 min. 1 hour
Breast side up 50-60 min. 1 hr., 15 min. 2 hours
Resting time 30 min. 30 min. 35-40 min.
Rotating the bird from a breast-side down position to a breast-side up position midway through cooking helps to produce evenly cooked dark and white meat. If making gravy, scatter 1 cup each of coarsely chopped onion, celery, and carrot as well as several fresh thyme springs in the roasting pan at the outset. Add 1 cup water to keep the vegetables from burning.
1. Dissolve desired amount of salt (see table above) in cold water. Add turkey and refrigerate for predetermined amount of time.
2. Before removing turkey from the brine, adjust oven rack to lowest position; heat oven to 400 degrees (or 425 degrees – see above). Set large V-rack into large roasting pan.
3. Remove turkey from brine and rinse well under cool running water. Pat dry inside and out with paper towels. Tuck tips of drumsticks into skin at tail to secure; tuck wing tips behind back. Brush turkey breast with 2 tablespoons butter. Set turkey breast-side down on V-rack. Brush back with remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Roast for the times listed above.
4. Remove roasting pan with turkey from oven (make sure you shut the oven door to retain heat). If using a 18-22 lb. bird, remember to reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees at this point. Otherwise, leave the temp. at 400 degrees. Using clean potholders or kitchen towels, rotate turkey breast-side up; continue to roast until done (breast 165 degrees, thigh, 170-175 degrees). Move turkey to a carving board and let rest appropriate amount of time. Don’t skip the rest period and do rest it the recommended period of time. Resting allows for the redistribution and absorption of the juices in the meat. Carve and serve.
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