Before I begin, let me put your mind at ease - although I do intend to bake a couple of sourdough loaves every weekend, I'm not going to blog about each of them in turn. I thought I'd mention this week's as we're still in the early days of the process and the first one of this batch turned out a little odd.
I bought a new loaf tin this week, so I can bake two at once, instead of having to spend literally the whole weekend with something either baking or proving. This one's actually a little slimmer than the other, so it's producing a taller loaf. I've noticed that the base of this loaf turned out completely solid for about a centimetre up, which I'm putting down to there being too much dough in the tin - it would've risen past the top during the second prove if there hadn't been a teatowel covering it. I'm thinking that the weight of the dough on top flattened out the base a bit during this prove, possibly - the top was also unusually flat, so it didn't seem to rise much in the oven.
The texture on the whole is still looking good; getting more open still, and still nicely elastic. I'm a bit concerned about what seems to be a slightly moist, rubbery quality to it, which I'm putting down to fractional underbaking. Cooler for longer next weekend, I think, this could be me needing to get to grips with my oven. Flavour-wise I think I'm onto something good here, the sourness is really coming out now and the bread has a big, full flavour right through the crust. It's gaining character.
This far it's being mainly used for morning toast, and to accompany cheese. I may start attempting sandwiches with it at some point but I have yet to see what my new job's lunch arrangement is, so we'll see if it's worth bothering before going down that path. There's talk of a wine, cheese and bread event going on at our local wine merchant, so I need to get my bread in shape for that - there's some serious amateur bakers attending and I don't want to be shown up!
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Sunday, 10 May 2009
First loaves!
It's been a month or so in gestation, but my sourdough starter came of age this weekend. Hoping that it was finally stable, I made a couple of loaves out of it. Things seemed to go well, so I've stopped feeding it and it lives in the fridge now, instead of the sunny spots in the living room. The whole process to date has been about building a yeast colony which is stable - as you may remember from earlier posts, in the early days it changed appearance and smell quite frequently as the yeasts and various bacteria etc tried to reach equilibrium. Over the past week, it's been fairly unchanging, so I'm assuming that's proof of stability.
So, two loaves this weekend. I only have one loaf tin at the moment, so I'm making them in sequence rather than in parallel. Fortunately that gave me a bit of opportunity to make some changes to the second one. So here's the first:
Not a bad start, I reckon. It's a bit wonky, which doesn't really come across in the photo, but the texture is good, nice and elastic if a little less open than I was expecting. The crust is good too, and the flavour's typically sour, with a good depth and a nice, rounded fruity hint. I'm not happy that it split so much, and how lopsided the top is. A bit of research suggests this might be due to an overly speedy prove.
And so here's the second one - a much better shape, possibly due to an extra hour on the second prove. It got right up to the top of the tin this time (the first one fell a little short) before it went in the oven, so I think I need to benchmark it right there. This probably helped the shape too.
So there we go. I'm going to aim to do this every weekend (although I'll be getting a second bread tin, you mark my words), as it's not that much of a hassle. Friday night, combine starter, flour and water, feed the original starter. Saturday morning, beat in more flour and a bit of salt. Five or six hours later, bake. By my reckoning, excepting electricity charges, two loaves of sourdough a week should cost me about $2.30ish for the flour.
Still need to work on that shape though. Will be interesting to see how the flavour develops as the starter matures.
So, two loaves this weekend. I only have one loaf tin at the moment, so I'm making them in sequence rather than in parallel. Fortunately that gave me a bit of opportunity to make some changes to the second one. So here's the first:
Not a bad start, I reckon. It's a bit wonky, which doesn't really come across in the photo, but the texture is good, nice and elastic if a little less open than I was expecting. The crust is good too, and the flavour's typically sour, with a good depth and a nice, rounded fruity hint. I'm not happy that it split so much, and how lopsided the top is. A bit of research suggests this might be due to an overly speedy prove.
And so here's the second one - a much better shape, possibly due to an extra hour on the second prove. It got right up to the top of the tin this time (the first one fell a little short) before it went in the oven, so I think I need to benchmark it right there. This probably helped the shape too.
So there we go. I'm going to aim to do this every weekend (although I'll be getting a second bread tin, you mark my words), as it's not that much of a hassle. Friday night, combine starter, flour and water, feed the original starter. Saturday morning, beat in more flour and a bit of salt. Five or six hours later, bake. By my reckoning, excepting electricity charges, two loaves of sourdough a week should cost me about $2.30ish for the flour.
Still need to work on that shape though. Will be interesting to see how the flavour develops as the starter matures.
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Excuses, excuses...
I've just noticed that the cheesy little Nike+ widget in the right-hand bar on this page is gently making fun of the fact that I've not been for a run in a while. The truth is that I have, but my Nike+ sensor has run out, so I need to buy a new one, which won't happen until I get paid. I'm still putting 50k a month in, don't you worry, it's just not being recorded.
Honest.
Honest.
Brilliant
The waiting is over - this week I agreed terms with an employer, and I start work on the 19th May. After five months of not working, this is an overwhelming relief. We're not entirely out of the woods yet though, as there are bills to be paid at the end of this month which my pro-rated pay won't cover, but hopefully a client for whom I've been doing a little work back in the UK will actually bother to pay me for it at some point during this month.
I don't think I'd realised quite how much being unemployed had affected me. Friends of mine have told me in the past that my job (whatever it was at the time) was always far too important to me, and it's true to an extent that my sense of self-worth is entirely wrapped up in what I do for a living. So to be out of work, to me, is to have no social worth. Entertainingly, I don't view other people like this - this rule only applies to me, you understand. The Kiwi and I had a celebratory curry on Thursday night and I realised that I was smiling properly for the first time in ages; smiling with total happiness, without that lurking feeling that had been telling me up to this point that, until I had a job, I had nothing to smile about.
So I suppose there should be a learning experience here in finding self-worth in places other than the workplace, but I suspect I'll not really take it on board. This is the usual way of things.
And what of the job? Well, suffice it to say it's in the insurance industry, and involves me forming and implementing a strategy for the online channel. Currently the online arm of the business is... me, but over time it'll need to grow. The main challenge in moving a mainly offline business to a true multi-channel one is predominantly a cultural one, and although the top level of this organisation is open to the concept, it'll be convincing the troops that'll be the 'pushing water uphill' element of this particular engagement, I suspect.
I'm going to remain coy in this forum about who it is, so I can be reasonably open about how it's going, but most of you probably know. Very excited about starting indeed, they're a good bunch of people from what I can see, with a very clear and pragmatic view on the next steps for their business. Prior to that, though, I have a week of genuine holiday to get through, so with that, it's back to my baking... on which more later!
I don't think I'd realised quite how much being unemployed had affected me. Friends of mine have told me in the past that my job (whatever it was at the time) was always far too important to me, and it's true to an extent that my sense of self-worth is entirely wrapped up in what I do for a living. So to be out of work, to me, is to have no social worth. Entertainingly, I don't view other people like this - this rule only applies to me, you understand. The Kiwi and I had a celebratory curry on Thursday night and I realised that I was smiling properly for the first time in ages; smiling with total happiness, without that lurking feeling that had been telling me up to this point that, until I had a job, I had nothing to smile about.
So I suppose there should be a learning experience here in finding self-worth in places other than the workplace, but I suspect I'll not really take it on board. This is the usual way of things.
And what of the job? Well, suffice it to say it's in the insurance industry, and involves me forming and implementing a strategy for the online channel. Currently the online arm of the business is... me, but over time it'll need to grow. The main challenge in moving a mainly offline business to a true multi-channel one is predominantly a cultural one, and although the top level of this organisation is open to the concept, it'll be convincing the troops that'll be the 'pushing water uphill' element of this particular engagement, I suspect.
I'm going to remain coy in this forum about who it is, so I can be reasonably open about how it's going, but most of you probably know. Very excited about starting indeed, they're a good bunch of people from what I can see, with a very clear and pragmatic view on the next steps for their business. Prior to that, though, I have a week of genuine holiday to get through, so with that, it's back to my baking... on which more later!
Monday, 4 May 2009
How to stretch a chicken
Today, I made chicken stock for the first time in ages. There's something very ritualistic and soothing about doing this, the preparation, the slow simmering, the straining and the portioning out into 500ml portions to freeze. If you have a freezer and a stove, and you don't make your own stock, you're cheating yourself out of the one thing that'll make your cooking taste really, really good. With no freezer in our rented flat in London, I've been grimacing at powdered stock in food for too long now.
Although the Kiwi now has a job (yay!), we're still very much on a budget, so I thought I'd see if I could stretch the bird a little further than normal. When I jointed it for the stock, I peeled the breasts off with the peg-bone attached (a supreme, I believe), and jointed the rest for the stock pan. These, once marinated in sumac, lemon, pomegranate molasses, garlic and thyme and olive oil for a while, were served on a bed of couscous for dinner tonight.
The stock, once simmered for three and a half hours, was strained, and whilst I would normally have chucked the resultant sieve-full of veg and chicken bits away, I took out the chicken pieces and whizzed the veg in the blender with a little stock to loosen it. Chopped and bones and gristle removed, the chicken went back into the mix. With a bit of seasoning and possibly some cumin, this will be tomorrow's lunch. Granted, most of the flavour in the pan went into the stock itself, and so the soup is a little less punchy than I'm used to, but needs must.
Tomorrow evening's dinner will be paella. The depth of the flavour will come from the stock absorbed by the rice grains, and the prawns and squid rings cooked in it. Two blocks of stock are also in the freezer, to be used at some point in the future. By my reckoning, that's three meals for two, plus the two more I'll get out of the frozen stock. Quite pleased with myself, I am.
Oh, and this weekend, if the starter's up to it, I'll bake my first sourdough loaf!
Although the Kiwi now has a job (yay!), we're still very much on a budget, so I thought I'd see if I could stretch the bird a little further than normal. When I jointed it for the stock, I peeled the breasts off with the peg-bone attached (a supreme, I believe), and jointed the rest for the stock pan. These, once marinated in sumac, lemon, pomegranate molasses, garlic and thyme and olive oil for a while, were served on a bed of couscous for dinner tonight.
The stock, once simmered for three and a half hours, was strained, and whilst I would normally have chucked the resultant sieve-full of veg and chicken bits away, I took out the chicken pieces and whizzed the veg in the blender with a little stock to loosen it. Chopped and bones and gristle removed, the chicken went back into the mix. With a bit of seasoning and possibly some cumin, this will be tomorrow's lunch. Granted, most of the flavour in the pan went into the stock itself, and so the soup is a little less punchy than I'm used to, but needs must.
Tomorrow evening's dinner will be paella. The depth of the flavour will come from the stock absorbed by the rice grains, and the prawns and squid rings cooked in it. Two blocks of stock are also in the freezer, to be used at some point in the future. By my reckoning, that's three meals for two, plus the two more I'll get out of the frozen stock. Quite pleased with myself, I am.
Oh, and this weekend, if the starter's up to it, I'll bake my first sourdough loaf!
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