Powered by my newfound success with bread making, I've been on a tear with this stuff. Its fun to make, more fun to eat, and oddly exciting (really) to see what comes out of a blazing oven. Here's a little rundown on what I've been up to: 

I made a few baguettes on a new baguette pan: 

I split a dough in half to try inside a small terra-cotta container and side-by-side out in the open on a baking sheet: 

The one in the pot was good... softer crust, loved the shape: 

The one the baking sheet was better... crisp and doughy: 

Then I threw the dutch-oven on MP's gas grill to see what would happen there: 

Sadly the bottom burned from the direct heat of the flames, but when we sliced off the bottom there was no lingering burnt flavor.... and it was delicious. 

So, the critical things I've learned are as follows: 

• 18 - 24 hrs rise is the sweet spot
• i consistently need more water than recipes call for
• thyme or rosemary with kosher salt on the top of a loaf add tremendous flavors
• bread is really addicting to make
• bread is even more addictive to eat 

Go make some bread! The core recipe I'm using is here, and with more blizzardly weather coming to the east coast its the perfect cure for the snowbound (assuming you also have cheese, wine, a fireplace, and no cabin-fevered children home from school). Go shopping... and hire a babysitter! 

Its coming up on a year of trying to make numerous variations of the fabeled Jim Lahey "no-knead" bread, and I finally nailed it. Granted, I've never actually followed Jim Lahey's recipe, only other cook's versions of it. But this year I was treated to his book, My Bread, under the Christmas tree and I set to making a basic loaf immediately. I now recognize the one simple step I was never able to pull off was just waiting for the dough to rise. I let this dough rise for a full 24 hrs, and it was phenomenal. So here's what I did: 

I simply mixed together 3 cups bread flour, 1/4 teaspoon yeast (active, not rapid rise), 1 & 1/4 teaspoons table salt, and 1 & 1/3 cup + 1 Tablespoon water, covered with plastic wrap and let rise for 24 hours. Here's a shot after that rise:

I then plopped it on a floured surface to shape it into a round: Flipped it "seam-side" down onto a corn meal dusted towel: 
And wrapped it loosely to rise for 2 more hours:  After which time i had this risen mound:  I plopped that, seam-side up, in a 475 degree preheated cast-iron pot, and cooked, covered, in a preheated 475 degree oven for 30 minutes:  After 30 minutes I had this:  I then cooked for 15 more minutes, uncovered, and had this:  And after 15 more minutes, uncovered, I had this:  I let it cool on a warming rack for about an hour:  The bread was "singing" like a crackling fire. Totally crazy... take a listen: 

And I was finally left with these great slices of homemade bread: 

My wife thought the crust was a bit hard which is probably true and presumably remedied by cutting the uncovered cooking by 10 minutes or so. But we both agreed it made one hell of a tuna melt sandwich for lunch: 

So yes, its decidedly turned cool around these parts. And with Lori's eggplant bolognese planned for the next evening's family dinner, I thought it was time to resurrect some cool weather bread making trials. Last season I had the best luck with a Bittman french baguette recipe, though I was only happy with it once out of three attempts. And I was always frustrated that I never got More Please's bread-making master friend Adam's recipe to work. Truthfully I had forgotten about that frustration and just stumbled upon an old "note" on my phone with the ingredients, but anyway I decided to set to it. 

I first blended the dry ingredients (3 cups bread flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon yeast) in a food processor, then added the 1.5 cups of water. I was adding it slowly to gauge the texture, and right when i was about to add the full amount, it seemed too wet. I stopped immediately, reserving maybe 1 Tablespoon of the 1.5 cups of water. I thought about adding a bit more flour, but then figured I should give it a shot as-is. I've never made it this wet before, and the worse that could happen is it would suck, right? So i covered the bowl with a towel and let it rise for about 20 hrs. After 20 hrs when i checked under the towel it looked great: Tons of holes, about 2.5 times the volume, and clingy/leggy to the touch:

So i split it into two balls, folded each onto themselves a few times, then hand-rolled them into my homemade couche's to rise for another few hours:

I then got the oven cranking to an even 450 and had a big tin of water in there to keep things moist. The dough was definitely wet and didn't hold its shape very well in transport. The couche had done it's job, but getting it to the pan was a challenge. In the end they got very long... and as such i decided to turn them into giant oval baguettes. I then tossed them in the steamy oven, and after 22 minutes I had a hard crust with a distinct hollow sound when flicked with a finger:

The result? Amazing crust. Crunchy. Great crumb. Moist interior. The texture was all totally perfect. But it was super bland. Devoid of any real flavor. At all. Such a disappointment! The recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of salt which seemed like nothing, so i doubled it. But in checking Bittman's recipe (after the fact of course) he calls for 2 teaspoons which would have done the trick. The recipe also called for 1/8 teaspoon of yeast which seemed like nothing as well, so i doubled that too. In the end, this was nobodies recipe! But I'm ready to give it a shot again... i'll do everything exactly the same but simply up the salt to 2 teaspoons.

Mr Baguette, I'll master you yet.

 

Tried to make a whole wheat baguette this weekend, and results were decent but not amazing. I think my mistakes were three fold: not cooking for long enough, as the middle of the bread was a touch undercooked. Trying to make larger baguettes and only made 2 compared to 3 last time with the same amount of dough. And three, while I like the WW, I think next time I'd only use 3/4 cup and the rest regular flour (3 cups total flour). Other proportions in the dough were right though I think (1 tsp instant yeast, 2 tsp salt, 1 1/2 cups warmish water). I think I'm finally getting the yeast rising down though which is exciting (to no one other than myself). Also, WW would go really well with some Rosemary and salt baked in on top. Next time!

Mixed a few recipes together last night to replicate some awesome mussels we've had at 12th Street Bar & Grill. These things were really great. Mussels were average quality, but in the right season this dish would be totally amazing. Even so, these were the best mussels I've made at home.

I started with 1 onion chopped and four cloves of garlic smashed and minced. These satueed in some oil until soft. Then I added 1/2 cup Sauvigon Blanc and about a 1/4 cup of freshly chopped parsley. I then immediately tossed in 2 lbs of cleaned mussels and covered the pot. This cooked over medium heat for about 10 minutes until the mussels opened up. I then plucked all the mussels out of the pan and placed them in a warmed & covered bowl.

While those were keeping warm, I turned up the heat on the broth. Most recipes called for straining this liquid before you use it, and while I did see some dirt-type residue, I couldn't be bothered to go thru that hassle. So I just added about 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of yellow curry powder, a tablespoon of butter, and a 1/4 cup of half and half. I strirred this all up while heating thru for maybe 2-3 minutes. Then I plated the mussels in a large deep serving dish, and poured the curried broth all over them.

We ate this with some crusty French bread I had made the other day (which incidentally was the reason I wanted to make mussels in the firs place), and some tasty French fries I posted earlier. These were very tasty, and pretty easy. The hardest part is cleaning the mussels! And I definitely didn't have to strain that broth... No sand and anything unpleasant. Maybe I'm a really good mussel cleaner, who knows.

Another great part about that Bittman bread recipe? It makes three baguettes, so plenty of leftovers to make lightly toasted, buttered, and jammed toast with some strongtree coffee in the morning.