Delicata, Leek, Kale & Extra Sharp Cheddar on Sourdough

I know the combination may not induce spontaneous drooling among all the casual pizza-eaters out there, but I know at least someone will understand. This crazy and delicious pie was inspired by a late-day craving for pizza and an overall lack of ingredients, so on went the remains of the fall harvest.

For the dough, I simply kneaded some more flour into a dollop of sourdough starter and let it rise for a bit. The cut rounds of delicata squash was steamed with the sliced leeks in a cast iron while I chopped some frozen kale from the garden and shredded the last of the cheese (I threw some parmesan on there too...I like to sprinkle it last, around the edges so it gets on the exposed crust and crisps up a bit - great effect). The sauce was a more a light umami coating than sauce...a tablespoon or so of tomato paste mixed with a mashed anchovy fillet. Yum.

So, to recap: rolled out sourdough (the thinner the better....I like a cracker-like crispy snap around the edges), umami-tomato-anchovy spread, veggies, cheeses (parmesan on last and coat the bare crust sticking out the sides), some fresh ground pepper, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. I do all this on a sheet pan coated with cornmeal and then stick it in a 400 degree oven on the actual bottom of the oven to get the crispiest crust possible. Bake until the crust is a golden brown and serve with some homemade hot sauce. Bam!

I'll go back to what I think I said in a previous post about how food just tastes better when you: (1) know it is good for you: and (2) know the story behind the food. Having known the person or even being somehow connected to the person who harvested almost every part of that meal (including the flour) simply enhances the flavor of the entire dish! People go to restaurants for a reason: the want the experience. People go to Italy to have "the best pasta or the best tomato they have ever had" because it has a story and experience behind it. Likewise, anyone can create a special experience in their own kitchen by developing a story behind the food. This meal was amazing, but I think it would have been even better had I known the fisherman who caught the anchovies, or visited the village where the pepper was produced. These things make a difference in the food experience, which I believe directly translated to the enjoyment and flavor of the food itself. Mmmmm.

Sprouted Sunny Wheat Bread

Freshly ground wheat, dandelion flower water, sprouted sunflower seeds, rolled oats, sea salt and sourdough...yum. An airy and delicious loaf that defies the conventions of what whole grains can do (and perhaps another contestant for YeastSpotting?)

It was a gloriously beautiful day today, with sunshine aplenty, but there was nothing I was looking forward to more than slicing into the loaf I left to cool while I out on a 40 mile bike ride through the mountains (I got a bit lost). A true 36-hour sourdough, this all began two days ago when I was feeling lazy, so I popped some wheat berries into the grinder and started cranking away. I invested in a grain mill from Lehman's this winter and I can say that, aside from my waffle iron, it's one of the best investments I've ever made. Solid, sturdy and grinds like a champ. Buckwheat flour, lentil flour, chickpea flour, quinoa flour...it's all fresh and you can definitely taste the difference.

Not only is fresh stone-ground whole wheat flour tastier and healthier (germ oils are just being exposed to oxygen), it also forces you to work for your bread, making the final product all the more wonderful. With the flour ground, I added the standard dollop of rip sourdough, a handful of rolled oats and enough water to make a very wet dough (the oats and freshly ground flour will soak up a lot of water over time). For some added sunshine and protein, I pureed a handful of dandelion flowers with part of the water before adding it to the flour (you admittedly can't tell in the finally product, but the love is there). I left that all to ferment overnight and also started soaking some sunflower seeds to be sprouted for the bread.

The next morning, the dough was wonderfully elastic and really came together nicely. I had used about one and a half cups of water, so I added about a teaspoon and a half of salt and kneaded that all together for a couple minutes, then put it in the fridge. The sunflower seeds were starting to sprout already, so I drained the water, gave them and extra rinse and let them be for the day.

That night, I pulled the dough out to warm up a bit before kneading in the seeds. To incorporate those little sprouts, I flattened out the dough, covered the top with a layer of seeds, rolled it all up and gently kneaded them in until well incorporated. A boule was formed and put back in a bowl lined with floured linen (a piece of an old pillowcase is what I use for linen) to wait out the night in the fridge.

Baking morning...wake up, turn on oven with baking stone and flower pot inside. Let it preheat for at least a half hour, an hour if you can (to let the stone and flower pot absorb the heat), then turn out the boule onto a cornmealed peel (today was an old magazine), score, and flick it into the center of the stone. Cover with the pot for steam effect (see previous bread post) for 10-15 minutes, remove the pot, cook 'till golden brown and then let cool. The only way I could avoid cutting right into it was to go for a bike ride, at which point I took a wrong turn and got very lost, making 15 miles into 40, so upon my return I had to resist completely ravaging the loaf (at least before taking pictures).


A very happy man I am. I love when complete satisfaction can come from something as simple as a wonderfully moist crumb and light texture in a 100% whole grain rustic loaf...well worth every crank of the mill. Yum. So get a crankin' and a bakin' folks...it is guaranteed deliciousness.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Oat Loaf

So delicious, so beautiful...that's how the boule turned out (perhaps worthy of YeastSpotting?). Bread is notorious for scaring away your average home cook and even your occasional professional chef who never developed a hand for it (I've actually worked with quite a few). Many recipes incorporate long rising times, yeasts, baking percentages and even flour measured in ounces (oh goodness!)...but unless you are working a professional bakery and looking for consistency, you can throw all that jazz out the window and start experimenting.

This one started with what all good bread should start with...a big dollop of sourdough starter (see the pizza post for a good way to make your own). Since I was going for a small personal size loaf, I added only about a cup of lukewarm water (hot water will cook the flour and kill the starter while cold will just make the rising and fermenting process a bit slower). I had some wheat berries that I was sprouting, so I ground up and added handful of those to bring some extra enzyme activity to the dough. The sprouting process activates enzymes in the berries - I forget their names right now - that break down complex starches into simpler sugars, imparting delicious flavor to the dough and helping develop that nice golden crust. If you look at most unbleached flour, they will have malted barley flour as a minor ingredient which is essentially sprouted barley flour and since barley is particularly high in those enzymes, that little bit can make a real difference in the outcome of the bread.

Anyway, back to our loaf. A dollop of starter, a cup of water, some sprouted wheat and now enough whole wheat flour to make a very soft dough consistency. Always add flour a little bit at a time because it is always much easier to put more in than to try kneading in more water later (which can be done in a pinch - very slowly, just a splash at a time). I like to add just enough so that you can barely stir the dough, then let it sit and go do something else for a while (10 minutes to an hour). This will allow the flour to absorb the water and the gluten strands to start aligning, making kneading later a lot easier (also called an autolyse period). At this point I also added some rolled oats so that they could absorb some of that excess moisture as well and give a nice texture to the dough.

When I came back, the oats and flour had absorbed so much liquid that I could actually knead the dough pretty well...a little more flour was necessary, just add it a sprinkling at a time to keep the dough from sticking to the counter as you knead it. After a couple minutes, put the dough ball in a bowl and let it rise until you are about to go to bed (ideally a few hours). At this point, add the salt. Yes, probably the most important part of the whole flavor profile - without it the bread tastes closer to cardboard. As mentioned in my pizza post, a good ratio is 1 teaspoon salt for every cup of liquid in the bread, so for this one I added a teaspoon plus a little extra to account for the liquid in the starter. Once it is kneaded in, taste the dough to get a feel for raw dough flavor...this will help you hone your skills and improvise more easily in the future.

Now comes the waiting and baking. For this loaf, I put the kneaded dough in the fridge for the night, then took it out and formed a nice little boule first thing in the morning, put it in a bowl lined with a floured dish towel and let it rise while I had breakfast. Other shapes can be fun too, like batards or baguettes, but this was my first time using the flower pot steaming method (follow that link to the WildYeast blog - great site - to learn more about steaming, but in summary: steaming helps oven spring and crust development). When it was starting to look puffy, I preheated the oven for an hour to 450 degrees with my quarry tiles and flower pot inside. Come baking time, the boule comes carefully out of the bowl, onto a cornmealed piece of cardboard, scored with a sharp bread knife, slipped quickly onto the tiles and covered with the flower pot for ten to fifteen minutes. After that time, the pot was removed and cooked until golden brown. Yum.

Now comes the most difficult part...not cutting in right away. I know from experience that cutting in too soon will spoil the crumb, so take my advice and wait at least a half hour, preferably a whole hour (torture, I know) before cutting in. When you do, enjoy!

ps. As for flour type, I love baking this type of bread with King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour. It is still whole wheat, but it is a special variety of wheat that does not produce the same level of tannins that your normal hard winter wheat has (what usually gives whole wheat flour its darker color and sometimes a bitterish taste). It also has a very fine grind and a high protein content, making it perfect for great bread. Check it out!

Easy Cheesy Pizza

I apologise for the cheesy (there I go again) alliteration, but it's too true: pizza is one of the easiest (not to mention most delicious) things that you can throw together on a whim. This may sound contradictory given what deters most people from homemade pizza: the dough, which, in order to achieve that fluffy, crispy, full-o-flavor crust, needs a lot of time to rise and rest. Luckily, it's just this time that gives you complete and total flexibility to make pizza on the fly.

My pizza dough consists of a dollop of sourdough starter, some water and enough fresh whole grain flour stirred in to create a pasty dough consistency (when the dough starts pulling away from the sides of the bowl)...no kneading necessary! I just put this mixture in a corner to rise for the day (or overnight) then knead in some salt (an easy salt ratio is 1 tsp per cup of water used), and throw it in the fridge until I have that pizza urge. Any leftover can be added to next week's batch for additional flavor. If you don't have sourdough starter laying around, you should make some.

my sourdough bubbling away

The easiest way I have found to do this was to go buy some organic raisins (non-organic have pesticides that will inhibit yeast growth) and fill a jar a quarter way up with them. Fill the jar with water, cover with plastic wrap (so you don't completely seal the gasses in) and let it sit for a few days to a couple weeks (depending on temperature) until it starts bubbling. At this point pour off the water into a bowl and add enough whole grain flour to make it a stirable paste. The paste should bubble and rise over a day or so. Now you just have to feed your starter by taking out a bit and adding a bit more water and flour each day (easy if you use it often), or you can throw it in the fridge and only remove/feed once a week.

Ok, back to the pizza. Tonight's toppings included:
-Roasted garlic tomato sauce (laying around in the fridge)
-Broccoli (torn up into tiny pieces)
-Vermont Cure sweet Italian sausage (cooked, split, seared and chopped)
-Caramelized onions
-Sweet potato (itty bitty little cubes)
-And of course, cheese (sharp cheddar and mozzarella 50/50...my favorite combination)

Cooking is much less about quantities and much more about ingredients and technique...exactly why so many chefs have a living today. Everyone has their own opinion on what style of pizza rules the lot, but for me it involves an über thin crispy crust topped with lots of delicious stuff. To help achieve this flatbread-style pie, you want the oven hot (400 to 500 degrees)...or go build yourself a nice brick or earthen oven in your backyard. To get that base nice and brown before the juices trickle down and make it soggy, put the pizza pan right on the bottom of your oven, if you can, or as low down as possible to get that direct bottom heat that helps simulate the environment of a brick oven that conducts tremendous amounts of heat directly into the crust. Bam! In any case, keep cooking until you lift up the edge (very carefully) and can see significant golden browning on the bottom of the whole pie. Take out, let rest (at least until the cheese stops sizzling) and enjoy!...yum.

Anyway, that's all for this first night of freestyle cooking. Send in your comments and suggestions for future posts or other dishes you'd like to see made without a recipe (disasters are good fun to watch). I'm always up for a challenge. Until then...