A Loaf of Bread (Sourdough Pagnotta), A Jug of Wine, A Book of Verse And Thou...

...Beside Me, Singing In The Wilderness ~Omar Khayyam

You know what happens when serendipity meets innovation? I don’t always know the answer to that either but sometimes, it results in an incredible loaf of sourdough bread! I recently experienced a most excellent outcome as the result of combining techniques described in two recipes for bread; Sourdough Pagnotta and the so called, New York Times No Knead Bread, so popular today among many home cooks.

My good friend, at another site, kindly amended a recipe for Sourdough Pagnotta that has quickly become B’s and my favorite bread of all time. The pagnotta has a rich, creamy texture, also known as crumb, while the crust is thinner and crispy. It’s the perfect thickness. Thick enough for crunch and thin enough that it won’t send you to the dentist for bridge work while you are eating it. That’s got to be great news, right?

The pagnotta is a very dense bread and the holes in it aren’t quite as open as other artisan loafs, at least mine aren’t. But, you just can’t beat this bread for having an easy recipe. It takes precious little effort to mix and prepare the dough and tastes delicious and flavorful. It’s great artisan bread for only pennies on the loaf. It’s also a versatile bread, taking well to variants like asiago pagnotta, roasted garlic pagnotta and black olive pagnotta. I have even done a really awesome tasting apple, smoked bacon and caramelized onion pagnotta bread that turned out so well!

It’s a high hydration loaf. This means that it has a higher percentage of water than other sourdough recipes. I believe a standard sourdough has around a 60-65% hydration and this is closer to 85% or 90% hydration. Scary to work with the first time but once you know the ropes about working with wet dough; it’s a piece of cake. Hmm, maybe not a piece of cake but it surely is a great piece of bread!

I had wanted to bring you the history or origins of this bread. But what I found is pagnotta is the Italian word for bread! So essentially this is one of many recipes for a loaf of sourdough Italian bread! Here are a few other words for bread from other countries.

bread in Afrikaans is brood
bread in Dutch is mik, brood
bread in French is pain
bread in German is Brot, Brot, panieren
bread in Italian is pagnotta
bread in Latin is crustum, panis
bread in Spanish is pan

And here is your bread quote for today!

There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much.

~ Mother Teresa

This bread is perfect for sharing with your special someone. B, my best friend and partner in crime and I love to eat it dipped in olive oil seasoned with a touch of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, fresh ground black pepper, shaved parmesan, and a touch of basil. A wonderful, full bodied cabernet or other rich wine and a few roasted olives or grape tomatoes dipped in olive oil and salt make a great accompaniment to it as well. Add a slice or two of dried aged salami and a couple of black seedless grapes and you have a romantic picnic for two! The pagnotta is also wonderful as a bread accompaniment to any kind of meal you can imagine, roasted meat to casserole and everything in between! Mangia!

Sourdough Pagnotta
By Bill Wraith
Yield: 1 Large Loaf or 2 smaller Loaves

Ingredients:
400 grams fresh 100% hydration starter (my starter was taken out of the
refrigerator after having been refreshed 3 days earlier. I probably should
have used more recently refreshed and vigorous starter) (14.5 Ounces)
650 grams water (22.831 Ounces)
700 grams KA Organic AP (24.587 Ounces)
50 grams KA rye blend (optional - substitute white flour, whole wheat, or
other) (1.756 Ounces)
50 grams Heartland Mills Golden Buffalo flour (optional - substitute white
flour, whole wheat, or other) (1.756 Ounces)
18 grams salt (1.264 Tbsp)
300 grams pitted halved olives (I used calamata olives) - this is an optional
ingredient. (10.537 Ounces)

Method for making bread:
Mix:
Mix ingredients until well integrated and there is some resistance to stirring.
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.
(Bill’s Note: I think there was slightly too much water for my choice of flours and maybe because of the olives, which made the dough harder to handle. This was very slack dough. I would use a little less water next time, but I'm reporting this as I actually did it.)

Fold and Rest, Repeat:
Every 30-60 minutes pour the dough out onto the counter, let it spread a little, and fold it up into a ball. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover and let rest 30-60. Repeat this process every 30-60 minutes 3-4 times.
(Bill’s Note: I may not have repeated this enough, given the very wet dough I ended up with. The dough was still too slack later when I tried to shape the loaves.)

Bulk Fermentation:
Place the dough in an oiled rising bucket or bowl. Allow it to rise by double at room temperature.
(Bill’s Note: Actually, I wanted to bake by midnight, so I let it get a little warmer, about 80F, which may have been a little bit of a problem. I think it made the slack dough even a little more slack to also be warm.)

Shaping:
Pour the dough out on the table on a bed of flour and cut in two. Work with each loaf separately. Form a ball by carefully and gently pulling the sides toward the center repeatedly to get some surface tension on the smooth side underneath. Do not overhandle.
(Bills Note: Here I was a disastrous dough handler. I way overhandled it because it was too slack and would not form a ball. It just kept spreading out quickly. Well, I just decided after way too many times pulling at the sides to stop trying and went for flat bread. So, I can't emphasize enough, don't overhandle. Just make that shape and be done with it.

I am doing a second version, and I think I've discovered how to do this. Use thumbs and fingers of one hand to pinch and hold the gathered sides over the center, holding the gathered edges up a little to help the sides stretch and the shape to become more round and taking a bit of weight off the loaf. Use the other thumb and a couple of fingers to pinch a bit of the side, pull the bit out and up and over to the center, stretching the side as you do. Gather that bit in with the first hand along with others as you work your way around the loaf. Try to make it round by gathering a bit from the place that sticks out the most.)

Turn the dough over onto a thick bed of flour with the rough side down.

Final Proof:
Allow the loaves to increase in size by double.
(Bill’s Note: For me, this took about 3 hours. I'm still having a hard time figuring out when these higher hydration loaves have finished proofing. As I said there was too much water, and I never got these loaves to stiffen up very much. They mostly spread out on the counter.)

Bake:
Bake at 425 degrees F.
(Bill’s Note: This took about 25 minutes, and the internal temperature went quickly to 210F, which I've experienced with these flat high hydration loaves. I didn't get much oven spring. I think the over handling was a serious problem.)

Cool:
Allow the loaf to fully cool.

Results:
The flavor was as good as any bread I've made. The crumb was much less open than I had hoped but was soft and flavorful. I think the flatness was because of the over handling and maybe adding too much water to the dough. Maybe another fold or two would have helped. The gluten never really stiffened up enough. Still, this was a great tasting bread. My bad for the handling, but I'm already trying a second one. I also think the olives made the dough wetter, heavier, and harder to handle. The next try will be without olives.

Blue Zebra NOTE:
When working with wet doughs, high hydration doughs, the tendency is to be scared because the dough looks more like a batter than a dough. But be fearless! No worries, mon! The secret is wet hands!

To make it easier for me, I mix the dough in a bowl with one hand. One hand will be a mess; but that’s ok, it washes! I mix the dough initially until it is just a shaggy mess of incorporated flour, water and starter (I go ahead and add the salt…so sue me, I haven’t had a failure yet because of adding the salt at this phase for this particular dough), cover and leave it for the autolyse period. Then I come back and do my initial folding in the bowl!

I pick up a portion of the dough with my hand and stretch high above the bowl as far as it will stretch without breaking the gluten strands! Then I allow it to be pulled into the center mass of the dough. Once that stretch is finished, I turn the bowl a quarter turn (90 degrees) and repeat the action. I will do 8 of these stretch and folds in the bowl at one time, or 2 complete bowl revolutions. I let the dough rest again, covered. By this time, you will have helped form substantial gluten and the batter will resemble a very wet dough rather than a batter.

The next time, I come back to fold the dough, I will pour it out on the counter as Bill describes. It works to use a dough scraper (moisten it with water.) And it also helps to have wet hands. The dough won’t stick to you then. I don’t use any flour on the counter, but since this dough is so wet, I use a light sprinkle on the counter. The wet scraper and wet hands allow you to stretch and fold the dough, pulling gently from the underneath side (the counter side) of the dough with your hand on top of the sheet of dough, guiding it. You try not to flatten or degas the dough while working with it. The gas is what will make great, irregular holes in the final bread.

Here is an excellent video of doing the stretch and fold with a some what dryer dough (lower hydration dough). My friend, Mike Avery, at Sourdough Home developed this video for his student and is an excellent teacher and writer. I highly recommend his books. They are very affordable books and are available as online versions for quick downloads. You can be reading in less than five minutes.

I used my stainless steel Dutch oven to cook this bread because I don’t have my cast iron Dutch oven here. I used the lid for the first 30 minutes and then baked it another 30 minutes without the lid. I cooked the bread for one hour at 460 degrees F, and the final internal bread temperature was 211 degrees. It was perfect even though there was a rather large hole immediately under the top crust. I could have collapsed it with a pin to let the air out but was in a hurry to bake it for dinner.

I hope you will try this bread. Even though I cut into it before it was fully cooled, you can see how moist this bread is and in my opinion, it has much more complexity than the No Knead To Knead bread that is so popular right now. Read more->

What In The Fricassee Have You Done With My Chicken? Chicken Stew Secrets Revealed

Ok so what do you do with a hundred pound chicken? It sounds like the opener to a cheesy joke, doesn’t it? But for those of you who took the time to read The Naked Truth About Hens, you will know I’m almost 100% entirely, serious…Well, maybe I’m only about 20% serious, but I did learn one thing much to our chagrin. Clearly, you do not roast a hundred pound chicken, unless you love foul fowl. I found that out quite unequivocally.

The voice in my head mocks me and I hear it reverberate again and again. What do you do with a hundred pound chicken-chicken-chicken? In desperation I answer the voice now shouting in the recesses of my aching brain, “The answer isfrick, frick, frick, fricassee! You cook the paprikash out of that bird and if that doesn’t work, you smother the little clucker till it makes a sauce piquant! If that still isn’t good enough, then you let it stew in its own juice!” Deep breath. Breathe. At last, the whining voice resides.

Long, slow, moist heat isn’t really much of a secret. Most people who have been cooking any length of time, or have alternately watched one season of FoodTV know low, slow and wet is guaranteed to break down the ropey muscle fibers of a tough cut of meat. But how do you add the flavor to that meat or chicken, in this case?

Growing up, Mom used to make a very traditional Southern dish called smothered chicken. Oh my, I still smack my lips thinking about it! She’d bread and fry the chicken pieces until golden outside but still raw inside. Then she made a roux the color of caramel or not-quite-pecan and added onion, bell pepper and celery (the Cajun trinity, don’t ya know), water and chicken and let it simmer for hours. Mom served it over rice with a side of cornbread and turnip greens. You almost couldn’t beat this dish for pure cold weather comfort food!

If you add Cajun spice and a healthy dose of cayenne “peppah”, pepper sauce, jalapenos and tomatoes you go from a simple smother to a sauce piquant, pronounced sauce pee-cawnt, in a hurry! This is a lively Cajun version of a smother that just rocks my world, completely! The sauce piquant works great for ordinary chicken but it reaches nirvana when you use it to stew dove or rabbit. Paul Prudhomme’s recipe elevates it to celestial. It's so fine. It will seriously make you want to sit up and "slap yor mamma"!

Aromatics like a mirapoix (French trinity), a mixture of onion, celery and carrot is another way to add flavor to stew. Seasoning the chicken pieces with herbs and spices is yet, one more way. Still more secrets to flavorful and tender chicken stews include browning the meat prior to cooking in liquid, making a dark roux, adding acids such as wine, vinegar and mustards or you could just do what we did to tame our hundred pound bird, you could do all of the above!

The end result for our hundred pound chicken was tasty, tender, chicken meat in a rich brown, paprika flavored gravy that had a bite of mustard and lingering mellowness of wine with a slight zip of cayenne to wake up your taste buds. I knew immediately it deserved to be accompanied by homemade spaetzle. Lucky for me it was comfort food on crack. Unlucky for you, you weren’t here to sample it, because like most brown and cream colored foods, pictures just can’t possibly do it justice.

I heartily recommend you try fricasseein' the devil outta your hundred pound chicken, soon!

Chicken Fricassee aka Chicken Paprikash
By Blue Zebra
Serves 8



Ingredients:
1 100lb Chicken (hehehe) Carcass with Legs, Thighs and Wings (everything but the breasts)*
½ Quart Brown Pan Gravy
1 Large Medium Onion
1 Green Pepper
2 Stalks Celery
1 Carrot, Large
5 Cloves Garlic
1 Quart Chicken Stock
1 tsp Thyme, dried leaves
1-1/2 Tbsp Paprika
¼ tsp Cayenne Pepper
2 Tbsp Country Style Dijon
½ Bottle White Wine
1 Quart Mushrooms
1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper
½ cup Sour Cream

*Recipe Note- Ok, if you don't have a hundred pound chicken, use an 8# chicken. If you still don't have one of those, use the carcasses and dark meats from two broilers or fryers or use wings, necks and dark meat to equal about 3-4 pounds of chicken meat. If you haven't previously roasted this meat, you will need to season and thoroughly brown the meat in a saute pan or roast it with veggies in the oven. I recommend roasting it in order to fully develop the brown layer of flavor in this recipe. Make sure to use extra veggies and not the ones listed in this recipe. The ones listed here are for the final compilation of the stew. This can be done the day ahead.

Method:*
Remove the skin from the cooked chicken. Separate into pieces. Chop veggies and add with chicken to Dutch oven. Add Mustard, wine and seasonings. Let simmer on very low heat. Do not boil, you want the liquid to barely move. Simmer for 1-1/2 hours or until chicken is tender. Remove carcass and chicken pieces and cover with foil. Let it cool enough to pull meat off bones and chop.

While chicken is cooling, turn up the heat so that the simmer of the liquid becomes more active. You still don’t want it to actively boil. Cook uncovered and allow the sauce to reduce. The sauce will thicken as it reduces because of the flour added to the brown gravy. If it looks too thin to you, you can always mix a couple of tablespoons of flour with a little extra wine and shake it up in a container until smooth. Pour thickener into liquid, stirring constantly to combine. Cook an additional 5-10 minutes to allow the flour to cook and for the sauce to thicken from the addition. Adding flour suspended in a liquid usually eliminates any clumping.

Add diced chicken meat back to the liquid in the final five to ten minutes of cooking. Heat through and taste to adjust seasoning. Serve over noodles, macaroni, spaetzle, rice, mashed potatoes…well, serve over just about anything carbalicious and starchy! You can even serve it over homemade bread in a pinch. Sprinkle with a touch of paprika and a little fresh chopped parsley.

Blue Zebra NOTE:
I served this like a Hungarian meal would be served: sweet and sour cabbage with caraway seeds, cinnamon applesauce, homemade spaetzle and homemade bread with butter. Not exactly what I would call a summer meal, nor a light meal, either. But necessity dictates. So, the good news is this freezes beautifully. We ate it and froze the rest in vacuum seal bags and now have chicken fricassee aka chicken paprikash aka that-chicken-stuff aka chicken stew primed and ready in our deep freeze and just waiting for Jack Frost to make his first appearance!

This stew can also be made using the wing tips from chickens you trim and with legs and thighs only, making this extremely economical. This whole meal with all the side dishes costs about $.85 per serving when made that way. Now, that’s the REAL secret to chicken stew! Read more->

The Naked Truth About Hens - Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

Beauty is only skin deep
Never judge a book by its cover
Tough old birds

I could go on and on, but will spare you. The sayings ring clear with truth. As I stood in the kitchen slaving over an eight pound, yes, you heard me – eight pound, roasting hen, I pondered the complexities of communication. I am blessed to have a personal shopper in B. He does excellent work and he is most literal. He spends countless minutes finding and identifying each item on a shopping list and will bring back precisely what is on the list.

Because of his punctilious nature, I have learned to be wary of my tongue. I no longer ask him to bring home “a little” of this or a “tiny bit of that”, nor do I request a “ton of such and such.” Should I be so silly to indulge in these expressions, I am likely to get what I request. Upon asking for a tiny bite of something, I have received a miniscule fork full of a substance that is just barely enough to register taste on the palate. I have been given exactly two chips when requesting a couple of chips. A sip of a drink is exactly one mouthful.

So it came as no surprise to be on the receiving end of two eight pound roasting hens when I sent him to the store for whole chickens. I told him I would be roasting them for dinner when he asked why on earth I wanted whole chickens. Further pondering the question, he confirmed that chickens did indeed come whole and not only as “parts”. It was almost as if he expected me to tell him I planned to use them as sacrificial offerings to the god of garbage disposals or Fridgidaires.

I neglected to educate B about chicken adjectives like Fryer or Broiler. Going to the store and picking out a three to four pound chicken seemed an easy thing for me. I’ve been doing it for years. A whole chicken in that weight category will almost automatically fall into one or the other and either would work fine for this purpose. No, he knew I was going to roast the birds and I can only imagine his delight upon finding something chicken-shaped that said “Roasting Hen” smack dab on the label of this tidy package. To add to the confusion, I requested frozen birds and these babies were certainly frozen! Sitting right between the turkeys and the ducks, the honorable eight pound roasting hens were ready and waiting and you know what they say about a “bird in the hand”.

Ok, so we have a bouncing big bird here; correction, two bouncing big birds. One went directly into deep freeze and one went into the open arms of the third shelf of the fridge to begin a leisurely defrost. I must admit, I needed the time to think and to research the behemoth. I plead ignorance, blithe ignorance. I’d never seen, eaten, nor cooked one in my entire life and had only heard of them in some vague recess of my useless and arcane facts database locked securely within my cerebellum. As big as Baby Huey from cartoons of old, I decided I would indeed roast this bird and treat it like a turkey since it was practically that size. The thing cost over $7.00. Gadzooks, Batman! That’s a lot of bird.

I had only one question after setting my course. Why did the package instructions advise removing the skin prior to serving? How ridiculous! Every Southerner knows one of the best things about eating chicken in its chickular-form (i.e. as a whole bird) is the crispy, golden-brown skin, rich with unctuous fat and seasoned to perfection, warm and comforting from the oven. I planned a fitting tribute of apricots and peaches for this noble creature. I poo-pooed their instructions. I knew better! Sure the skin on the breasts looked a little past its prime, but from one old bird to another, we can’t all be pageant queens.

I stuffed that moist piece of poultry with onion, celery, garlic, lemons and apricots and trussed it within an inch of its life, lovingly basting it in white wine mixed with the rendered drippings. A hint of thyme mystified as it beguiled. The neck and giblets roasted lazily with more onions, celery and a whole head of garlic in preparation of the dark gravy to be served along side the meat and mashed potatoes. Sparkly golden peach jam mixed with Country-style Dijon Mustard and a soupcon of ginger formed an enticing glaze that tempted even this jaded chicken eater to lick my lips in anticipation.

The ticking clock and stalwart timer made stern taskmasters. The bird cooked to the appointed 190°F. The timer said it was done. Julia said it was done as 8 pounds x 20 minutes per pound equals 160 minutes at 375° and the Joy of Cooking staunchly supported Julia’s instructions. I even allowed it 10 extra minutes to be generous. Removing this trophy of culinary perfection to the waiting platter, I lightly genuflected in reverence. Behold I give you roasted hen.

Gifted and talented cook that I am, I offer you the pristine perfection of a single roasted fowel. Magic. Sheer envy from other cooks. I am Creative Genius. They should pay me to cook, with my mastery of the art. This succulent scion of poultry pulchritude arched coyly for the camera, seeming to tuck its left thigh and drumstick demurely back and slightly behind its mate like a shy Southern school girl at catechism class. To look was to love this creature of beauty and to lust after its savory meat.

Then I cut it. *gulp*
Then I got a larger and sharper knife and cut it. *bigger gulp*
Then I got the electric carving knife that hadn’t seen the light of day nor inside of an electrical socket in over 15years, not since the last time Dad used it, no doubt. *three huge gulps in a row*
I felt a little queasy.

The damn thing was raw inside! Oh sure the breast was done. It had a severe case of turkey-itis; dry-as-dust breast meat, leg and thighs pink and oozing red juices. Tough ligaments and muscle fibers resisted the sharp blade of the knife as if parrying a thrust with a boastful, en guarde! The beauty of this baby began and ended with the flirtatious Southern-peach glaze, the skin so tough and foul of feather. Only the most liberal covering of gravy made the breast meat edible and only then, after the skin and the beautiful glaze had been removed per the package instructions…The dark meat was left to fight another day.

The moral of this story, you ask? Beauty is indeed, only skin deep. So please, whatever you do, practice, practice, practice those communication skills carefully lest your personal shopper bring home a roasting hen for you to roast just because it claimed to be one on the outside of its pretty package.

Peach and Dijon Glazed Roasted Chicken with Brown Gravy
By Blue Zebra
Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 3-4lb Broiler or Fryer Chicken, Whole (not a Roasting Hen!)
1 Chicken Neck, Gizzard & Heart (do not use liver)
1-1/2 Onions, coarsely chopped
2 Celery Stalks, coarsely chopped
1 Lemon
1 Package Apricots, dried
5 Cloves Garlic, peeled and cloves left whole
1 Tbsp Kosher Salt
½ tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper
1 tsp Thyme, dried
½ Bottle White Wine, Dry or Dry Sauterne
½ Bottle Peach Preserves
½ tsp Ginger, ground
1 Quart Chicken Broth or Stock
2 Tbsp Dijon Mustard (preferably Country-style)
4 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
2-3 Tbsp Butter, unsalted and ice cold (optional)


Method for roasting and glazing the bird:
Wash the inside and the outside of the chicken, thoroughly. Dry the bird well. Smear with 1 tbsp of Country-style Dijon mustard. Sprinkle with a tsp of salt on the outside of the skin.

Chop onions, celery and peel garlic cloves. Combine with apricots and quartered lemons. Sprinkle remaining 2 tsps of salt and ½ tsp of pepper and 1 tsp of thyme over the veggies and fruit.

Stuff the bird with these fillings trying to get as much as possible inside the cavity.

Truss bird using butchers twine.

Place any veg and fruit that didn’t fit inside the bird into the bottom of the roasting pan and add the neck, gizzard and heart to the pan bottom. Season them with a touch of salt and pepper. (Do not use the liver here. See my note under Blue Zebra NOTES).
Place bird breast side down on top of veggies or if you have a roasting rack, place bird on rack and place the pan into a preheated 450 degree oven.

Meanwhile mix ½ bottle of peach preserves with ½ Tbsp Dijon mustard and ½ tsp ground ginger. Cook in small saucepan over medium heat until preserves melt and become a glaze consistency.

Let it cook for 5 minutes then turn oven down to 350. Roast bird breast side down for 45 minutes, total. You won’t be basting during the first 30 minutes since the chicken will just be starting to cook and brown a little. At the 30 minute mark, spread the back and sides with melted peach glaze. Pour about ½ cup of wine into bottom of roasting pan. You want enough wine to give a little liquid but not so much in the bottom that you boil the veggies. You want the veggies to start browning.

At the 45 minute mark, flip bird right side up on the rack or on top of the veg. Baste with wine and pan drippings and check to see if there is wine in the bottom of pan. If not, add ½ cup more wine to roasting pan. Spread bird with glaze. Throw the remaining whole head of garlic into the bottom of the roasting pan.

Baste every 15-20 minutes with wine and re-coat breasts and sides with a thin layer of glaze. Check for doneness at about 1-1/2 hours. Yes, I know this is more than 20 minutes per pound but with the cavity of the bird stuffed with veggies and opening the oven door to baste, the cooking time will be a bit delayed. It will take about 30-45 minutes or so longer than the weight calculations of the bird to fully cook. That’s good because you want the veggies in the pan to go very dark brown.

The bird is done when the thermometer reads about 185° F. You will know that it’s done because wiggling the drumstick will cause it to move loosely up and down and you can push it to the side and see some separation of the thigh. If it isn’t done, the hind quarter will have much resistance. If it isn’t done, keep roasting and basting it with wine and the glazing liquid until it is. I usually remove my bird at about 180-182° F and let it finish coming to temp out of the oven. There is residual hold-over or heat build up that occurs.

Remove the bird from the pan and check to see if the veggies are brown.

Cover the bird with aluminum foil and allow it to rest while you make the gravy. The gravy will take about 15-20 minutes to make. No worries, mon!

Method for making the sauce:
It’s time to make the gravy. If the veggies are brown, then it’s time to make the sauce. If they aren’t, put the roasting pan back into the oven and crank the heat up to 450 ° F. Cook veggies until very deep copper penny brown but not black.

Pour off all but about 3 Tbsps of fat from the baking pan. Be sure not to pour off the liquid and juices, just the fat.

Place the roasting pan on top of the stove burners and turn on two burners to medium heat. The pan should fit on the two burners but if it is too small, then only use one. It’s important not to use a pyrex or glass roasting pan on the stove top, so it’s preferable not to use it to roast this bird.

Pour about ½ cup of wine into bottom of pan with the remaining juices, fat and veg and scrape with a spatula to deglaze pan.

The sticky bits at the bottom are called the fond. These are precious cuz they deliver a power pack of flavor. The roasted veg will also give off flavor and color as well.

Allow the liquid in the pan to reduce by half.

Sprinkle flour over the veggies in the pan and quickly whisk to incorporate, stirring out any lumps that may form. Cook the flour for 3 minutes, stirring continuously.

Add chicken broth and stir to combine. I add about 1-1/2 to 2 cups to begin with and stir. Let it cook to thicken and incorporate all the flavors and bits.

Add the last ½ Tbsp of Dijon mustard to the sauce and whisk to combine.

Taste for seasoning. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and thyme. If sauce is too strong tasting (too dark tasting), add more liquid. Don’t panic. It simply means the flavors are too concentrated. Add more broth until it’s the flavor you prefer. Cook about 10 minutes and check for correct consistency.

If necessary, shake a couple more Tbsp of flour in a jar with wine and add it to the gravy to make it thicker. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Turn off heat and pour contents of pan through a wire mesh strainer. All the browned bits and roasted neck and giblets will be strained off leaving you with a smooth, delicious and dark brown gravy.

You can return this to a sauté pan and finish with a tablespoon or two of cold butter for an extra silky mouth and rich mouth feel but that is really simply gilding the lily!

Method for Finishing Glaze to become Peach Sauce (Optional):
Combine the remaining jar of peach preserves with ¼ cup of white wine or port. Add about ½ cup of pan gravy made from the recipe above. Let simmer and correct for seasoning with salt and pepper. Add a sprig of fresh thyme during the cooking or a pinch of dried thyme. Finish with a couple of tablespoons of unsalted, chilled butter once you remove from the heat. Serve on the side.

Blue Zebra Cooking Tip: Roasting and Pan Gravies

Roasting is a core cooking technique or fundamental that once mastered opens the door to many recipes. This recipe is a classic in terms of ingredients and methodology, only deviating with the use of the peach glaze which is easily omitted if you do not have a taste for it.

There are different schools of thought on roasting: start high, finish low; or start low, finish high; and more recently, start AND finish high – a quick roast method. I personally prefer the old Joy of Cooking method of starting high and finishing low because it fully allows time to roast the veggies and develop the flavors in the roasting ingredients and meats. There is generally a time/lb element that works, but for most accurate cooking, I recommend using a thermometer, especially if you are just beginning to learn to cook. Although I have been cooking for many years, I still prefer this fail-safe method. All it takes is one over-cooked prime rib to make a convert.

The key to success in roasting is adequately drying and seasoning the meat. If the meat can be kept off of the bottom of the pan, more even browning will occur. This recipe will work for all types of poultry: chickens (yes, even roasters), ducks, geese, guinea hens and goose. The recipe would also work well on pork as well as beef, buffalo and game such as venison, elk and antelope. The sweetness of the peach and fruity bite of the apricot in conjunction with the tart saltiness of the mustard and acidity of the wine make a rich foundation for a roasted dinner.

Pan gravies are another fundamental and go hand in hand with roasting. The caramelization that develops in the juice drippings, fond and veggies just beg for a finish of deglazing with a wine or spirit, followed by some form of broth or stock and thickening agent. Multiple types of thickeners work for this, ranging from flour to cornstarch, arrowroot, tapioca powder, pureed veggies, to grains like farina and even pure butter or guar gum and xanthan gum for those low carb options.

One caveat to pan gravies and roasting!! Roast the liver by all means but only roast it for the cook! Then remove it quickly! Cooking liver overly long or as a flavor element in a sauce will only cause angst and disappointed tears from you as the cook. Liver that is over cooked becomes bitter, bitter, bitter. Let me repeat it's bitter, ok? So don't do it. However, seasoning and roasting the liver in the bottom of the pan until it is just barely pink in the middle is a perfect treat and snack for the chef! Remove it at this point, eat it with glee and move on.

Enjoy! Read more->

Vermont Sourdough - A Southern Bread?

You know, the birthday celebration for Julia Child got me thinking. Julia wanted to let every American housewife know and understand that cooking flawlessly brilliant meals was at their fingertips; that everyone could do it. She was living proof. Clearly, more of her books and t.v. rubbed off on me than imagined, because that’s the basic premise for this blog. I want everyone to understand that good food, no, awesome food is easy. With a minimum investment of time and money, anyone can make incredible food; food that feeds the soul. The hardest step is to get over your fear of whatever you’re “askeered of” and do it quickly!

My greatest fear was fear of yeast and all things involving kneading and rising. I always assumed that yeasted items were fragile and depended so tightly on measures and rules and it frankly scared the bejeezes outta me. I avoided it like the plague. Our family was not a family who baked other than the basic biscuit, good old fashioned pie, occasional muffin or cake and maybe a quick bread or two at Christmas. But with the exception of one batter bread, aptly named “Dilly Bread”, because of the loads of dried dill in it, we never saw loaves rising on the counter.

But I knew I had to conquer my fear and de-mystify the process of baking if I was ever going to be able to do what I wanted most. Namely, I wanted to quit spending the outrageous sum of money per loaf for “artisan bread” from the market. I am a tightwad. Frugal doesn’t even come close to my relationship with money and yet, I never seem to have any extra – no matter how tightly I close my fist. I come by this honestly, unfortunately. Few people know, now thousands will know, that for most of my life growing up, we had very severe money issues and were even homeless for almost a two year period, save for the charity of friends and family who let us live with them and who lent our dad money when he lost his business.

It seems like life was divided for me – b.w.d. and a.w.d. or “before Wawa died” and “after WaWa died”. Wawa was Dad’s mom, our grandmother, who lived with us from before the time I was born until the day she died. She died handing me a glass of orange juice at the breakfast table, one Sunday after Church, in September. It felt like all the kids left in the house (my oldest sissy had married and moved away only months before) as well as mom and dad, had a mysterious shake-up and reversal of fortune from that moment onward – but that will be another post. Needless to say, I learned the value of a dollar as a very small girl and it was a large and painful lesson, especially for me and my sissy, A!

So back to bread…curmudgeonly begrudging $3.00/loaf for bread, I determined to make it myself or die trying. I believe fear is the worse part of baking. Bread dough and bread recipes are not shrinking Southern violets. They are fairly tolerant of great abuse and in fact are amazingly resilient: under kneading, over kneading, lack of moisture, over hydrated, cheap flours, chlorinated water, filtered water, over proofing, under proofing, under baking, over baking, you name it! The dough will rise and transform into bread through baking, given enough time and patience. Even the worst loaf of homemade bread on the worst day will taste better than the best store bought bread on any given day. I promise.



The real secret to baking is to have mentors, or people who have been there, done that. They will hold your hand, wipe your brow – metaphorically or even virtually and basically reassure you that God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. Thanks to the internet there are whole sites dedicated to nothing but bread baking and these sights are populated by fantastically talented amateur and professional bakers, alike.

I encourage you to find one of these sites. Face your fear. Then break out the flour, water, salt and yeast and have a bread orgy! That $3.00 loaf will cost you about $0.20 cents to make and take you about 15 active minutes of cooking once you learn the methodology or as Julia said, “Once you learn the techniques, you will free yourself from recipes.” Well, maybe not quite! Baking bread will always at minimum require that you apply a balance or ratio of ingredients, but master the techniques of baking and you will be free to experiment with a window of grace attached. Bon Appetit!



Oh the other secret I learned? You have two choices with dough/gluten development. You can either knead the heck outta it and challenge the gluten, building protein strands as you go or you can let time and hydration do the dirty work and develop it for you. Guess which one I choose? :D

Vermont Sourdough Bread
By Jeffrey Hamelman – Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes
As posted by Weavershouse on another site
Yield – 2 loaves (batards)

Ingredients:
LIQUID-LEVAIN BUILD:
150 grams Bread flour (5.269 oz)
188 grams Water (6.603 oz)
30 grams Mature culture (liquid) (1.054 oz)

FINAL DOUGH:
750 grams Bread flour (26.344 oz)
100 grams Whole-rye flour (3.512 oz)
462 grams Water (16.228 oz)
19 grams Salt (1 TBSP + 1 tsp)
338 Liquid levain (all less 30 g) (11.872 oz)

Method:
1. LIQUID LEVAIN:
Make the final build 12 to 16 hours before the final mix, and let stand in a covered container at about 21 °C/70°F

2. MIXING: Add all the ingredients to the mixing bowl, including the levain, but not the salt. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed just until the ingredients are incorporated into a shaggy mass. Correct the hydration as necessary Cover the bowl with plastic and let stand for an autolyse phase of 20 to 60 minutes. At the end of the autolyse, sprinkle the salt over the surface of the dough, and finish mixing on second speed for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. The dough should have a medium consistency. Desired dough temperature: 22 °C/ 76°F

3. BULK FERMENTATION: 2 1/2 hours.

4. FOLDING: Fold the dough either once (after 1 1/4) hours) or twice (at 50-minute intervals), depending on dough strength.

5. DIVIDING AND SHAPING: Divide the dough into 1.5-pound pieces shape round or oblong.

6. FINAL FERMENTATION: Approximately 2 to 2 1/2 hours at 22 °C/76° F (alternatively, retard for up to 8 hours at 10 °C/50 °F, or up to 18 hours about 5,5 °C/42 °F).

7. BAKING: With normal steam, 240 °C/460 °F for 40 to 45 minutes. More often than not, this bread is retarded before the bake. The result is a loaf with moderate tanginess and a sturdy crust that conveys a lot of bread flavor.

Blue Zebra NOTE:

I followed the directions without any tweaks and folded the bread twice after the autolyze period: at 1 hour and at 2 hours. It rose to double in about 3 hours. I divided, rested, shaped and did a final rise of about 2 hours and baked.

This bread was only slightly tangy because I did not retard (refrigerate) the dough following the bulk fermentation. Had I done so, I believe it would have had a much more sharp, sourdough flavor. The texture of the crumb, while not as open as I’d like, was lovely – tender and moist. The crust crunched with just the right thickness and sharp crackle. You could actually taste the color brown when you bit into it. What does brown taste like? Brown tastes like a good piece of toast. Brown tastes like oven-ny goodness. This truly was the best sourdough bread I’ve baked and the prettiest. Hope you will give it a try! Oh, and I used my hands to mix and produce this bread. It still only took 15 minutes of active time, so don't be discouraged if you do not own a Kitchen Aid or other stand mixer! Also sourdough starters can be purchased online from several sources or you can start your own. Mike Avery is an excellent teacher for this Also, a great tool to have at your fingertips is this nifty gram converter. It doesn't take into account specific gravity of an ingredient but here's where I draw the line in the sand. If I need to be talking and thinking in specific gravities, then the recipe is doomed to failure before it hits the mixing bowl. As you can see in the first piccy of the bread...we managed just fine with this little tool. :D However, if you need more precision, here is the gram converter for specific ingredients.

Here's a little toast and jam as requested by my friend browndog! The jam is storebought *wah* but it is good, B assures me. It's peach amaretto with pecans. Now I can say, the peach and pecans are definitely Southern and even Texan. Our peaches from Fredricksberg and Fairfield are equal to any Georgia peach you want to try.

Read more->

Dinner With Julia - Happy Birthday, Julia!

Chicken Provencal with Roasted Rosemary New Potatoes and Zucchini & Red Pepper Julienne


We had dinner with Julia tonight. I know this for certain. I’m pretty sure I channeled Julia and felt her with me as I made dinner! Tonight I made Chicken Provencal from Julia Child’s, “The Way To Cook,” in honor of her birthday.

My friend Lisa, at Champaign Taste, is throwing Julia’s second annual birthday party tomorrow and asked everyone to prepare a dish from one of her recipes. When I heard about the party, I immediately and unashamedly begged to be included.

The meal turned out gloriously. Oh my. Seldom do I make meals that leave me smacking for more. I’m usually so critical of my own cooking. Usually by the time I’m through in the kitchen and plates are served, the last thing I want to do is sit down and “dig in”. But this meal enthralled me from the prep on! From the first cut of the onion, I felt Julia’s presence in my humble kitchen.

I made a beautifully simple dinner based on “my need for speed” being a weeknight and all. It’s actually a combination of two of her recipes: Chicken Breasts Meuniere and Chicken Provencal. From start to finish it took 45 minutes to get food on the table and most of that time was cooking time, not active prep time. Even allowing for dropping everything I touched, the meal cooked quickly. My clumsiness was legend! And as B poured my glass of wine, I felt Julia smiling down and laughing with me!

I loved Julia Child. I adored her from the first moment I watched her on PBS as a young girl, and saw her masterful way of laughing at herself and finding joy in everything. I loved her command of food. I loved her knowledge and I loved that she was a clutz. I can’t remember her without remembering the old Saturday night spoof with Dan Ackroyd as Julia, clumsily chopping his/her hand off…macabre I know, but Julia adored that skit! I love that she loved it! She, as much as my family, influenced my desire to decode the mystique of cooking and entertaining. I wanted to be her when I grew up.


Lisa, thanks for allowing me to have the fun of celebrating Julia’s talent and life. We laughed and had a spectacular time this evening. And every bite was appreciated. In her honor, I prepared Chicken Provencal, served with oven-roasted rosemary new potatoes and a julienne of zucchini and red pepper. Served along side homemade French bread and a gorgeous cabernet (Yes, I know there’s a white wine in the picture…I had that too! *blush*, but the Provencal was cooked with the chardonnay), the meal hit every comfort note you could want.

So, without further adieu, I give you Julia Child’s Chicken Provencal. And actually, it’s two recipes as mentioned above; Chicken Breast Meuniere and Chicken Provencal.

Chicken Breast Meuniere
By Julia Child – The Way To Cook
Yield 4 Servings

Ingredients:
4 Boneless and skinless chicken breast halves
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp of thyme leaves, dried
1 cup Flour in a plate
2-3 Tbsp Clarified Butter

Optional Lemon-Butter Sauce (I omitted this sauce and substituted a Provencal Sauce)
2 Tbsp Butter
½ Lemon
2 Tbsp Minced Fresh Parsley

Special Equipment Suggestions:
A heavy 10-inch frying pan (no-stick recommended), hot plates or platter

Method:
Season the breasts lightly with salt, pepper and thyme. The moment before sautéing, dredge them in flour, and shake off the excess.

Set the frying pan over high heat, add the clarified butter, and, when very hot but not burning, lay in the chicken breasts.

Sauté one minute on one side and turn, and sauté on the opposite side. The meat is done when springy to the touch. Remove it to hot plates.

Optional Lemon Butter Sauce Method:
Swish the fresh butter in the pan, and heat for a moment until it turns a light brown. Squeeze drops of lemon juice over the chicken and pour on the hot butter.

Sprinkle with parsley and serve at once.

To Accompany Chicken Breasts Meuniere:
Try baking tomatoes and fresh buttered spinach or broccoli. Sautéed potatoes would also be welcomed as would a light red wine like a pino noir or Beaujolais.

Sautéed Chicken Provencal – With Tomatoes, Garlic and Herbs
By Julia Child – The Way To Cook

Provencal always means “with tomatoes, garlic and olive oil and often olives and other typical ingredients from that sunny clime.

Sauté the chicken in olive oil, as in the master recipe for Sautéed Chicken. Remove it to the side and spoon the fat but not the juices out of the pan. Stir in 2 cups of ripe red tomato pulp, a sprinkling of mixed Provencal herbs and a couple of pureed garlic cloves. Boil several minutes to thicken the sauce, correct seasoning, stir in several tablespoons of dry white French vermouth and return the chicken to the pan. Baste it with the sauce, cover and simmer several minutes to warm through, basting 2 or 3 times.

Sautéed Chicken Provencal – With Tomatoes, Garlic and Herbs
By Blue Zebra
Adapted from instructions by Julia Child – The Way To Cook
Serves 4

Ingredients:
3 tbsp olive oil
3 Roma tomatoes, skinned and seeded
½ Carton Grape Tomatoes, halved
4 Cloves of garlic (large), sliced
1 Onion, sliced in strips
3 Tbsp Capers
16 Nicoise or Kalamata Olives, pitted
1 Lemon, zested
1 tsp Fines Herbes
1/8 tsp Thyme Leaves
1/8 tsp Rosemary Leaves
½ tsp sugar
1 cup of White Wine or dry French vermouth
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Method:
Sauté chicken breasts as described in Chicken Breasts Meuniere recipe above and remove from pan.

Add olive oil to remaining butter/juices in the sauté pan and add garlic and onion slices. Sauté until translucent.

Add capers, olives and tomatoes and stir to combine. Cook until you see the tomatoes starting to stick in the bottom of the pan. This means that the liquid of the tomatoes has reduced and the sauce can take the next addition of liquid, the wine.

Add the wine and all seasonings except salt and pepper. Add the lemon zest but do not add lemon juice and sugar. Stir to combine and let the sauce simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the breasts back to the pan, placing them underneath the sauce. Cover and allow to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Do this slowly. The sauce will tighten up and become “melded” with all the flavors and those of the chicken. If it looks too thick when adding the chicken back in, add more white wine to make it thinner. The liquid will reduce while cooking the chicken and the wine alcohol will cook off.

When breasts are tender and sauce is thickened, remove from heat and serve.

Blue Zebra NOTES:
This is absolutely one of my new favorite recipes! The flavor of the fines herbes is fantastic! You can taste the tarragon and the camphor taste added by the rosemary just adds delicious taste notes when combined with the acidity of the tomatoes and the earthiness of the olives and sharp tang of capers. The sugar helps to balance the acidity. This sauce works great for both boneless skinless breasts and also more rustic presentations with bone in chicken pieces. Read more->