Cooking Cheap

Oops, I forgot to buy chicken stock at the store this afternoon. I’m too smart of go now. The day before a holiday is the absolute worst time to go to a grocery store. I looked in the freezer and sure enough I have a chicken carcass. I’ll make stock. I’ve watched Alton Brown make it. It can’t be that hard to do although AB does everything the complicated way. I’ve got the sourdough bread drying for dressing; it needs real stock and the carcass needed to come out of the freezer any way.

I have of course, already screwed up the stock by not skimming earlier. That,’s the only thing the thing the conflicting recipes agree on. I’m still not going to the store. I’ve got bullion powder if I need a backup. I’ll just simmer longer. It can’t be worse than bullion or canned broth.

Here’s the recipe so far.
1 frozen carcass of a baked chicken and stuff.
2 medium onions, quarterd.
3 ribs of celerly, broken up.
1 Bay leaf (seems light to me)
1 tsp Whole black peppercorns
1/3 tsp dried thyme

Bring to boil, reduce to low simmer, Skim foam every 15 or 30 minutes. Do that for some number of hours. I let it simmer for an hour before I started skimming. Opps.

Using a baked chicken carcass isn’t part of the chef’s recipies and initially it does smell a little differently. It also smells differently (better) after a couple of hours. Or maybe I’m just used to the smell. I’ll go for the 6 hour simmer, discard the veg, meat, bones and “stuff” and put it in the frigde.

No I’m not going to worry about bacteria danger zones and quick cooling in an ice bath. Do you think AB was poking fun at the FoodTV poultry police when he created the ice bath? All bet all the top restuarants do that, no?

The next day I remove the fat layer and bring the stock to a boil until it’s the amount and taste I think it should be. Who knows how many hours that will be. I started with a lot of water.

I just tasted it after 3 hours. I added way to much water and it needs salt but there’s no foam to speak of now.

[Next Day]

It’s also not the best stock I’ve tasted. That over cooked chicken is a big part of the problem. It’s good enough to make gravy but I wouldn’t use it for soup.

I want to make one of those round loaves of artisan bread. The Boule. This the final exam. I want oven spring, gluten strands, crust and chew and it has to taste good. Taste will be fine, I’m not worried about that.

I took the starter out of the fridge friday night to warm up and just after noon Saturday as the BSU-Idaho game was starting I fed it 1/2 cup flour and 1/4C water plus a little bit more water and I put it in the warm spot (the cabinet in the main bath room). When the the fourth quarter arrived the starter was frothy and once again BSU was kicking Idaho butt.

I took out a 1/2 cup of the starter, more or less and mixed with 1 C of water (230g water). Gives the goo a chance to disperse in the water. Might be important, might not. Then I mixed in 2.5C of flour (310g) of cheap bread flour until I got tired of mixing. I measured out 62 g (1/2 cup) of flour that I’ll use for bench flour as needed.

Then I beat and kneaded the dough on the counter for a good part of the fourth quarter. The dough is too wet to knead but you can throw it and beat it. I added a generous Tsp of kosher salt to the dough in the middle of the kneading -like 2 Tsp generous. Work up a sweat throwing the dough on the counter. That’s how long it takes. They say you can’t over work it by hand but I get bored easily, and BSU was whupping ass . 15 minutes. I could have gone more but I was bored. A wet (soft) dough, you need a scraper. I put it into a oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap and let it rise in the warm spot until doubled then I put it in the fridge where it tripled overnight.

Yeah, Nancy Silverton would have shaped the loaves and then put them in the fridge but I like to shape the cold dough the next day. I’ve done both. Either way works. I like shaping the next day.

It was 628g of dough, (1 lb. 6 oz) going into the fridge and hours later I can tell, I just know it’s going to be good.

[Next Day]

The boule looks fine. It even looks like a boule. For bonus points, I lined a collander with a floured towel and used that as the proofing basket for the final rise. That worked. I inverted the dough into one hand and layed it down on the corn meal on the peel. Sadly, a bit of the towel stuck to the surface but the loaf still looks great. Gluten strands, crust, color. I’m sure the inside is good.

I’m running out of things to fail at.

From the recipe pamplet of my Bread Machine

2 1/4 Tsp dry Yeast
3 C Bread flour
1 1/2 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 Tbl Sugar
1 1/2 Tbl Dry Skim Milk
4 1/2 Tsp Shortening of sweet butter
1 1/2 C water

I’ll convert it to sourdough and try to make hot dog buns (yes, really). First off, lose the yeast, I’ve got starter.

1/2 C active starter (recently feed and bubbly)
2.5 C bread flour (plus another 1/2 C as needed)
1 1/2 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 Tbl Sugar
1 1/2 Tbl Dry Skim Milk
1 1/2 Tbl melted or soft butter
1 1/4 C water

This is based on the 1/2 Cup of starter being 50/50 flour and water, mine is close to 100% hydration (as of this writing). I want a fairly dry dough without tough gluten which I believe the butter and milk will prevent so the the question is how long to knead (by hand). Other unknowns are the rise times and how many hot dog buns that’ll make.

90g starter (1/2 C)
360g bread flour (2.75C) or
1 1/2 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 Tbl Sugar
1 1/2 Tbl Dry Skim Milk
1 1/2 Tbl melted or soft butter
315g water (1 1/4 C)

That’s what I think I added but its a very wet dough. Too wet. I mixed in another 1/2 C flour (55g) , and almost that much more on on the bench and its was still almost unworkable it was so wet. Makes me wonder how I screwed up. I Hand kneaded for a while, 10 minutes or so. I expect a faster rise with all that sugar.

After 3 hours, I pronounced it ready to shape into buns. It was shapable, so I made some long thin things I hope will fit a hot dog and some round things that might work for hamburger buns. It’s almost an hour into the last rise and the touch test says they’re ready enough for the final “Come To Jesus” moment in the oven. I’m going to bake at 350, no steam making silliness. Bake, Cool and complain.

Sadly, I feel asleep after that and the second rise was 5 hours. I woke up and put it in the fridge and went back to bed. Out of the fridge, they looked OK enough but clearly dry on the top. I let them warm up for 45 minutes and into a 350 oven for about 30 minutes. The look usable but they are a little stiff on the outside. Tastes fine, but a lot drier than I wanted ;^). Good Enough for the freezer.

The error on the water goes way back. The bread machine recipe said 1 1/2C water minus 3 TBL. Oops! I left out that minus part in my calculations. Stupid way to specify ingredients if you ask me. It’s not the first time I’ve missed that minus thing on that recipe. 3 Tablespoons does make a difference.

The bread is OK but I’m going the session a “learning experience”. I learned that fat (the butter) can prevent the most serious effects of over proofing.

This time I tried a lot of new techniques I picked up from the video clips (see yesterdays post for the link). Standard white bread recipe for one loaf . Click the picture for a larger image. The second picture is huge so be patient..

The details of the mixing and kneading are in yesterdays post. This afternoon I took the dough out of the fridge and let it warm up for an hour. Then I scooped it out of the bowl onto a light floured surface and I deflated the whole thing, not just a punch in the center. Just like one of the videos showed, two hands, all of it. Then I shaped it into a betard shape (not two mini-loaves, though) .I didn’t really follow the chefs instructions for shaping – thats for another days experiment,

I floured an old kitchen towel (just like the TV chef) and I folded it to make a trough with flaps for the dough to rise in. Put the dough in, fold the flaps overs and let rise for 3 hours and change. I probably could have gone longer but I don’t know how much longer. The bread did not stick to the towel and it did not dry out on the surface. Saves a lot of hassle with plastic wrap.

I put some corn meal on the peel and I rolled the dough off the towel onto the peel, basically flipping it over. That’s the beauty of the towel rising tip. I slashed (sawed it ) it on the peel. brushed a little water on and onto the pizza stone in the 500 degree preheated oven. My normal technique from then on. Reduce to 450, bake 10, take a peek. bake 10 more, turn it over and bake 5.

I could have baked it a bit longer I suspect, maybe 425 for 30 minutes? There is no doubt in my mind that kneading a lot more than I used to do is responsible for the gluten strands. The picture of the interior shows that maybe, my holes are too big. Did I let the second rise go too long? That’s my guess but I wanted strands and holes and boy do I have them.

Here’s the result of the taste test: 99% on the the Doesn’t Suck At All scale. I’m going to be hard pressed to top this. It has every thing I could want and may I humbly suggest, it’s, better than what you can buy at many bakeries. I did good this time.

Wildly different techniques from what I was doing two weeks ago but the only real difference was the kneading. Now I know. The dreaded round loaf should be the next experiment. Maybe I’ll get the starter out of the fridge tonight. I don’t need the bread, but I do want the experience.

This is exactly what I need to get better with bread: PBS has Real Media and Windows Media copies of Julia Child’s Master Chefs programs. Select bread in the category and and hit the search [Note: Mac users, I had some problems with Firefox but Real Format in Safari seems to work mostly OK enough There maybe problems switching from one video clip to another which you work around by waiting and then pushing buttons],

Look for the Danielle Forestier segments If like me, you don’t knead enough or understand folding and shaping, this is a great pair of segments to see. Wow! I only thought I was making good bread. Sourdough may need a longer rise time, I know just enough to adjust for that.

Notice the diversity in techniques from chef to chef and the bread still turns out good. How long to knead? The answer is in the videos. I saw at least two techniques from two different chefs. The stand mixer, by hand. I tend to mix the techiques up my way but this time I tried mixing the starter (1/2C, flour (2.5C) and water 1C and I set out a half cup of flour for kneading in. I let the mix set in the bowl for 10 minutes. Added a Tbl spoon of flour and mixed some more. Let set for 10 minutes and then on to manual kneading. I use the slam method as shown by one of the chefs. She says 815 slams. I probably didn’t do that many, but I did a lot more that have before, about half way through I added the salt (2Tsp Kosher, less for table salt) and I just beat the dough against the counter until it did change it’s nature. It developed long strands in the dough. I even got close to passing the window pane test like written about and show in the clips, but I was tired by them. 10 Minutes of slamming/kneading, maybe more

That’s what it took. The previous experiences to get this far so I can really understand what’s going on in the video. I’ve touched a lot of dough in the last few months to see when it’s ready for the next stage. When I see a professional do it, I know I was just shy of being completely wrong.

I didn’t use the scale to measure my standard recipe (above). I wanted to, but the battery I put in was used. More used than I thought. I’m lucky to have gotten the starter hyradtion measurements that I did.

I broke down and bought a kitchen scale. I found one at Freddies (Fred Meyer’s) for just a few dollars more than Amazon+shipping. I even bought a real pizza stone. I’ve never baked by weight so this is going to be interesting. Not content to vary just one thing, I’m going to try a rye bread and use the stand mixer. With help from this online calculator I have something in a bowl for the first rise.

The electronic scale is easy to use. I can only guess at my hydration % for the starter though because I didn’t take the days it takes to measure it properly. Here’s what I mixed together: 250g of starter (thats a lot of starter, a cup and half or so), 350g dark rye (almost my entire bag, something like three cups), 100g of whole wheat bread flour, 150g (or a bit more) of white bread flour and 325g of water and 2 tsp of kosher salt. It’s a very wet dough, as advertised. It’s like a very thick cake batter.

I have no idea what I’m doing. I have a few clues but I’m really flying blind and breaking my all my rules with this bread. The proportions are reasonable but you can’t do that recipe without a stand mixer and a boat load of faith. Supposedly, rye doesn’t have any gluten to speak of, and it’s harder for the yeasties to find it out in whole wheat flour and they eat rye fast. It’s going to be a lot of bread so I might let one do a final rise in a loaf pan and one would be rustic (freeform) to see if it can support itself. But that would a decision to make on Sunday.

— Baking Day —

When I took the dough out of the fridge I see it was over proofed. There’s nothing I could to fix that. That much starter as a percentage for the whole could do that. Once I got it out of the bowl it reduced to something like my normal 2 mini-loaves. One I free formed the other I put in a loaf pan. There was a lot of spreading not much rise. I noticed the free form loaf was tearing at the surface, another sign of over proofed dough. I set up the it the oven when I saw that. My standard preheat to 500, bake at 450. Hardly any oven rise on either loaf. Taste was pretty OK. Texture and crumb was better than I thought it would be. The crust parts were very nice.

I made a nice burger with half of the free form loaf and some fried onion and bacon. It certainly works well as a meat holder. The loaf in the pan is headed for bread crumbs or croutons or I’ll figure out how to make those rye chips you find in snack mixes, that would make a tasty snack.

I think I need to add something to these heavier doughs. Sugar or spices or seeds. Anyway, I learned something from the experiment. Lots of things. Not worth the effort to take pictures.. Like I said above, It’s all new again.