Cooking Cheap

This qualifies as Cooking Cheap.

Feeds Two (2) if you have salad and bread.

The mega mart shelves have lots of jars of marinara sauce. Acres of shelf space of glass jars of “spaghetti sauce”. About 3″ off the floor is the Hunt’s Brand in cans. Half the price off the supermarket generic brand’s glass jar and way less than the celebrity brands of marinara. Get a can of the Hunts. It’s really pretty good as is but we’re going to help it shine.

Go to the butcher “block” and get one (1) italian sausage link, roughly a 1/4 lb fella. Hot or sweet. I bought sweet. If you need it, get some generic brand mozzarella cheese and you’ll need a 1/3 of a pound of dried pasta. I like the Penne or Ziti, generic brand. That’s also a 1/3 of a package,

What’s in your fridge’s veggie bin? I had half a green bell pepper to use up but a chunk of onion or celery or carrot (or all of them) will work. If it’s green you can tell Mom you’re eating your vegetables. Might even be good for you.

Start a pot of water boiling for the pasta. Add the dried pasta (and salt and oil if you believe in that) Start cutting your veggies into small bits. Remove the casing on the sausage. Heat a skillet on medium heat and brown the sausage for a few minutes. When the pasta is cooked, drain and let it cool. Add the veggies to the skillet of barely cooked sausage. Fry, stir break up the the meat. When the meat is not pink anymore and the veg looks soft (10 minutes?) add half of the can of Hunt’s Marinara. Drop the heat on the skillet down to med low or low and stir every so often. It’s all cooked by know, just keep it warm.

Start heating your oven to 350F. Spray a cassarole dish with veggie oil spray,. Grate a 1/4lb of the mozzerella. Put the pasta in the cassarole dish, add the meat, veggie and sauce mixture. Stir it around slightly. Add more sauce from the can if you think it’s too light on sauce. Put the grated cheese on the top and put the dish in the oven for 25 to 35 minutes, then let it cool out of the oven for 5 minutes.

Simple? Yes! Crude? Yes! Delicious? Yes!

One could mix some grated parmesan into the sauce or on the top. One could add some half and half to the sauce so it’s rose colored or a pat of butter and 2% milk. One could add some pepper flakes to the sauce while it’s simmering. What you don’t want to do without tasting, is add spices or salt. There’s plenty in the can.

Save the left over sauce in the fridge covered in plastic wrap and a rubber band or some plastic lidded container. There’s enough there to make this again,

I’m back in the Sourdough saddle again. I saved a ‘chef’ from the last batch of dough. Time to make bread.

[Day 1]

Click on the picture for a slightly larger picture (137KB).

That’s about 14 grams of ‘chef’ (the dough ball in front), almost a half cup of flour (2 oz) and 2 oz of water. It will ferment on the counter top (cool this time of year) overnight (Saturday) and I’ll either do another refresh (2 oz of each) or I’ll mix it with the final dough. Either way it’s into the fridge tomorrow night (Sunday) for baking on Monday.

At the moment, the goal is those tough gluten strands of chewy. I know how to make holes and they need to be there too. I suspect it’s kneading vs rise times. Yes, I have made some fine bread and I could follow my own recipes. Not a bad place to start from.

[Day 2]

I decided to feed the levain with 2 oz each of flour and water and left it on the counter for 6 hours. It was probably ready sooner that. I have 8 oz of levain (starter), half flour and half water alhough it seems thicker to me. Numbers don’t lie however.

During that time I reviewed my blog entries looking for the loaf that I defrosted last night. It was a fine loaf and more tunneled that I thought when taking the picture of commenting. A recipe worth tweaking in small ways. That’s why I make these entries, it’s my lab notebook.

I mixed the starter with 5 5/8 oz of water. I added 1 1/4 oz of whole wheat bread flour and 9 1/8 oz of white bread flour (King Arthur AP). I’m looking for roughly 65% hydration. I mixed by hand for a minute or two and let it rest for 20 minutes. I’ve found this rest period to be helpful to the baker, if not the bread. The gluten starts to form and it’s easier to knead if you let it rest.

Those weights are 2 1/8 C flour (the total of the WWF and BF) and 2/3 C water, minus a smidgen on the water and I guess one (1) C of active starter (or a bit more). I’ll need to watch it closely because that’s enough starter to total weight to be faster acting than the reference recipe, That used half that amount of starter (it was also for a 1.25lb loaf). FWIW I scoop heaping soup spoons of flour into the measuring cup until I get the weight I want. The Cup measures I give was taken by dumping that flour into a a big measuring cup just so you’d know the approximate amount of flour. I did the same with the water. I weighed it and reported on the amount. It’ll get you close.

I used a small amount of bench flour and kneaded the dough for a minute or two. I added 1 1/2 tsp of Kosher salt (or 1 tsp of table salt) and kneaded for a few minutes more. It felt a bit drier than I wanted (which is probably from using that bit of whole wheat flour) so I watered my hands several times during kneading to work just a little bit more water in in. That also keeps the dough from sticking to me. The doughs at 65% and 70% hydration are quite different in stickiness.

I let the dough sit on the counter, covered for 30 minutes and then I did a stretch and fold (left and right, then top to bottom, wet hands). It was firm enough at that point it could have gone into the bowl to proof but I let it sit for another 30 minutes and was able to get another good stretch and fold. Another 30 minutes and it doesn’t want to stretch but I did it anyway (just left to right) and then I did a little gentle kneading and shaping and put it into the oiled bowl to finish the first rise. It’s been two hour (plus the 1.5 before that for the stretch and fold). The “poke” test says it’s ready for a nap but it hasn’t doubled yet. Then again, I’ve seen it double in the fridge.

This is my first challenge of this baking session. I know what an over proofed dough looks like. I don’t want to over proof and break those gluten strands down that I worked to create. Something tells me it’s time to shape the dough and put it in the fridge. It’s been four and half hours on the counter when you add up the stretch and fold times and an the bowl rising. Good call. A little shapening and I see that the gluten has formed, it resists me, yet it is a soft and tender dough. It would have turned on me in an hour.

I cut a circle of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the banneton and a 1/4 inch up the sides. We’ll see if that helps the sticking problem. The dough is going to be in the banneton for an overnight retard in the fridge which is plenty of time for a wet dough to stick to the banneton. We’ll see if the parchment helps.
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I’m tweaking the base recipe in lots of little ways and as always, I’m feeling hopeful. I want gluten strands and holes and a big second rise and oven spring that would scare small critters. It’s unlikely I’ll get it all of that, but just maybe, this will the one

Pictures of the dough after the last stretch and fold and then after the first rise, shaped and into the banneton for the fridge nap.

Five and half hours out of the fridge, it doubled more or less but you can see that from the picture. Out of the oven: a good shape, decent oven spring, the surface shows that is a bubbles and gluten. It looks promising.

The “Money Shot”. It’s 288KB if you click on the little picture.

The pictures may be lousy but the bread hits the mark. Plenty of holes, tunnels, chew, a nice earthy taste. I’ve done good. Really good.

I hesitate to recommend Potstickers. They are not easy to shape, they probably aren’t cheap but boy are they tasty. I’ll give the ingredients I used but I recommend you do some web searching. There’s as many recipes as there are for meat loaf.

My mega mart only had the square wonton (pasta), around $2 for what was probably 48 sheets. I used a biscuit cutter to get a round shape, but there’s a lot of waste if your cutter is small as mine was and getting the right amount of filling can only be learned by trial and error. Did I mention, it’s going to take a long time to fill these. Mine were smaller than what you get in a restaurant or from the frozen food aisle. I would do this again if I made my own pasta dough and had a larger circular cutter.

Instructions for filling and cooking are everywhere. I won’t repeat them except to note how I did it.

1/2 Lb. ground pork
2 green onions chopped fine.
1 Tbl bell pepper minced fine
1 Tbl ginger minced fine.
1 or 2 gloves of garlic, minced fine.
1 Tbl soy sauce
1 or 2 Tsp sesame oil.
1 Tbl sherry or rice wine [optional]
1 egg, beaten

You mix all that stuff up. (I used the hand blender mini processor to mince the veg). Mix it well. Then you put 1/2 tsp of the mixture in the center of your pasta round and form it and seal. The larger the circle the more stuff you can put it and the fewer you have to form. You fry a half dozen on one side in oil until they are browned on that side and then pour in 1/3 cup chicken stock (bullion works), Cover and steam for a few minutes, until the stock is gone. Repeat until you have enough for the meal.

The uncooked extras can be frozen and place in a plastic bag and stored in the freezer.

In total, I ended up with 44 small potstickers and some extra filing. Larger wrappers would be less of a chore.

I think the fresh pasta and the chicken stock is what makes these so much better than store bought potstickers.

[A week or two later]
I took a half dozen of the potstickers out of the freezer bag, fried them and steamed them in water. Still wonderful. I think the fresh “plump’s” up a bit more that the frozen but maybe I didn’t steam them long enough.

[Months Later - 7/29/06

I made the potstickers again. This time, I found round pasta sheets so no cutting was required. Saved a few pennies on the dough and got more. 60 of them. I doubled the recipe above though and I ended up with some left over mix. Too much to throw away, not after all that work. Took me an hour and a half to make the 5 dozen. Maybe even might have taken longer.

To the mix, add some thin carrot bits/slices/shreds, a Jalapeño (seeded or whole, your choice) cut the same size (small). I had some dried cloud ear fungus I’ve been meaning to get to. WARNING. A quarter cup dried will swell to a cup when reconstituted. I didn’t want that much. It’s very mild so I probably could have used it all but I only used 2/3 C reconstituted cloud ear, roughly chopped. Think ragu size when chopping the vegs. Almost a fine dice?

Heat the wok to smoking, add a bit of oil and when that smokes (a few seconds) add the meat mixture and the veggies, stir fry, breaking up the meat mixture thoroughly. Towards the end, I tossed in a 1/4 C (or more if you have it) of Thai basil leaves and stir fried them for a few seconds. I turned the wok down to medium and added the simple sauce:

1/3 C water, half a Tablespoon of chicken bullion. 1 Tsp of corn starch. I didn’t measure. I would normally add some soy sauce but there’s enough in the meat mixture and there’s plenty of salt in that double strength broth. Add the sauce to wok and boil down to the desired thickness. I served it over rice.

As well as a wonderful filling for potstickers, the meat mixuture makes a fine stir fry. I think the the Thai basil is important. I’ve had this (Kra Pad Kroa?) in Thai restaurants that used regular basil or deep fried basil leaves. That’s OK but not as good as my way.

Oh, and these potstickers are even better than the first attempt and they were good enough to make more when the freezer bag went empty. These were even better.

The ciabatta tasted so good I’m going to make another high hydration loaf. I started a chef with 1oz of flour, 1oz of water and 3/8 oz of starter last night. It was fully active, 7 hours later. I added 3 oz of water and 3 oz of flour and left it out on the counter overnight.

Today I’m going to shoot for 70% hydration and 10% of the total flour will be whole wheat. That works out as 8 oz of active starter (with is 100% hydration - same weight of flour as water), 5 7/8 oz of water, 9 1/8 oz white bread flour and 1 oz of whole wheat, 1 tsp salt. I mixed that up and it seemed dry to me so I added more water, maybe an ounce. Then it seemed too wet so I add just a little flour. I mixed and stirred it by hand until that was getting hard to. Definitely a wet sticky dough but not as wet as the previous loaf. I let the dough rest in the bowl for 20 minutes.

I dumped the dough out on the counter and with a wet scraper and wet hands stretched the dough and folded in in thirds like a business letter. Then I stretched that in the other direction and folded. Covered with a towel for thirty minutes. I did that again, 30 minutes later. When I tried the stretch again, it wouldn’t stretch far enough to fold so I made a ball and put that in a bowl to rise in the warm spot.

Four hours later, It’s tripled, it’s still sticky to the touch but I don’t think I should let it rise any more. Time to shape. This is a much higher rise than the previous wet dough attempt so that’s different and presumably better. I’ll try the baguettes again and hope for a two hour rise so I can bake and eat one tonight. Other wise I’ll go for the fridge.

As predicted, this is a very soft dough (lots of bubbles inside) and shaping baguettes is a test which I still fail at for the same reason I can’t roll pie dough into a circle. I did use bench flour for the shaping; without it the dough stuck to the bench and didn’t roll. I have a good feeling that it’s going to turn out. Of course I feel that way almost every baking session until the results are known. So far, I haven’t made any mistakes but there’s still time.

See, there was time to screw up and I did! What happened is I got busy and didn’t pay attention and the loaves overproofed on the final rise. I do mean overproof. It was oozing over the sides of the baquette pan. I kind of pushed it back in but by the time the ovem was heated it had oozed over again.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself, This is a good candidate. I didn’t bake them as long as I probably should have either. But they were good. Very airy as you might imagine like soft breadsticks that just disappear from the basket at the restaurant.

This time I’m going wet. Wet dough, rustic artisan and I’m not going to knead it by hand. I’m not going to use the bread machine either. I have a vague memory that it won’t work on a really wet dough. Stand mixer it will be. See the previous posting about what I think I need. If it’s not wet enough, I’ll add water.

This probably can’t be kneaded by hand. I’ll stretch and fold every 30 minutes until It starts to “feel right” (three times?) and then retard it overnight, Tomorrow is shape, final rise and bake tomorrow. Unless I shape tonight before retarding.

Reality meets the mixer. I mixed the 8oz of starter with 6 5/8 oz of water for a minute and added 9.5 oz of flour. It’s just a batter. I added 1.25 oz of flour in small portions until it almost might not be not a batter but almost be a dough. I think this means my starter hydration is higher than I planned. It could also be I’ve ruined the 77% target. I floured the bench and dumped the batter/dough on it. Let set for a few minutes and did the first stretch and fold. It did stretch and fold so the mixing was enough to get some gluten started. Not a great stretch but not that hard to do. From here on it’s water on my hands and the counter to stretch and fold. It only takes a few tsp of water to wildly change the arithmetic of such a small loaf. I covered the dough in my floured towel.

30 minutes later. Stretch and fold. Sticky, but not hang on to my hands sticky since I watered my hands. Gluten is forming. I did use the dough scraper to help. God help the optimists. I might do good this time. Covered it with the towel (always bring a towel! I should take a picture after the second stretch and fold. I ought to do lots of things.

30 minutes. Stetch and fold. Another 30. Stretch and fold. Sourdough is slow so I’m not sure how many strech and folds I can do or should do. It works though.

I did 3 stretch and folds and let it rise in the warm spot for a number of hours. It hadn’t risen all that much. It was time for bed though to I put in the fridge. The next day I took it out of the fridge and let it warm up for a couple of hours (it was still cool) so I have have rushed the first rise.

It was a wet sticky dough and a pain to try to shape into a boule. I briefly thought about not using a banneton for the second rise. I should have listened. Anyway, into the banneton for 4.5 hours and it probaby could have gone longer. Inverting it onto the peel was a problem because the wet dough stuck to something and tore half the dough.

That’s why there’s no picture - it’s not a pretty loaf. I baked it off though and it had enough oven spring to look promising (with an mishapened crust)

It’s actually a very tasty, ciabatta like loaf. Lots of big holes but a little too soft inside although some would consider that a good thing. It’s certainly worth trying again. I’d be tempted to do one more stretch and fold or even two and pay closer attention the rise times. I think it interesting to make baquettes in my pans which would solve the stick to the banetton. Shaping that dough into two baquettes would be a challenge though.

Time to review the bakers formulas and see if this time I can get it right.

I’m going to make a 1 and 1/2 pound loaf and I want 75% hydration (wet - makes tunnels)

Total Weight (TW) = 24oz
Hydration = 0.75 (75%)
Total Flour Weight (TFW) = TW / (1+hydration) = 24 / 1.75 ==> 13.75oz Flour.
Water = TW * hydration = 24 * .75 ==> 10.375 oz water.

Rounding into eighths (which is all my scale will do on ounces), that should produce a 1 5/8 lb loaf at 77% hydration. (I’m leaving out the salt weight, bench flour and any additional water added in kneading). Now we have to deal with the starter which has both flour and water. When you make a single loaf of bread, these percentages can easily get thrown off.

Tonight, I’m a bit of a hurry so I mixed up 2 oz of flour, 2oz of water and 4 oz of starter (total of 8 oz). The starter was just fed a few days ago. It shouldn’t take long to get happy and in fact, a fews hours after I mixed it and I’m writing this, it’s about to get very active. Another hour or two in the warm spot.

Because I’m working in such small amounts (compared to X pounds of bread or more), the percentage of flour and water in the starter could be important. especially when the starter is a large part of the total weight. I don’t know the hydration percentage of the starter in the jar. It’s fairly thick. I’m guessing 90%.

If you start with a teaspoon of starter and build it up 50/50 by weight several times to the amount you want, you can predict (control) what the hydration of the starter will be. But I’m a hurry tonight which is a fine reason to type all this and maybe think about it. If my 90% guess is correct, then the starter is going to add 4.21 oz of flour to the total and 3.71 oz of water and I subtract them from the 13.75 and 10.375 meaning I should mix the 8oz of starter with 9.54 oz of flour and 6.667 oz water. (add them up to get near 24 oz, 1.5 pound)

But what if my starter is 110% hydration? More water than flour. More water would have to be subtracted from the total of 10.375 oz water, so less water would have to be added to the mix. And a bit more flour. That hasn’t been my experience but I’m getting confused. The starter is ready, I’d better get unconfused.

I’m beginning to think I have no idea what I’m doing. After yesterdays failure on yeast bread, I’m working a loaf of sourdough. I’m shooting for 67% hydration, a sticky dough but not impossible. About the same as the failed yeast dough yesterday. I want to create the same size loaf (in total weight).

Around 2:30PM I got the starter out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. At 4:30 I measured out 2oz of KA AP flour, 2oz of water and 2 oz of starter and mixed them and put it in a small covered container and stowed in the warm spot. I fed the starter jar a couple of table spoons of flour and a bit of water, stirred and left it on the counter till it got foamy and then back into the fridge for the next baking session.

If one assumes, that my little batch of new starter in the container (barm, chef, levain) is 50/50 by weight (aka 100% hydration) then one assumes using all of the starter in the bread would contribute 3 oz of water and 3 oz of flour to the total. Working backwards, if I want 13.5 oz total flour and 8.75 oz total water which what I tried on the failed yeast dough, then one would need to add 10.5oz flour and 5.75 oz water. More or less. I happen to like the loaf of sourdough I made a few weeks ago that had 10% whole wheat so 10% of 13.5 oz is 1 2/8 oz (rounding down is safer that trying to get 1 3/8 oz)

That means I have to add 1.25 oz of Whole Wheat flour, 9.25 oz of white bread flour (KA AP under test) ( plus the 3 oz of flour in the levain). That makes 13.5 oz. and the WW is slightly less that 10% of the total. I mixed up the flours and the water by hand. Pretty dry, it didn’t clean the bowl. I let it rest a few minutes and added the starter which turn out to be some hard mixing, more like cutting it in (folding) than mixing. I let that rest for 15 minutes or more and it was a tacky dough. I expected a great gooey mess in kneading.

I was wrong. I used very little bench flour after the rest period(s). I kneaded it by hand for a few minutes and added the 1 tsp of salt (more if using Kosher salt). This time I really worked the dough by hand for another 10 minutes. The last five minutes required serious two hand tippy toe force just to make the ball flatten enough to be folded. Gluten forms during rest periods and from kneading and this was as far I think this dough was going to go (he says).

I’m bit worried it’s not a soft as I think it should be. It’s in the warm spot for the first rise. I retard in the fridge and shape tomorrow.

[Next Day]

A fine looking loaf of bread. I can still make bread. The final rise was at room temperature for 4.5 hours. I was tempted to let it go longer. Oven spring accounts for half the height so there should be some tunnels inside. The pictures may not show it but its the best bit of shapening I’ve done. Final wieght is 1lb 2 oz. It’s a small loaf.

These can be very large pictures (800KB)

After slicing, I am disappointed again. Not many holes, no tunnels. It tastes fine for what turns out to be sandwich bread but it is not what I was looking for. That does explain why it didn’t take up a lot of bench flour when kneading. I’m tempted to blame the little bit of whole wheat flour for throwing off the hydration.

There is another explanation, and it’s more likely to be the problem: I didn’t compute the percentages correctly.

I decided to make a test loaf of bread. Using commercial yeast and not sourdough. It’s a very wet (soft) dough: 13.5 oz of flour and 8.75 oz of water, (65%,) 1 tsp yeast, 1 tsp salt.. Since I don’t knead enough and the dough is soft, I’m going to try the King Arthur Flour Company’s suggestion that bread machines do the best job of kneading.

The real test is on the KA flour (11.7% protein) according to their catalog. Taste is secondary although I’m sure if will be serviceable. I want the big holes (wet dough) and those long tough strands of gluten (enough kneading and a high protein flour is the common wisdom).

Since I’m not looking to develop taste, I can skip the biga/poolish steps although that probably does effect texture and crumb as well. I mixed the yeast into the water and let it set for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. I put the flour and salt in the machine, added the water (and yeast) and pushed the go button for a manual french bread cycle. Then I removed the dough and paddle and put in in a bowl to rise in my mid-80’s spot. Still wet and sticky.

In two hours, it had doubled (or more) and and yet still sticky to the touch. I gently deflated it a bit, shaped it into a boule (which was much easier than I expected) and placed it into the banneton for the final rise in the warm spot.

When it’s ready, I’ll slash, glaze and bake using my ‘normal” technique. It’s a control loaf. Also, I can play with my new camera.

[Results]

Then everything failed. I popped the loaf out of the banneton. it deflated a bit, but no big deal, over spring will fix it, right? Slashed and glazed and into the over. I knew when I slashed it it wasn’t developed enough. No oven spring. That was a sorry surprise. I had a quarter chunk of the loaf for dinner and I tossed the rest away as well as the pictures. It tasted fine. Dense of course.

Even from a failed control one can learn something. King Arthur might be wrong about “my” bread machine being better than any other kneading technique. I could have let them proof longer in both the first and second rises.

This is a good place to start experimenting from. Think of it a McNugget Stir Fry except you’ll like it. The chicken part I took from a chinese cookbook and fooled with. The Lo Mein is pretty standard stir fry veggies and pasta. The sauce, that needs some experimenting, there’s nothing wrong with this one, but it could be better.

It’s reasonably complicated because of the timing. It’s also easy because the timing doesn’t matter that much. This is a recipe for 4 but I cut it in half as I thought best here and there,

Step 1 — Prepare chicken

1 lb chicken boneless, skinless breasts, sliced into 1/4 to 3/8 slices and/or chunks.

You marinate the cut up chicken in the following for an hour to day.

1 Tbl Soy sauce.

1 Tbl dry sherry, chinese rice wine or saki.

1 green onion, minced.

1 glove garlic, minced.

1 Tbl mince fresh ginger.

I didn’t measure the tablespoons, just my best guess.
If you are going to use a dried mushroom or two, now would be the time to re-hydrate them. You can’t soak them too long but you can certainly not soak them long enough.

Step 2 — Cook 2/3 lb of dried spaghetti noodles (or more). Drain and let stand. Meanwhile do the following steps,

Step 3 — Prepare the stir fry veggies and aromatics (while the pasta cooks or cools). My veggie choice was

1 Jalapeno pepper, de-seeded, sliced into thin half moons strips.

1 carrot, peeled and cut into very thin round slices

2 green onions, sliced 3/8 to 1/2 inch long.

2 dried shitake mushrooms, re-hydrated, stems removed, cut into thin slices

1/2 to 1 Tbl of chopped ginger.

1 glove garlic, chopped.

One could also add zucchini slices, red bell pepper chunks, snow peas, bean sprouts, water chestnuts and so on. What ever feels like it might fit the sauce or is left over in the fridge about to go bad

Step 4 — Prepare the sauce (while the pasta cooks or cools). In a small bowl, combine

2 Tbl Orange juice, freshly squeezed (1 small orange?)

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp cornstarch

3 Tbl chicken stock or water
1/2 tsp salt unless you are using chick stock made from bullion. I do that and I leave out the salt and go light on the bullion to water ratio. It’s really just yellow colored salt.

Step 5 — Get the nuggets cooked.

Bring some some veg oil up to frying temperature. The thinner the chunks of chicken are and the smaller the pan, the less oil you’ll waste, I used a half inch (maybe) in a wee skillet, but it you’ve a deep fryer and deeper pockets, go for it.

Beat one egg lightly and add to the bowl of chicken and marinade and toss to coat

Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade egg mix and place into a plastic bag.

To the bag add some Panko “bread” crumbs. Start with a half cup and add more it you think it will stick to the chicken bits.

Fry some of the chicken chunks, adding one piece of chicken at a time if your skillet is small and there is not a lot of oil. Turn the bits over after a few minutes and repeat until it looks golden enough, several minutes per side, maybe more. Drain the nuggets on a paper towel while you fry the next batch.

Step 6 — Stir fry.

Heat the wok to the smoking point and add a bit of oil

Put in the ginger and garlic, stir once, and quickly

Add the Jalapeno, the carrot slices and the mushrooms, Stir. Fry. Stir. Fry, Add in any other veggies you cut up. Stir. Fry. Stir. Fry until they are to your liking

Turn the heat down to medium low and add the sauce which will boil furiously and thicken in seconds

Add the drained, deep fried chicken nuggets to the sauce, toss to coat them

Add the cool noodles to the wok and mix them well with the veggies, nuggets and sauce

Turn all the burners on the range to off and serve< ./li>

The original recipe used lemon and was called “Lemon Chicken”. I want to use an Orange. The original recipe coated the chicken in 3/4 C of cornstarch. It’s probably good but Panko and hot oil is like masa and hot oil. Something beyond the sum of their parts. The few seconds of the chicken nuggets in the wet sauces doesn’t make them all soggy but you have to act quick,

The chicken was wonderful. I didn’t have enough veggies for a good lo-mein which is an easy problem to fix. I deliberately went light on the sauce because I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Some orange zest in the stir fry aromatics step would be a good thing to try. A red bell pepper if you chose to afford one would be nice.

I ate my two servings.

Todays effort at bread is from Peter Reinhart’s, “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”. On loan from the library. There’s nothing particularly magical about his sourdough recipe and he clearly says, “this is one way to do it”. In fact, I am going to do it a little differently because I’m testing my new (to me) KA flour more than his recipe or techniques.

Step one. I removed the jar of starter from the fridge and let it stand on the counter for an hour to warm up. I put 1 oz of flour and 1 oz of water and 5/8oz (half a table spoon?) of starter in a wee little bowl and mixed it up well with a spoon. That’s half the amount of starter I need for half of his recipe — I’m only going to make 1 1.5lb loaf, not two. I also want the starter to adjust to eating the new flour I’m using. I can’t predict how long it will take (it’’s been two hours at this point at room temp and it smells like a starter). It might get frothy in a couple of hours, it might take all night. It took 7 hours.

Step two: Add 1 oz of water and 1 oz of flour and the starter from step one, That will get me his “barm” and I’ll follow the recipe from there (except I’m cutting it in half). This goo/chef/levain/barm shouldn’t take as long to eat it’s own weight since it’s so active. It should be at 100% hydration give or take some minor amount. It feels a bit more elastic, more doughy when I mixed it than previous ‘chefs’. That could be the stronger flour, or wishful thinking. I’ll leave on the counter overnight (about 12 hours)

Step Three: Mix 6.5 oz of water, 10.25 oz of flour, the starter from step two (4.5oz) and 1 tsp of salt. Knead. I added a bit more water because it seemed dry. Then it was a little two wet but I hand kneaded it anyway for 5 minutes. Then it put in the bowl to rise (or proof or ferment) on the counter.

Step Four: I got to thinking maybe I didn’t knead it enough. I rarely do. So every 45 minutes I did the stretch and fold. I did that three times and then left it alone. 4.5 hours into this phase, it’s starting to look like a decent rise will happen. I’m not sure when.

Come to think of it, It’s not a lot of starter relative to the final size so it should take a longer. After 7 hours, I moved to the next step anyway. I may have rushed it

Step Five: Shaping into a boule and retard. It was still soft and a bit sticky. Too soft to really shape it well. I heavily floured the banneton and cloth. I made an extra effort to pinch the seams. Wrapped all that in a plastic bag and put it into the fridge. Tomorrow it might be a boule or a ciabatta or a mess in the banneton.

Step Six:I took the banneton out of the fridge and let it proof for 5.5 hours which seems like forever. Nice oven spring. From the outside, it looks pretty good. I still didn’t get anything gluten strand impressive around the slashes though. It’s good to know that it can be retarded in the banneton.

This just in. I’ve got tunnels! Nice ones although not as evenly distributed as I might want.

I’m sure it can’t be perfection. That can’t happen. It’s very close though. and I am afraid I’m getting too close to “way good”.