Cooking Cheap

Back to “my” normal method.

1 oz of BF , 1 oz water, half Tbl of starter. Let ferment for 6 to 12 hours.
3 oz of BF, 3 oz water plus the above. Ferment. 6 hours but it was ready sooner.
Mix that with 10 1/8 oz of BF and 5 7/8 water.

This is around 70% hydration so you can’t knead it with bench flour. Use water on your hands which of course makes the dough even wetter. Add the salt in the first knead. Let it rest for 10 minutes several times between 5 minute kneads. I’m still using the strong KA Bread Flour and it doesn’t take many rest periods before the gluten develops from just the water and becomes easier to handle. Still wet, but manageable.

Indoor temperature is 75F or less. It’s 2.5 hours into the bulk ferment (first rise). Not yet, but soon.

I need a goal, a dream I’ll fail to achieve. Tough chew, big holes, but not many huge tunnels. Strands across the holes would be nice.

Bulk took about 3.5 hours. It looked a little wet to me, and it definitely doubled. Out of the fridge the next day, I let it warm up for 45 minutes shaped it into a boule and put in in the banneton. This is a wet dough so I worried about it sticking. At the 2.5 hour mark, I baked it. It didn’t stick much so I didn’t over proof that much. Had a small bit of trouble getting it off the peel on to the stone so it’s a tiny bit oblong instead of round. Decent oven spring. Looks fine and there are gluten strands at the slashes. Sort of. Still not the effect I dream of but nice to see. Wet dough, strong flour, don’t over proof. I suspect higher heat may be need do that trick.

This is an adaption from of Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Unlike many of AB’s recipes this one is pretty easy and it’s a different way to cook a cube steak. Unlike the TV show, I buy by my mystery meat cube steak from the mega mart. I also like “Hungarian” goulash more than swiss steak so I changed just about everything. It’s tasty and easy. Takes a few hours of cooking which is a bonus for me.

Serves 2, probably.

1/2 lb cube steak.
Salt and pepper
flour for dredging
bit of oil (1 Tbl or less)

Preheat oven to 325F.
Salt and pepper the cube steaks and dredge once of twice in the flour.
In an oven safe pot, heat the oil over medium high until hot (AB says shimmering)
Brown steaks for a couple of minutes per side. May have to do this in batches. Don’t crowd the pot.
Set aside.

Return pot to the burner over med-low heat. You might need a bit of butter or oil if there was none left in the pot. Add
1 half a medium onion, chopped. Saute for a few minutes.
1 small glove garlic chopped. Saute for minute or so.
Big squirt of catsup (1 or 2 Tbl)
1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce
1/2 Tbl brown sugar
1 Squirt of prepared mustard, (1 tsp?)
1 tsp Paprika. Mix it all up.

Add 1 1/2 cups chicken or beef, broth or stock.
Dash of cayenne pepper or bottled hot sauce.

When it comes to a simmer, add the steaks to pot, cover and put in the oven for 1 and half to 2 hours. Easy!

I didn’t actually measure but above is close. I happened to have home made chicken stock but beef base with some water and a shot of red wine might be good. I happen to like a lot of sauce (or gravy). If needed you could add water if its two dry or take the lid off it’s too soupy or thicken with a slurry. Serve with whatever goes with gravy: pasta, potatoes, dumplings. Rice would probably be OK too.

This may be an “interesting” experiment. Same recipe as the last one. Scant Tbl of starter, 1.5 oz of water, 3 z of KA BF. Mix and knead, it’s very dry. Let sit on the counter top of a lot of hours. This one was around 18 hours. Mix that up with 8 oz of water, 11 oz of the KA BF, let set, knead a bit, add salt (1 Tsp), knead a bit, Let set a bit, knead. “A bit” is 3 to 8 minutes. It’s a mildly wet , 65% dough so you use water on your hands to help knead.

That’s what I did previously, although not all “bits” of time are equal. With all the water on my hands, its probably closer to 70% hydration but it seems like the same dough as the previous attempt. Indoor temp is a bit lower than then. This time I put the dough in a 4C (plus) Pyrex measuring. It’s roughly 2C of dough. That’s no surprise, it was roughly 2 C of flour and 1 cup of water.

This time I want to test whether I’m over proofing on the bulk fermentation (first rise). There’s three different tests that yeast bakers may use all in the same recipe. They go by time and temp. 1.5 hours at 80F, Until doubled (a visually tricky measurement in a bowl with slopping sides) Or until you can poke it a quarter inch and the indentation remains. “The touch”

Sourdough has it own time schedule so you can’t go by the clock. This test is about my hypothesis that stronger flours need less time in the bulk rise than “normal” bread flour, and higher hydration makes the strong flour dough more amenable to quicker “dough rot” or break down the gluten (the dough becomes wetter and will stick to you when you poke it). That’s the test.

I let the dough rise for 2 hours and 15 minutes. It passed the indentation test. I did not wait for a double or triple. It went from 2 Cup to 3C. Last I did the math, that’s a half, not even close to a double. I covered the bowl in plastic wrap and put it into the fridge until the next day.

The next day, I took it out of the fridge and shaped in to a round (boule) and let it rise on some parchment paper (over an inverted baking sheet). Easy to shape and seam, I got a nice smooth skin. It took about 3.5 hours to rise to the proper “touch”. It was cool inside the house, below 70. I did the full steam treatment because it looked like it would be a good loaf and worth that small effort.

Plenty of oven spring, almost a sphere in fact. Looks good from the outside although it’s a bit smaller than previous loaves. It feels as a little more dense when hefted. That’s probably from the shorter bulk rise and the cold shaping. The slashes filled in of course, I may give up on that sub goal. The bottom of the loaf (where the seam was) is promising. It started to blow out on the underside in a couple of places, probably at the seams. I can definitely see gluten strands. A very pretty loaf of bread. I probably won’t take a picture, there’s plenty of those.

Somethings I won’t know until I slice it. What I do know is that a 5 to 6 hour, triple in size bulk ferment works against me, at least with the KA BF. I know you can free form a loaf without a banneton or form if you do a proper shaping and the dough hasn’t started to break down. (I knew that before but it’s always nice when it works). If I remember correctly, using 10% to 50% of whole wheat to AP has the same effect - Easy to over proof and it changes how the dough feels at similar hydration levels compared to most bread flours (or KA AP). I’d say I’ve learned a lot. Good thing too because I still got 4.75lb of the KA BF to use.

[Much Later]
It was decent bread but it wasn’t developed quite enough. Bit more time on the first rise I think.