...And Delicious Crusty Bread

First crusty pork roast with caraway, now crusty bread with caraway... 

I seamlessly follow my last post here.

I have to admit, even though I cook and bake a lot, I have never baked bread before. I always wanted to, though. Maybe I was scared and thought it's really complicated or I just never found the right occasion.

But last weekend was the right time, and I can assure you, it won't be my last. Baking bread is really simple and so so satisfying once you pull that beautiful thing out of the oven.

I decided to go for a crusty sourdough bread with rye and wheat flour. It's my favorite bread, cause it is crusty outside and all soft inside.

For the sourdough I used Seitenbacher's "Natur Sauerteig" which you probably may not be able to get if you don't live in Germany. But you can make sourdough starter yourself really easily. It just takes a few days time to develop the starter. But you pretty much mix flour with water and let it sit... you can find a recipe and instructions for it here and/or here!

The sourdough I used. I did it cause I was simply too impatient to wait another few days. And this one here is real sourdough with all natural ingredients. Not one of these extracts or fake "just like"products.

Ingredients:

300g wheat flour (ideally self-raising flour, in Germany Type 550)

200g whole wheat flour

500g rye flour

150g sourdough

2 pckgs à 10g dry yeast

650 ml warm water

1tsp sugar

3 tsp salt

1-2 tsp ground caraway

Directions:

1. In a bowl mix rye, wheat and whole wheat flour.

2. Using a standmixer on low, mix sourdough, yeast, sugar and salt and ground caraway with the warm (not hot!) water in a second (big) bowl.

3. Slowly add the flour mix and start kneading the liquid with the flour until it is an even dough. Don't add all the flour at once.

4. With dough it is important to knead it really well and long. Once everything is mixed I kneaded it for probably another 6-10 minutes. Of course you can use your hands for kneading also! It's just more work.

5. Form the dough to a ball and place it back in the bowl. Sprinkle some flour over it and cover the bowl with a wet  towel (not soaking wet, just damp...). at a warm place let dough rest and rise for 2 hours.

6. Once the dough has doubled in size, knead it well. Then brush it with warm water, and using a knife, cut in the surface diamond-shaped if you like (makes it look more dramatic!).

7. Sprinkle with flour and let it rest and rise another 30 minutes.

8. Place the dough in the middle of the cold oven. You can do it without a pan, just place it in the middle of the oven on a sheet of baking paper. But there are also some fancy loaf pans you are welcome to use. I decided to use a springform tin. I greased the sides with some oil and put a round-cut piece of baking paper on the bottom.

9. Don't forget to place a small oven proof bowl filled with water at the bottom of the oven. The evaportaing water will keep the dough moist!

10. Turn the heat up to 250°C and bake the loaf for 20 minutes.

11. After that turn the temperature down to 200°C and bake for another 35 minutes.

12. Remove the loaf from the oven and let it cool down a little bit.

Done!

That's my 'proud' face. I look completely insane, I know...

The bread tastes best when fresh and still warm...

Notes: 

Of course you can add all kinds of things to the dough or experiment with different flours and amounts. You could for example add flax, sunflower or pumpkin seeds or dried herbs or use all rye flour instead of a mix. altering the flour amounts may have an impact on the dough, though,and it may get dryer...

Guinness Pie (New York Times/Jamie Oliver)

Hopefully this is going to be the last wintery-cold weather recipe for the next six months at least.

Don't get me wrong. This pie tastes delicious. But I'm so looking forward to spring and seasonal food such as asparagus, strawberries, peaches, rasberries, arugula etc...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I haven't been cooking that much lately, or at least not that much new or worth posting. But luckily I have a very ambitious fiance in Wil, at least when it comes to all kinds of meat dishes. He is currently curing his third bacon (which we are going to smoke afterwards), made pork rillettes and his own trotter gear (which is part of this guiness pie recipe, as well).

And yes, Wil also prepared this Guinness Pie, which he found here in the New York Times.

He altered the original recipe a little bit, but, of course, I will provide you with the info (in red) of what he did different and how it affected the dish in the end.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter

2 large red onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

- Wil used celeriac instead of celery, and added 3 medium potatoes, 1 large parsnip, 2 medium black radishes and 1 small violet turnip, and 1 small leek all chopped in bite-sized cubes and pieces.

10 mushrooms, trimmed and sliced

- Wil used dried wild mushrooms instead. They are much more flavorful than fresh cremini mushrooms or portobellos

3 pounds brisket (preferably second-cut) or stew meat, chopped into bite-size pieces

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons flour

1 sprig rosemary

About 4 cups (2 cans) Guinness or other stout

1 cup trotter gear (recipe to come!) or 8 ounces freshly grated Cheddar

For the pastry:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour  

- Wil used whole wheat flour, which gave the pie crust a much heartier flavor.

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt 

- he added a pinch of sugar and a dash of cinnamon to the dough, to make it less bland.

1/2 cup (1 stick) very cold unsalted butter, diced

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten.

 Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a large, ovenproof pan fitted with a lid, heat 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium-low heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until soft, about 10 minutes.

3. Add the carrots, celery/celeriac, potatos, parsnip, radishes, turnip, dried mushrooms and remaining 2 tablespoons butter and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms are dark in color and the moisture released by them has evaporated, about 15 minutes (that doesn't count for the dried mushrooms, of course!).

4. Season the beef pieces all over with salt and pepper. Add the beef, flour (Wil coated the meat in the flour) and rosemary to the pan and cook/brown over high heat, stirring often, for about 5 minutes.

5. Add enough Guinness to just cover the beef. Cover the pan and put it in the oven for 1 1/2 hours. Remove from the oven and stir. If using trotter gear, stir it in now (Wil went a little heavier on the trotter gear. It's just too good and rich!). Return to the oven and cook for 1 hour more. If it remains thin, set the pan over medium-low heat, remove the lid and reduce the liquid. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If using Cheddar, fold in about half.

6. While the stew is cooking, prepare the pastry: sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Using a pastry cutter or your hands, quickly work the butter into the dough until it is the texture of coarse meal. Add ice water, a splash at a time, until a firm dough forms. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

7. Place the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and, using a rolling pin, roll to the thickness of a computer mouse pad. Pour the stew into an 8-inch-square, 2-inch-high Pyrex dish or a deep 9-inch pie pan. If using Cheddar, scatter the remaining cheese across the top. Place the dough on top of the pie and pinch it closed around the edges using the tines of a fork, then slash the center lightly with a knife. Brush with the egg yolk, place on a baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes, or until the pastry is puffy and golden.  

Serves 6. 

The original stew was adapted from Jamie Oliver; the original pastry was adapted from Fergus Henderson.

Notes: 

Feel free to go heavy on the spices and seasoning. If you decide to use paprika, that's great and will definitely be a good fit. But please remember that this will give your British stew certainly a Hungarian twist. That's not bad at all. But if you want to keep it British you may better want to save the paprika for your next Gulasch. I would suggest, instead of using it here to rather find spices other than paprika to finish up your Guiness pie, even if this seems to be a bigger challenge.

Regarding the pie crust, I can say, that we are still trying to find the recipe for the perfectly soft but at the same time crunchy crust. The dough also should be flavorful, but not compete with the stew flavors either.

The whole wheat with some sugar, salt and cinnamon was an excellent decision. But the consistency was still a little bit too caky. We'll work on that and let you know how it goes...