Rye Bread, Curry Pumpkin Soup and Farro

This is a prelude to some much more serious baking.  I made a couple of rye sourdough loaves.  I was having trouble finding a recipe I wanted to do and got fed up, so this was sort of improvised.  I ended up adding too much salt.  The bread was good, but I think it's hard to get anything but a very dense loaf with rye unless you have high gluten or at least bread flour, and this was just all-purpose.

It is fun to grind rye berries.

 Though taking it from flakes to even a coarse flour is not easy.  Also used some fresh milled whole wheat flour.

 Here are the two loaves.  Very wet dough.  The dough in the red pot had a lower rye content than the other.

 I covered them for the first 15-20 minutes of their baking time and baked for close to an hour I think.  Came out looking nice.

I also made a sort of Thai curry style pumpkin soup with a mushroom stock made from dried shiitakes, frozen tough parts of the maitakes I picked in the fall, ginger and lime leaves.  Also galangal, fish sauce, a fennel bulb, some chili paste, coconut milk and of course roasted pumpkin.  Garnished with crimini mushrooms, fennel, cilantro, mint and sriracha.

We also had farro with mushrooms, brussels sprouts, squash and shallots and some smoked salmon to go with the rye.  Makes me want some more looking at it.

 Wait for the next post if you like an open crumb.

Random Old Pictures

Japanese-style braised chicken mushroom with sake and green onion

 Thai green curry chicken mushroom from homemade curry paste with green pepper

 Red chile rib tips a la New Mexican Carne Adovada with roasted peppers

 Homemade pasta with sausage, onion and brussels sprouts

 Pumpkin mac n cheese with I think chorizo

 This isn't food per se, though it is lamb's quarters which is an edible plant.  I don't know what happened to it, but it was beautiful.

California Part Two

Have you ever put your arms over your head and kind of pushed your ears forward with your upper arms so that they are almost nestled in your armpits.  While listening to music on your laptop which is right in front of you?  It's easier to do if you have a chair back to hold on to.  Don't try it.  My ears hurt.

Anyway here's some more food from the California trip.

Second Night:

This might not look that appetizing, but it was delicious.  Raw kibbeh.

And cooked lamb too.

A Cheese Board sour dough foccaccia recipe.

Roasted eggplant with a pomegranate and walnut vinaigrette kind of thing.

And another pie.

Third Night (Gualala):

In the morning we made a stock from the lobster carcasses we had for dinner the first night.  Red bell pepper, leek tops from the garden, lots of lobster, some other stuff.

Beautiful coast, beautiful abalone, beautiful man.

You need a permit to take abalone.  They also need to be 7" long and you can only take three at a time.  Our host has a permit, but at this private beach people only take two at a time.  That may be why it only took him a few minutes to pick them out of the tidal pools.  People dive for abalone, but on this beach, MG and I spotted one sitting up on a rock, high and dry.

Here they are, safe at home, but that's just the beginning of the fun.

After prying them out with that tool, you need to remove their iridescent blue gut sack penis thing.

Yum.

Trim the tough outer parts.

Abalone cutlets, if you will.

Lightly pan fried in butter with parsley and garlic.  Some lemon over the top.  The mild flavor, buttery tenderness, appearance and preparation almost reminded me of really good veal scallopine.  No really powerful flavors, but very tasty and extremely decadent.

But not quite as decadent as the lobster and wild mushroom risotto we made from that stock.

Mushroom varieties were: chanterelle, matsutake, slippery jacks I picked on the property (my first slippery jack), lobster, and a couple mushrooms I'm not too sure about that I think were from the farmer's market.  Maybe some kind of beech mushroom or something.

And finally, some fresh california artichokes, simply prepared.

And the feast:

Napa Round One

We were greeted on arrival with homemade head cheese (not pictured).  It escalated from there.

To pique the taste buds and prepare for the decadence to come, we started with mangalitsa prosciutto bocadillos.  Crusty toasted bread drizzled with olive oil, rubbed with garlic and tomato and topped off with fatty, hammy, woolly pig.

Our mushroom selection included matsutake, top, lobster mushroom, bottom right, and chanterelles, in the bin at left.  Not pictured are oyster mushrooms and an Oregon black truffle.

The shrooms were destined for a series of pizzas baked in the oven below.

Here they are, par-sauteed and ready to top. 

Also prepped for the oven are some razor clams, fresh from the east coast, courtesy of Virgin Atlantic.

That sucker was up near 1,000 degrees.  A bit out of control, in fact.

Lotta fire.

First pizza is ready to go in.  Melted leeks and mozzarella form the base for truffle shavings to come.

The wax paper lit right up.  Eventually part of the crust did too.

Oh well, still dank.

Razor clams provencale.  Or something like that.  Real simple, oil, garlic, parsley, lemon.

Here's the chanterelle pizza.  Pretty even charring here.  You can imagine what the matsutake and lobster pizzas looked like - they each topped their own pie. 

And a final pie: fresh figs from the yard on a bed of melted leeks.

Finished off with apple pie with apples from the yard and a healthy dollop of creme fraiche.

This pictorial doesn't even include the 2.5 lb lobsters that were the main course.  You'll see their remains in the lobster stock that went into a risotto in dinner number three.

I think our jaded appetites are due for another renewal (from 1900)

Biscotti

Biscotti are easy to make, delicious and keep for a long time.  Being somewhat exotic and usually expensive, people think they are impressive.  I recommend making biscotti at home.

I used an Alice Waters recipe, which keeps things very simple.  These are the ingredients:

2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour, described below)
1 1/2 cups whole almonds
1 cup sugar
3 Eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp anise, fennel or coriander
1/4 tsp lemon zest

-Preheat the oven to 350.
-Toast the almonds in the oven for 5 minutes or until they start to get fragrant.
-Combine the flour, spice and baking powder in a bowl.
-Roughly chop the almonds.
-Beat the sugar, lemon zest and eggs together until the mixture thickens and forms ribbons when drizzled.
-Fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture until just combined.  Gently fold in the chopped almonds.
-Form the dough into two 3-inch wide loaves.  Smooth the loaves with wet hands.
-Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350.
-Allow to cool for ~10 minutes, then slice the loaves about 1/2 inch thick.
-Put the slices back in the oven for 10 minutes on each side, until slightly browned and crisp.


The flour I used was given to me by Sarah Kavage, who did an artistic project focused on "nourishment, food systems, and the City of Chicago" called Industrial Harvest.  The culmination of the project was purchasing 1,000 bushels of soft red winter wheat, milling it into 20 tons of flour and giving it away to various organizations and people around Chicago.

This is the bag it came in:

It is good-looking flour:

Soon to be biscotti...

After the initial bake:

And the final product: