Yakoob on 31/3/2017 at 07:53
I just made BREAD!
Inline Image:
http://i.imgur.com/90g5Okw.jpgBasic white, a little undersalted but consistency is good. Made whole wheat before, but it didn't rise as much as I wanted to. Now that I got the process down again (used to do it way back in college), time to experiment with ingredients :ebil:
bob_doe_nz on 1/4/2017 at 06:36
Throw in some dehydrated onion flakes. Om nom nom!
Renzatic on 1/4/2017 at 06:45
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Aja on 1/4/2017 at 07:11
Hey that's funny, I've been making bread too. I've been cultivating a sourdough starter for a few weeks now and have been regularly baking loaves, trying to improve. They already taste great and have a nice crumb, but getting them to rise is a challenge.
Embedding images from a phone is surprisingly hard, so here's a link:
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http://m.imgur.com/zuWjTQC)
Renzatic on 1/4/2017 at 07:18
To get serious for a second, if there's one thing I'd love to learn how to do, it'd be bake bread.
I love sandwiches, but I can never make a truly good one at home, because all the store bought breads I commonly get are always so dry and bland.
Aja on 1/4/2017 at 07:39
It's not difficult; just time consuming, especially if you try it with natural yeast like I am. You have to feed the starter twice a day and plan your baking like a day and a half before you actually bake. Not that I spend all that time on the bread, but you have to do a few things periodically, letting the dough rise and rest, etc. For someone who doesn't love cooking all that much, I'm finding it surprisingly rewarding.
heywood on 2/4/2017 at 14:57
I just tried sous vide for the first time last night. My wife and daughter keep asking for steak. Normally, the only way I like steak is cooked over a lump charcoal fire in my ceramic cooker, which is currently covered by a foot of snow. I've tried the various traditional indoor methods of cooking steak and have never been satisfied, but food blogs keep raving about sous vide. Now that they make sous vide cookers that you can just drop into any old pot, and they don't cost that much, I figured what the hell might as well give it a try. I went out yesterday and bought an Anova cooker for $130 at Target, and a couple of sirloins that were marked USDA Prime but looked rather average. I just gave them some salt and pepper and sealed them in a ziplock bag with some fresh herbs and olive oil, set the cooker at 130F and did other stuff for an hour or so. When we were ready to eat, I just heated up a tablespoon of butter in a skillet and seared them for a minute or two per side until browned.
They came out great, perfect medium rare, and more tender and juicy than I'm used to from this cut of beef. The texture was closer to what I'm used to from rib steak. I still like the depth of flavor and smoke and char you get from a cooking over a charcoal fire, but the sous vide method seems to preserve more moisture. So if you're living in an apartment and can't have a barbecue, this is clearly the best way to go.
Anybody else cooking sous vide?
heywood on 4/4/2017 at 18:41
Re: the sourdough culture. I like making pizza and tried keeping a sourdough culture for pizza dough, but I gave up after a couple of months. By the time I was getting good results we were tired of eating my pizzas. ? Now I just use active dry yeast from a jar. The flavor isn’t quite as good, but it’s no maintenance and produces more consistent results.
Mentioning sous vide again…
Last night was round two: salmon. My in-laws gave me about 10 lbs. of salmon they had caught fishing in Alaska. It’s leaner than the farm-raised stuff from the store. I tried baking it, broiling it, grilling on a wet cedar plank, and regardless of method it was coming out too dry if cooked medium, or a little too bland or watery tasting if cooked rare to medium rare. But sous vide saved it. Dry brined for 30 minutes, wiped off the salt, put it in a bag with some olive oil, a bunch of fresh tarragon, and a few thyme sprigs, cooked at 120F for 45 minutes and finished with a quick pan sear and squeeze of lemon. It was some of the best salmon I’ve had. Everybody who likes doing a bit of cooking should have one of these cookers. It has to be the most idiot-proof cooking method I've used.
Renzatic on 4/4/2017 at 18:46
Quote Posted by heywood
Anybody else cooking sous vide?
I've always wanted to make the attempt, considering I've heard nothing but great things about sous vide'd steaks. But considering the amount of money I've sunk into smokers recently, I'm not quit ready to take the plunge just yet.
heywood on 4/4/2017 at 20:17
What kind of smoker? Up here in New England, pellet smokers seem to be all the rage. A neighborhood friend got one last year (I don't recall which brand) and his smoker burns through pellets pretty fast and they aren't cheap.
One of these days, I need to get a real smoker. A couple years ago when I came back from Australia and was feeling barbecue deprived, I got a large Big Green Egg, attracted by the possibility of using it as both a smoker and a pizza oven and everything in between. It's fine for shorter smokes like chicken and ribs and smaller roasts. But for longer cooks it's not ideal. I can get 12 hours of burn time out of a full load of fuel, but towards the end of a long cook it needs a lot of airflow to keep the temperature up, which dries out the meat.
I splurged on a hardwood table for the Egg and by the end of last year it was collapsing due to rot. So first I need to do something about that, i.e. build one myself. Then I can work on setting up a spot for a smoker.
Regarding sous vide, now that cheap consumer models have arrived it's no longer a luxury item for foodies. I spent $130 on mine and I've seen some for under $100.
