Sourdough Loaf

In order to make a loaf of sourdough, the first thing I did, was create a fresh batch of starter by feeding a little starter with fresh flour and water and setting it in the proofer. It took about 6 hours to bloom. Then, I mixed the bread flour and All Purpose flour with water and set that in the proofer to allow the flour to absorb all the water. Then I added the starter and the salt and mixed it by hand till it was absorbed before proofing it and stretching it every 30 minutes before allowing it to proof uninterrupted. After that, I put it in the fridge in a flour covered kitchen towel in a bowl after shaping it into a round loaf. It rested in the fridge for about 12 hours.

In the morning, I put the Dutch Oven into the oven uncovered and turned the heat up to 525 and left it there for about 2 hours so it would be very hot when I put the loaf in. When the time came to put the loaf in, I took it out of the fridge and flipped it out onto a piece of parchment paper that I had cut in anticipation. I scored the loaf when looked perfect, and immediately took hold of the parchment and dropped it into the steaming hot dutch oven and covered it immediately, the into the oven it went with the temp at 500. After 20 minutes, I took the cover off and left it to bake. at 20 minutes I checked the color and the temperature (internal temp of 112 degrees) and decided to take it out. Onto the wire rack it went for an hour of cooling.

When it cooled, I cut a slice to taste it and check the crumb. During the proofing process, I made several folds to see if I could trap air in the dough, and low and behold, it looks perfect, and tastes like a perfect sourdough loaf! The crumb is open and its close to perfect! Just a few little refinements next bake to include a shorter proofing, slightly shorter in the fridge too, and to be comically gentle when I shape the next loaf!

Tagliatelle with Braised Lamb Ragu

I have mentioned that I love the cookbook Frankies Sputino. They have broken down their recopies so that a home chef and literally cook them to the same level of excellence they do in their restaurant. Once we discovered lamb shoulder was available, their Lamb Ragu recipe jumped off the page. What makes this recipe cool is that it is a 2-3 day recipe to make and it creates a fantastic ragu that serves 8. This means that we will have at least 3 additional meals from it. (They tell you where in the recipe to store it before finishing the dish. On day 1, you start out before you even get a chance to roast the lamb, by making a veal stock. To do this you roast veal bones in the oven, then you cover them with water and aromatics before simmering the bones for 4 hours. On day 2, you next, salt and pepper the lamb before roasting it at high temperature for about 45 minutes. While its roasting, you saute carrots, celerty, onion and fennel till they are heavily caramelized. When the lamb is roasted so it is clearly crusted you put it in a braising pot along with the vegetables, fresh tomatoes (crushed by hand) and parsley stems along with the veal stock made the day before.. Then it all sits covered in the braising pot for 2 hours in a 300 degree oven. When it comes out, you strain the stock, discard the vegetables. You set the lamb aside to allow it to cool. The stock is refrigerated and lamb, once cooled is pulled apart with forks, and is also refrigerated.

Day 3 is the day to eat. There are two things to do. One is to make fresh pasta for the tagliatelle needed for the dish. My strategy was to make it a little thicker than fettucine but about 4 x the width. Then you build the sauce with crushed Italian tomatoes.

The Tagliatelle is perfection. Now the sauce is getting friendly with the tomatoes, then the lamb goes in and from there w build the ragu.

Skimming the fat off the stock, and then allowing it to come together with the Italian tomatoes before adding the pulled lamb, gets the dish to the place where you can set some aside for another meal. After that, you build out the final dish with a few ladles of the ragu. To finish the dish, you add butter, Italian parsley, white pepper, salt and ultimately, the tagliatelle

You let the pasta sit in the sauce for a minute before serving and then to serve, you load pasta onto the plate, cover it in the ragu sauce and finish with tarragon and a little olive oil.

It’s not just a beautiful dish. It is spectacular. The way the tagliatelle with it’s soft folds invites the sauce. The depth of flavor that the process creates. The hints of fennel, the brightness of the tarragon, and pure perfection of the bite of the pasta. I loved this dish and will keep in in the rotation!

To be honest, I literally licked my plate clean! I will make one more note. To accompany the dish, I made the tomato, red onion and avocado salad that is literally like putting a gazpacho in your mouth between bites! It too is a winner.

Because it is a fairly significant cook, there will be at least 2 more meals for us to look forward to. This is what was left after the meal for us to save for later.What is great about this is that to get to the finished dish from here is very simple. It gives me a chance to tighten up the sauce a tad too.

As I have said many times now, every single dish I make from Frankie’s Sputino kitchen companion and cooking manual is brilliant. Honestly, the evening was a full culinary symphony — from the pasta to the ragu to the salad and wine, it all flowed together beautifully.

Heather kept saying, “I ma having a moment!” as she dug into her plate.

Spiced Chickpea Wraps

The full title is Spiced Chickpea Wraps with Tahini dressing. When I first made this, I was so impressed at how much it tasted like a falafel sandwich, which I LOVE, so it fast became a favorite. It’s pretty simple, and I really need to shout out to Thug Kitchen, where this recipe comes from. I also like the way the author writes, making cooking fun and simple and profane! You begin with cooking the chickpeas till they begin to pop like popcorn, then you cook down a liquid blend of soy, maple syrup and lemon juice before adding a spice blend including garlic powder, paprika, cumin, salt, pepper and peri peri. To serve it, you steam a large tortilla, and lay down a bed of fresh spinach, matchstick carrots and cucumber on top of a spread of tahini dressing Spoon the chickpeas on top of the vegetables and add another dollop of tahini dressing and you are off the delicious races! To make tahini dressing, you add tahini to lemon juice, olive oil, water, soy sauce and dash of rice wine vinegar. A couple cloves of finely chopped garlic and a little salt, pepper and peri peri go a long way. Also, you play with the amount of liquid to get the consistency, taste and texture right! Wrap it up and go to town! It’s definitely one of our favorite meals!

Mango Shrimp Pizza

Fusion is where its at for us. This pizza began as a Malawian Mango Chicken dish, and the sauce it left behind is so delicious that naturally, a pizza was the thing to do. We have found that shrimp is great with these sauces, to it was a very simple pizza. Mango sauce base with shredded mozzarella, and little piles of fresh mozzarella, then the shrimp. The pizza bakes in the oven then gets short broil before being dressed with fresh cherry tomatoes, lightly dressed arugula, a drizzle of balsamic reduction, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Delicious!

Mango Chicken – Malawi Style

The idea of a hot, sweet mango sauce sounded lovely. It’s a pretty easy dish with few ingredients. The secret is the sauce. I used 3 mangos, 3 tomatoes, a large onion, fresh ginger, a pile of garlic, tomato paste, curry powder, chili powder, salt and peri peri along with some red chili flakes and chicken stock. I seared the pre-spiced chicken (salt, pepper and peri peri) before letting simmer in the sauce for 20 minutes. After that, I used the immersion blender to puree the sauce. I made sour porridge (corn meal with a little vinegar) and served the chicken over the porridge with additional sauce for dipping. Alchemy!

Pizza al Salmone

When we set out to explore pizza, it never occurred to us that we would consider making pizza’s that competed in the World Rome Pizza competition. We also never considered that we would consider making the winning pizza in the “Specialty Pizza” category, but this pizza was ranked as the “Best in Show” in the 2019 competition. It’s a technical pizza to make, including things that we have never considered. For example, in order to make this pizza, you need to make a “balsamic cream”, which is really a balsamic reduction, and of course, the way the pie is baked, the time, and the method is technical, and then you use uncooked cured salmon. It’s a great pizza, quite unexpected, and filled with umami.

You start off with a light layer of crushed tomato and fresh mozzarella, which is baked and then broiled till the crust is toasted. Then you add the salmon to the hot pizza, add the olive oil dressed arugula, halved cherry tomatoes and lime zest, then you drizzle the balsamic reduction in a particular way, over the pizza and finish with a drizzle of fresh lemon juice.

Erie Ave Uplifted

Is this a peperoni and pineapple pizza, or is it an Erie Ave pizza with pineapple? Well, sort of neither and both. I started out with Toum (Lebanese garlic paste), then added tomato sauce that was enhanced with Tapatio for spice. Shredded mozzarella, pepperoni next, then pineapple followed along with chopped pickled jalapeno, hot honey, and finally finished with ricotta cheese. We both enjoyed it so much!

Fettuccini ai Tri Colori

There used to be an Italian restaurant near my old place over 30 years ago that served a Fettuccine ai Tre Colori that I always enjoyed. So,, I thought I’d try it. Pesto, alfredo and marinara sauce like tys Italian Flag! The truth is that because I don’t have a six burner stove, making this dish correctly was harder than it looked. So, I made it “Olive Garden” like. The pasta is amazing and I finished it in a little butter and pasta water before heating the sauces up one at a time before dousing the pasta in accordance with the flag, Green, white, red. We shaved paramagnon to finish. The pesto sauce had some pistachio notes and the red sauce was a spicy marinara.

Chicken Shawarma Plate

There is a local shawarma place in our neighborhood called Garlic Crush that makes this dish which I just love. Their version of this meal inspired me to try my own version. There are 4 parts to this dish. The chicken, the humus, the garlic paste (toum) and a fresh salad with an oil and vinegar dressing. The restaurant is owned by an Egyptian fellow, but puts themselves forward as Lebanese. In South Africa, back in the late 70’s a shawarma was my favorite take out meal. In my years here in the States, there have been only a few Lebanese places that have risen to the flavor profile I was expecting. Garlic Crush gets there, and this meal is my favorite version of their fare.

The chicken is marinated in a bath of lemon juice and olive oil and several spices, esp cinnamon, cardamom and cumin as well as garlic and hot pepper flakes (of course, I added peri peri). It marinates overnight.

The humus I make is so smooth and so good, that its almost pornographic. This time, I made it with a roasted shallot flavor and naturally, it was also heated up with peri peri.

The toum is a great emulsified garlic paste made slowly with olive oil and lemon juice. It’s also made a day ahead.

The salad I chose for this meal is a Greek tomato and cucumber salad with feta cheese, red onion and kalamata olives and a pile of chopped basil. It is a fantastic meal served over rice with a little warmed pita bread.

Korean Hot Wings

I have not watched Football for a very long time, but, with the Seahawks in the Superbowl, we made the choice to watch the game, along with the Winter Olympics, on Sunday. When you have a day of sports on the telly, you need snacks. Heather and I thought, we need an excuse to make wings. She had purchased some buttermilk for her pancake quest, so we soaked the wings in buttermilk for the morning, then coated them in a South African base that is peri peri based. Then I made a Korean seasoning that included soy sauce, gochujang, toasted sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, hot honeym fresh garlic fresh ginger, and chili flakes. They were delicious.