I'm sure you know that, as Reinhart says, the dough will freeze without any harm.

I will not be making very much for dinner over the next few weeks. My wife had oral surgery from damaged sustained in a fall ( including a broken wrist ) and is severely limited on what she can eat.

I will say that we very much enjoyed Kenji's creamy mushroom soup: https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-creamy ... soup-quick

lougord99 wrote:I will not be making very much for dinner over the next few weeks. My wife had oral surgery from damaged sustained in a fall ( including a broken wrist ) and is severely limited on what she can eat.

I will say that we very much enjoyed Kenji's creamy mushroom soup: https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-creamy ... soup-quick

Oh no! I hope she heals up quickly. The ice this week was evil.

lougord99 wrote:I will not be making very much for dinner over the next few weeks. My wife had oral surgery from damaged sustained in a fall ( including a broken wrist ) and is severely limited on what she can eat.

Very sorry to read this, Lou. Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Jennie.

Tonight, taking a break from pizza. I hadn't made these steamed ribs in black bean sauce in a while but something got me in the mood for them, so I figured I'd give it a go . . .


Rib Trimming w/Kanehide Bessaku Semi Stainless Honesuki, 150mm/lefty
Picked these up at the butcher counter at Richwell. They were split into thin strips (cut in half lengthwise) but still needed to have their membranes removed and be cut into individual ribs. Seems many traditional preps call for a 'scrub' in a mix of coarse salt, corn starch, cooking wine and crushed ice (I later smashed up these cubes in a dish towel to accomplish that). This eliminates any muddy flavors and keeps the color of the finished product on the lighter side.


Scrubbed Riblets
Swished these around for about 8 minutes before rinsing them off and drying them thoroughly. After that, it was time to make the marinade . . .


Marinade Mise En Place & taz575 80CRV2 S-Grind Gyuto, 220mm
Granulated sugar, baking soda, microplaned garlic, microplaned ginger, corn starch, avocado oil, fermented black beans (douchi), shoyu, oyster sauce, Chinese cooking wine and salt. Just getting rolling with this excellent piece by my friend Tim Johnson. Here, in addition to coarsely chopping the douchi, I trimmed the garlic and ginger before microplaning them. Not much else to cut for now but again, just getting going with this well-built piece.


Marinating Riblets
That's about 6 pounds of ribs. I covered these and put them in the fridge overnight. After that, a ~40-minute stint in the steamer but before that, it was time for some side-dishery . . .


Mise En Place & taz575 80CRV2 S-Grind Gyuto, 220mm
Green cabbage, zucchini, black pepper, fresh rice noodles (chow fun), oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, shoyu, fish sauce, avocado oil, minced garlic, cremini mushrooms and granulated sugar.


Stir-Fried Rice Noodles w/Veg
This one came out really well. Loved the combination of textures -- toothsome rice noodles and slightly crunchy cabbage and zucchini. The sauce was a riff on what one might find in char kway teow, with some nicely balanced funkiness and sweetness.

Back to the ribs . . .


Steamer
Went four-high on this one.


A Peek Inside
The steam was messing with my autofocus but here, about 5 minutes in, they were well on their way.


Plated Up
These turned out great. Tender and flavorful, with the meat coming away cleanly from the bone/cartilage with merely a gentle tug. A really fun, delicious dinner.

=R=

Last night was something very old school: A pork rib roast (one of the 99¢/lb roasts loin end roasts from Tony's last week) on the Farberware Open Hearth rotisserie left in the basement of the house we bought in 1990. Brined and brushed with a seasoned salt/agave syrup mix, here it is beginning its spin:
Quite possibly the least energy efficient cooking method ever, but our furnace didn't run the whole evening. 2:15 later, it was 145F inside and nice and brown on the outside:
The exterior fat basted the whole thing before dripping away, leaving nice moist lean pork.
Tonight was thin crust pizza in the Woodfire @ 550F.
This time I cut circles of parchment to eliminate the burnt corners, then rolled the dough directly on the parchment as suggested by lougord99. On one pie, pulled the parchment halfway through and got a noticeably crisper crust than on the other where I baked on parchment the full time. Also thanks to boudreaulicious for the pre-cooking veg on the pizza stone suggestion.

Hi,

Once upon a time I bought a Farberware Open Hearth rotisserie, I used it for making Korean BBQ.

It became a memorable meal for all the blown fuses causing many trips to the basement to reset it. Brought up a 100-foot heavy duty extension cord to check various plugs until something worked. I am a little vague on this, so maybe I pan fried the bulgogi.

I gave it away.

Cool to see it worked well for you.

Regards,
CAthy2

Still working through my current batch of Peter Reinhart's recipe for Roman-style pizza dough.

When you think about the saying 'more than the sum of its parts,' Pizzeria Bianco's Rosa may be the quintessence of the term. So simple and yet, one of the most dazzling and surprising flavor combinations ever. And while the riff I made tonight on that classic comes nowhere close to approaching that level of sublimity, the combination of ingredients is an undeniable winner . . .


Mise En Place
Freshly grated pecorino romano, mandoline-sliced, evoo-soaked red onion, Roman-style pizza dough, unfiltered evoo, freshly grated parmigiano reggiano, roasted/salted pistachios (later evoo'd) and dried rosemary. I snuck a bit of pecorino in there (I think the Rosa uses strictly parmigiano reggiano) and without any fresh rosemary on hand, I used dried.


Riff On The Rosa
About 9 minutes at 550F, baked directly on a steel. I thought this came out nicely, with a crisp, flavorful crust that bubbled up and browned nicely during the bake.


Slice & taz575 80CRV2 S-Grind Gyuto, 220mm
Such richness and complexity of flavor. Dare I say it . . . more than the sum of its parts. I just love this one.

And yes, I was very careful to avoid all the pistachios when cutting this into slices with my friend's knife!

Happy Monday!

=R=

Cathy2 wrote:Once upon a time I bought a Farberware Open Hearth rotisserie, I used it for making Korean BBQ.

I've done char siu with it in the past. Since the only heat regulation is from how high the rotisserie is above the heating element, it's a little tricky to keep the outside from burning. And it's a rather crude high wattage appliance to be sure. I wonder if I saw yours at the Salvation Army some years ago?

Last night I made a couple little pot pies from leftover beef stew and leftover mettwurst & kraut:
Tonight, a small batch of whole wheat/oat breadstix to accompany a pot of stuffed pepper soup:
The little oven's getting a workout lately.

One more oven project: Tonight was "hot dish", in this case a sort of northern Midwest biryani made with chicken thighs, bratwurst slices, mixed vegetables including some frozen peas, long grain rice, wild rice, topped with a chicken stock/cream sauce. The general sort of thing often served out of a Nesco at potlucks.

Tonight, finishing up the remaining 500g of Roman-style dough with a Margherita-inspired pizza in a Field cast iron pan . . .


Margherita-Style Pizza
Tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil. Even though I didn't put the basil on until after the pizza cooked, it gave up the ghost pretty quickly -- aromatic but quite wilty and discolored. This was baked at 550F for about 14 minutes. When the outer edge started bubbling, I pulled it.


Slice
This pizza, slightly thicker than the previous ones I made with the Roman-style dough, was an improvement. It was quite crispy on the bottom but light, tender and flavorful above that. If not for the excessive moisture in my lazily made tomato sauce, this pizza could have been a contender. Instead, I'd rate it as perfectly okay.

=R=

What baking procedure did you use for the cast iron pan pizza? And which flour for your Roman dough?

Valentines Day came early here due to travel plans. I made a heart shaped Detroit style pizza using a half recipe of dough from the Cook's Country recipe (Aug/Sep 2017, p 4) with well-aged brick cheese, black olives, sausage and Rocky Rococo-style plum tomatoes rather than sauce. Wish I had an ol' black steel deep heart pan instead of this aluminum one, for pizza at least.
This was the first 'za I've made using some Len'z Best Pizza Flour that I got at Restaurant Depot. Worked fine for this one, might be a little softer flour than the Ceresota I usually use. It was cheap in these days of expensive flour: $7.10 for a 25lb bag.

For dessert, some heart-shaped cupcake brownies:
Searching for a cocoa brownie recipe that mentioned baking in silicone molds turned up this one from Mostly Mediterranean. Because the batter seemed a little runny, I added one more Tbsp of flour.

I don't usually go for frosting on brownies, but something about Valentines day makes it seem exactly right

- zorkmead

tjr wrote:What baking procedure did you use for the cast iron pan pizza? And which flour for your Roman dough?

Your heart pizza looks good!

King Arthur AP flour on this one. No specific procedure. Preheated the oven and steel to 550F for about an hour. Lightly oiled the pan. Built the pizza in the pan and baked it for ~14 minutes (pan on steel). Once it started bubble around the edges, I pulled it.

Would love to try geting the pan hot before baking but that would make assembly more difficult/dangerous than I really want to deal with. I know some people will finish their cast iron-baked pizzas by removing them from the pan after most of the baking and placing them directly on a steel or stone to finish. Another approach I've seen is to heat the pizza, still in the skillet, on the stovetop for a few minutes after it comes out of the oven. In my case, the bottom of the pizza was really nice after 14 minutes -- crispy and golden brown -- so I did neither.

=R=

I have been using KA '00' Pizza Flour for a few years.
It's more expensive and you generally have to order it directly from KA.
https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/00-pizza-flour
I use well seasoned rectangular iron/steel baking pans and I coat the pan liberally with an Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
I roll out the crust to a thin round that I can handle onto the pan and assemble the ingredients as fast as possible so the sauce penetrates the dough minimally.
Into the hot 550F oven.
This results in a crisp crust that is almost fried in the olive oil.
To get the top ingredients done with the crust, I use my Gas Broiler on the top of the Viking with the Convection fan.
I watch with a flashlight until I start to see the cheese and pepperoni start to crisp.
The difference between KA AP and other AP flours is not that great but it does seem to make for a thin crust with olive oil flavor, not quite a cracker crust but the best that I can do without a 700F oven.
-Richard

budrichard wrote:I have been using KA '00' Pizza Flour for a few years.
It's more expensive and you generally have to order it directly from KA.
https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/00-pizza-flour
I use well seasoned rectangular iron/steel baking pans and I coat the pan liberally with an Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
I roll out the crust to a thin round that I can handle onto the pan and assemble the ingredients as fast as possible so the sauce penetrates the dough minimally.
Into the hot 550F oven.
This results in a crisp crust that is almost fried in the olive oil.
To get the top ingredients done with the crust, I use my Gas Broiler on the top of the Viking with the Convection fan.
I watch with a flashlight until I start to see the cheese and pepperoni start to crisp.
The difference between KA AP and other AP flours is not that great but it does seem to make for a thin crust with olive oil flavor, not quite a cracker crust but the best that I can do without a 700F oven.
-Richard

Sounds good. I think that broiling move is pretty well-recommended in many circles. I have some 00 pizza flour on hand (bought it at Caputo's last week) and will give it a go soon. I've got another dough lined before that one, though.

Tonight, about as close to pizza as you can get without actually making pizza . . .


Hot Italian Sausage Sandwich
Had everything lined up for pizza but didn't have enough mouths around tonight to make it disappear, so a sandwich instead. Melted mozzarella, provolone and parmano blend. I seem to have worked the sauce issue out (drained the crushed tomatoes for a while) and the sauce clung nicely.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:King Arthur AP flour on this one. No specific procedure. Preheated the oven and steel to 550F for about an hour.
=R=

I have read to pre-heat the oven for an hour. The rationale for that is to get the stone and oven walls up to the ambient temperature. I find it difficult to believe that it takes that long to get everything up to temp.

budrichard wrote:I have been using KA '00' Pizza Flour for a few years.
It's more expensive and you generally have to order it directly from KA.
https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/00-pizza-flour

Just a heads up - I regularly find KA '00' pizza flour at the Jewels around me (out in the Western suburbs). Last time I was looking Jewel had both the KA pizza flour and a Jewel brand version. I picked up the Jewel branded one, but haven't tried it yet.

- zorkmead

Dinner on Friday was something out of the ordinary for us since it was Valentine's day.

Cheese burger sliders: Dinner rolls sliced in half, topped with cheddar cheese, browned and seasoned ground beef and a pickle. Brushed with a mustard sesame sauce and browned in the oven until the cheese was melty.

Grapes and salad on the side.

Blondie Sundaes: Salted caramel pretzel blondies, topped with ice cream and homemade hot fudge sauce.

I actually made this same menu last year but everyone except me was sick with Covid (boo). This year was a lot more fun!

- zorkmead

We didn’t eat it but my newest puppy turned 1 yesterday so she, along with her brothers & sister, were treated to heart shaped bacon cheeseburgers and various pup treats from Chewy. The carnage that ensued while they enjoyed the V-day B-day feast was the best part!!





The humans had ground beef gringo tacos —no photos of those unfortunately —they were delicious!

My nearest Jewel is in Waukegon, so one of my forays back from Chicago I will pop in and see if they have any KA '00'!
I also use KA Pasta flour if I get a hankering to do some work at the bench!
Commercial pasta various from various USA brand to low cost and then expensive brands I find at Tenutas.
I'm not sure of the quality difference. some day I have to do blind test of a few types of pasta against home made!
-Richard

I made heart shaped pizzas last night (formed by hand rather than in a pan.) I tried a new-to-me recipe, this adaptation of Roberta's recipe from NYTimes.

I used all King Arthur bread flour and overnight fermented. Baked at 500 (high as my oven will go) on pizza stone heated for ~an hour. It turned out great! Blistery bubbles popping from a well risen cornicione. It crisped up nicely at about ten minutes and was a perfect middle ground between tender and chewy. I think this recipe is my new go to!

Oh and topping wise – one with deli pepp for the kiddos. The other with quartered cremini shrooms tossed in oo and smoked paprika and par-roasted + rough chop garlic. The clan was very content with this festive V-day dinner!

Jefe wrote:I tried a new-to-me recipe, this adaptation of Roberta's recipe from NYTimes.

Roberta's Pizza Dough recipe, sans paywall for us cheapskates. Converted to baker's percent format for comparison with other pizza doughs:
50% 00 flour
50% AP flour
2.61% fine sea salt
0.65% active dry yeast
1.31% extra-virgin olive oil
65% lukewarm water (correction based on comments to the article)

Woodmans also has KA 00 Pizza Flour. In Kenosha it's $6.69 for 3lb, in the flour aisle. They also have Anna's imported Italian 00, $4.19 for 1 kg. And Bob's Red Mill 00 in the natural/organic aisle, $6.99 for 3lb.

I've used Caputo 00 and some other brands when Valli used to sell them cheap, $1 for 1kg bags. Works very well but didn't seem a whole lot better than my usual Ceresota AP. That's very similar to KA AP, tich higher protein than the other AP flours. Maybe the 00 dough is a little easier to handle?

ronnie_suburban wrote:Hot Italian Sausage Sandwich

Back home we called that a pizzaburger, but I think around here a pizzaburger is something else? In any event, looks tasty!

Back end of February already and I hadn't made this wintertime household favorite in ~54 weeks. Chile Verde Pork Stew . . .


Pork Shoulder & Kanehide Bessaku Semi Stainless Honesuki, 150mm/lefty
This is always a fun task. This portion of shoulder started out at around 6 pounds and netted out at slightly over 4 pounds. I didn't do terribly with it but I'm not quitting my day job, either!


Mise En Place
Cayenne pepper, AP flour, ancho chile powder, granulated onion & garlic, thyme, cumin, black pepper & salt (Mexican oregano wandered off screen), cilantro, oiled/broiled chiles, etc (poblanos, jalapenos, serranos, garlic, white onion and tomatillos) and evoo.

Meat gets lightly covered in a mix of the seasonings, then seared in evoo. Meanwhile, boiled items, fresh cilantro and salt go into the blender to make a cooking medium/puree. Once all the meat is seared, the pureed mixture gets dumped over it, everything gets mixed together and it goes into a 275F oven (covered dutch oven) for a couple of hours, until the meat is tender.

While that was going, time for a side dish . . .


Rice Mise En Place & taz575 80CRV2 S-Grind Gyuto, 220mm
Everything but the water . . . chicken/tomato bouillon, salt, onions & carrot, long grain rice, tomato paste and frozen baby peas.


Plated Up
Chile verde pork stew, Mexican restaurant-style rice and spicy-sweet cucumber salad. Garnished with (maybe a bit too much) cotija.

=R=

tjr wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Hot Italian Sausage Sandwich

Back home we called that a pizzaburger, but I think around here a pizzaburger is something else? In any event, looks tasty!

When I saw your post, I thought "yeah, that's a good description," and even though mine wasn't on a bun, I'm totally fine with it. However, due to some childhood cafeteria ptsd, my wife definitely is not, lol! She muttered something about having been traumatized in her formative years by something called a pizza burger. The details weren't entirely clear but I'm leaving it alone!

=R=

Getting there with pizzas. Tonight, used a 96-hour-fridge-fermented batch of my previously-lost 'family recipe' dough . . .


Mise En Place & taz575 80CRV2 S-Grind Gyuto, 220mm
Evoo, crushed tomatoes (drained and seasoned), dough, mandoline-sliced red onion (evoo'd and salted), pepperoni, dried oregano, sauteed mushrooms, cooked Italian sausage, Parmano blend, whole milk mozzarella, salt and black pepper.


Pizza
Pepperoni, sausage, mushroom & onion. ~9 minutes at 550F directly on a steel, the last 3 minutes with the fan on.

Nowhere near where I want to be yet but I'm continuing to have fun and dial it in. I love this very short dough as much as I remember. It bakes up tender and crisp, and with the long, cold ferment, very flavorful. I think I could have seasoned the tomatoes more aggressively, and next time, if I don't have fresh/raw sausage, I'll skip it entirely. But other than those two minor missteps, this was a very solid effort.

Happy Monday!

=R=

Interesting, a short pizza dough. Care to share the recipe? Or at least the type of fat used?

tjr wrote:Interesting, a short pizza dough. Care to share the recipe? Or at least the type of fat used?

Sure. This recipe was 'lost' until, very recently, when deep in a folder in a drawer at my brother's house, scrawled on a post-it note, it was found . . .

Here it is, as written:
1/2 pack of yeast (probably active dry but not specified)
1.5 cups warm water (temperature not specified)
4.5-5 cups of flour (probably AP but not specified)
3/4 cup of oil, part olive (no ratio specified)

No salt, no sugar and LOTS of oil (but I added 2% salt). That is a lot of oil, and as such, I'm guessing it was initially written as a dough for deep dish pizza. In fact, my brother says he originally saw it in a magazine clipping pinned to the wall at Pizzeria Uno in SF/CA circa 1990.

=R=

made a kinda version of deborah madison's fragrant onion tart; the standard quiche/pie dough i use, par baked, brushed with dijon, filled with caramelized onions (2 large) and 3 eggs, 1/2 sour cream, 1/2 milk, 1/2 cup ish grated parm. buttery goodness on this cold night.

Converted to baker's percentage, splitting the difference at 4 3/4c flour:

Ron's "Lost" Pizza Dough
100% AP flour
60% warm water
27% mixed olive/vegetable oil
.6% dry yeast
2% salt
(conversion factors from aqua-calc.com)

So that really is a high-fat and relatively dry dough. Good potential for deep dish?

For comparison, a simple biscuit recipe is 20% shortening, 75% milk. (White Lily 3-ingredient biscuits)

tjr wrote:Converted to baker's percentage, splitting the difference at 4 3/4c flour:

Ron's "Lost" Pizza Dough
100% AP flour
60% warm water
27% mixed olive/vegetable oil
.6% dry yeast
2% salt
(conversion factors from aqua-calc.com)

So that really is a high-fat and relatively dry dough.

Nice, thanks!

tjr wrote:Good potential for deep dish?

ronnie_suburban wrote:That is a lot of oil, and as such, I'm guessing it was initially written as a dough for deep dish pizza.

I think so!

=R=