the one-egg omelette

Someone I work with has been selling me eggs from her dozen or so hens. So far, they've been the richest, freshest eggs that I've ever had. It's also nice having un-graded eggs: you can grab one on the small side for mayonnaise, a few large for baking, etc. And there's something comforting in knowing that on sunny days the hens poke around outside. A few even have names. (The rooster, on the other hand, due to recent behavior as he ages will soon be a fine coq au vin.)

This week (pictured right), she gave me a total of eleven chicken eggs plus a duck egg (lower right in pale green) and a turkey egg (upper right). The turkey egg was a "try me" sort of bonus, so I didn't want to spoil it by mixing it with the others. I figured that, given its size, it could easily make a modest one-egg omelette.

The yolk was deep orange and thicker than I've seen or than I'd expect (it would make a rich mayonnaise or aïoli). It beat to a nice froth and, as you can see, set beautifully in a thin, soft layer. I tossed in a small handful of cress and seasoned with salt and pepper. A fine omelette indeed.

mustard. & black radishes.

Two small, but wonderful discoveries. It's been cold, wet: not quite winter, not quite spring. Work's been quite busy, with some afternoon shifts, so I've not been cooking or eating as regularly. All of that notwithstanding, here are those two things.

Homemade mustard.

D. brought me some of his horseradish mustard the other day -- it's slightly sweet with a real nice kick. I tried it with some sauerkraut braised in a bit of stock with a seared fresh kielbasa. Not quite a choucroute garnie, but with two quite small roasted potatoes it was the perfect winter lunch. I still have about a quart of sauerkraut and maybe a bit less of sauerrüben that I ought to consume by spring.

Black Radishes.

Just about the only vegetable left in markets at this time of the year from New England (these from Vermont, actually), these back radishes that I found are really wonderful. They're crisp and pungent without any harshness of a red radish. With some dashi (Japanese style stock of bonito and kelp) on hand, all you really need for a fantatic soup is some noodles (buckwheat here), carrots, the aforementioned black radishes and some seasonings like tamari or a bit of mirin. South River's miso tamari is especially good. (And another incredible product made just a few miles away). I wouldn't cook either the carrots or the radishes, just slice them paper-thin.

baking

I mentioned at the end of last year that I'm baking full time, as in, I'm a baker. One of three (bread bakers) at relatively small bakery, meaning that I usually only get one bread shift per week, as we do everything by hand from start to finish: no mixers, shapers, etc. (Otherwise I do muffins/cookies or laminated doughs and cakes).

With the head baker in Argentina for ten days I picked up a whole handful of shifts (in fact, I got two weeks without making muffins, which is wonderful). Doing bread once a weeks means a blunted learning curve and long days (often thirteen-and-a-half hours) with a week to forget some subtle motion of the last shift. Even working two consecutive days -- and then three consecutive days -- has led to what seems a vast improvement. My baguettes will always need improvement, and shifts in protein and moisture in the flour this week didn't help, but I'm feeling more and more comfortable in each movement. And I'm shaving off hours from my days.

...Which means, being probably a bit obsessive, more time for baking at home. I made a three-and-a-half pound miche last week that far surpasses any of the other's I've made. I used a high-extraction flour -- something between white and whole wheat, only part of the bran being taken off -- which led to a light bread for having the richness and keeping quality of whole wheat. I also used a higher amount of pre-fermented flour (more of the sourdough build) which helps in all of those regards.

And now I have two days off (otherwise I'd be in bed by 8 pm).

(N.B.: We do have a Hobart mixer, if I made it sound like we had no electric mixers. We just aren't a bread factory with people who are mixers, shapers, etc. We do shape, load, etc by hand.)

sweet.

I've been enjoying the cookbook Breakfast•Lunch•Tea, a cookbook companion to Rose Carrarini's Rose Bakery in Paris. Her biscuits (cookies) that I've made have been nicely not to sweet, which is refreshing. (I made a bunch of the gingerbread biscuits around the holidays). This is her lemon cake. It's a pound cake of sorts, but not quite. I halved the recipe and put it in kougelhopf mold:

125 g. butter / 100 g. sugar / 2 eggs / ½t. vanilla / juice of ½ a lemon (I used a whole meyer lemon, since it's a little smaller) / zest of one lemon / ½ rounded t. baking powder / ¼ t. salt / 25 g. ground almonds / 140 g. AP flour.

The butter and sugar get creamed, the eggs beat in, then the vanilla and lemon juice and zest. the dry ingredients are folded in and it gets bakes for 25-30 minutes at 350ºF.

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And last night I made blood-orange meyer lemon marmalade. I found both fruits on sale and organic so it seemed like I needed to find a great use for those rinds. It was really great for breakfast, on toast.

bread

I made a Vollkornbrot -- a 100% whole rye bread with sunflower seeds. It's mainly a sourdough with a teeny bit of yeast (which I'll probably omit next time as it was probably not necessary). I used coarse whole rye (70%) and rye chops (30%). It made this one heavy loaf that was baked for about 80 minutes (470ºF for a quarter of an hour, 380º for the rest -- the initial heat helps it get lift since there's so little gluten). I let it rest for 48 hours, and then I cut into it:


It's been a week since I first cut into it and it's now as good as that first slice -- it may even be better. With time the rye gets a full flavor, almost spicy, and the sourdough element keeps its tang.

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On a very different note, the ultimate winter comfort lunch:



It's a grilled cheese of cheddar and sourdough semolina bread (this and the last from Hamelman's Bread) with an cream of tomato soup from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It leaves me with just a few jars of tomatoes from last year's canning madness, but was well worth it.

the devil and the shakers

I made a Shaker lemon pie using Meyer lemons last week -- it came out quite well. I might have used a bit more sugar -- or let the lemons macerate longer than over overnight -- but I was mostly satisfied. That -- as well as my next adventure -- came from Tartine. Just lemons, sugar and eggs in a flaky crust -- I was very careful to have a low-moisture crust and almost mangled it, but the extra work paid off as the crust was wonderful.


Next, for J.'s birthday, I made a devil's food cake with ganache and caramel filling and a ganache and crumb coat. The cake was a straightforward devil's food cake, rich with butter, cocoa and buttermilk.

It's four layers, with a layer of caramel and ganache in-between, then coated in two layers (a crumb coat and a smooth coat) of ganache. Then, before it cools, it gets coated in toasted cake crumbs (from the domes of the cakes) that have been pulverized in the food processor. I wish I had taken a photo of it sliced.

soup from the soup queen

Wild mushroom & walnut soup

Tunch showed off this wonderful soup in The Salted Cod. (Pictured is my attempt). It's wonderfully earthy and rich and extremely satisfying. I started it a bit late and the only store open (Big Y) didn't have leeks (neither did I, having just made leek soup) and I had forgotten porcini, but I made do. And half the liquid that I used was turkey stock (last of Thanksgiving's). I also, as suggested, upped the walnuts (who doesn't like walnuts anyway?). I also didn't use a blender (as I don't have one and food processors don't like soup) -- it was passed twice through my food mill.

a tea cake, a miche

I adapted this from Jamie Oliver's Torta Della Giovane Sara -- adding a little water to help the yeast give it more rise and substituting blood oranges for the lemon. It makes for a wonderful tea cake sort of thing.

½ oz. yeast in 3 T water / ½c. butter, melted / 1³⁄₄c. flour. / 2 eggs. / 1c. sugar. / 2 small blood oranges (zest & juice). / pine nuts.

Add butter to water/yeast mixture. Mix it all until smooth and pour into a buttered-and-floured 7 or 8-inch springform. Let rest ten minutes. (This -- as well at the water -- help it rise just a bit more. It's still firm like a poundcake.) Bake at 325ºF for 40-45 minutes.




And I made a whole wheat miche -- it's got a stiff levain starter and some rye and white flour. It's very good, and at four pounds it keeps for a week or so. (With the long, slow fermentation it had organic acids to help it keep and the size means moisture has farther to go to leave). It's from Hamelman's Bread.

heart-shaped potatoes

This made me think of Agnès Varda in her film Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse. It was from the last of a bag of fingerling potatoes from the now long-gone farmer's market. Varda made a shrine to her potaoes, I ate mine.

waffles

This morning I made orange-rye waffles with walnuts. It's based on something I made a while ago, and then re-born out of a basic recipe for waffles (with rye and whole wheat flours and zest and nuts added).

Dry ingredients: 1c. AP flour, ½c. whole wheat, ½c. rye flour, 1 t. b. powder, ½t. soda, zest of one orange and a handful (maybe a cup?) of toasted, chopped walnuts.

Wet ingredients: 3 eggs, 1½ c. buttermilk, ¼c. oil.

Topping: 3 oranges, sectioned, in maple syrup.


It was really good. The (stone ground) rye flour gave it a nice crust and texture.

happy new year!

Happy new year to all.

I quit my old job. And I'm baking full time. I'm excited about 2008.

panforte

I made, among other things (mostly cookies), panforte for the holidays. The recipe was from Tartine.

I candied two quinces and four oranges worth of peel. With that, figs, zante currants, hazlenuts, almonds and pistachio nuts. Add to that coriander, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, chocolate powder and some (honestly, not a whole lot) flour. Over that is poured honey and sugar cooked to a soft-ball stage and it gets baked. It came out really incredible. Even sworn spice cake haters liked it.