making tofu

I bought gypsum for my ale making venture and googled it to see what culianry uses it may have other than making water hard for brewing purposes. It's also a coagulant that can be used for tofu (nigari is more common/traditional). Using Just Hungry's recipes for soy milk and then for tofu, I had even more success than I had expected. It came out very firm, much like the Japanese tofu that I'd get at the Rainbow Co-op bulk section when I lived in SF. (Lately I've been getting the "AFC" pressed bean curd at local Asian markets -- It's halfway between that and supermarket "firm" tofu).

It starts off with boiling puréed, soaked soy beans:


After twenty minutes, it gets strained and is soymilk!


That is heated back up to 175ºF, and the coagulant (gypsum or magnesium cloride [nigari]) is added. It sits for fifteen minutes. I then added a bit more gypsum for good measure. And it is strained:


It gets shaped (in that towel, just in a colander in this case), and voilà:

asparagus season

The sure sign of spring out here, asparagus is finally out. And best asparagus, in my opinion and in that of many others, comes from the Pioneer Valley's rich soil. The town of Hadley is famous for its asparagus, with farms stands abound advertising asparagus as the season begins. (This actually hailed from Sunderland, a few miles north.)


This is a bunch of asparagus, marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, ½ a preserved lemon (diced) and some grey salt, then grilled, tossed with pasta and pine nuts, and it's done.

alemaking

I'm trying a go at beer making today. I made mead once and cider twice (almost, the 2nd batch of cider is still fermenting) with good, although maybe not predicable outcomes (all three of those were started with wild yeasts).

This time I'm trying an IPA style ale: the whole house smells like hops. I hadn't realized that the hop flower would smell exactly like you'd expect: it's exactly like the hop aroma you get in th finished beer. I'm using two hops -- Northern Brewer with Cascade for finishing -- as well as crystal and toasted malted barley. We'll see how it goes. It's from Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing (3rd ed.), which seems to be a good starting point save it's trite maxims and platitudes throughout.

natto

I was at Tran's World Market yesterday getting bean curd and such and they had something that I haven't seen since I was in Normandy (and stupidly didn't try then): quail eggs.

I tried one this morning with natto, a traditional paring. It was very good. Naturally the natto overpowers the flavor, but it makes it a bit richer. And the shells are wonderful, speckled little things.

soon

Have my seeds started, some compost bought and now I just need it to be surely warm for good. (And to convince my landlord that leeks and tomatoes will look just fine in the yard). There are herbs from borage to thyme (that's parsley coming up in the first photo), leeks, "Purple Peacock" Broccoli, "Violet Queen" Cauliflower (the purple cauliflower that I got at the market last year was incredible), cucumbers for pickling and eating, some tomatoes. It'll be modest patch -- got a CSA share the month before last. (N.B.[17:59]: my landlord has given me the go-go for vegetables where I'd like).

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.