In fact, once I got the starter chugging along, it was ridiculously easy, so I thought I’d share the joy.
To get the best flavor, and to accommodate the “no knead” part of the equation, the dough needs to rise about 12 or so hours. This means you need to think about this as a day-long gig (or better still, overnight) but as you’ll see in the videos, the actual hands-on part amounts to only about 15 minutes. Truly, and that includes clean up. Think of it as a really terrific babysitting job, where the baby slept the whole time and you only needed to let the dog in and out a couple of times, and they paid really well.
Here’s the list of ingredients I used this time:
1 cup (5 oz.) organic rye flour
2 1/2 cups (11 oz.) organic unbleached white flour
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. caraway seeds
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water (use spring, well, bottled or Brita-filtered water: yeastie beasties don’t care for chlorine)
1/4 cup well-fed and active sourdough starter
I realize that the whole “sourdough starter” piece of this will probably be foreign to some, so if enough of you are interested, let me know in the Comments section here, and this week I’ll tape and post a video on where to find some starter starter (hint: I’ll figure out how to mail you some) how to start it, and how to keep one alive and healthy for when the urge strikes.
If you try it, share! We’d love to hear how it went for you.
Brace yourselph: this inspired recipe that sprang spontaneously phrom deep within Rick’s inner chef is some of the most wonderfully phragrant and phestive phood I’ve ever phaced.
Step #1: Get some phresh pheasant breasts. (Okay, I’ll stop already. Enouph is enough.)
Wash and pat dry. Admire how incredibly fit and outdoorsy they look.
Actually, pheasant is a super-lean and finely-grained game meat. That’s why the apples and bacon are such an inspired combination: the bacon ups the flavor-enhancing fat quotient with a smokey base, while the apple brings a fresh treble balance to the whole experience.
Steps #2/3/4: (We missed a few steps with the camera… sorry.)
Pan fry some bacon, remove from pan and crumble, and then saute a sliced apple in the bacon fat. Remove apple slices, reserve bacon fat, and deglaze the pan with some of the red wine you’re drinking.
Reserve the resulting red deliciousness from the deglazing, and wander over to put a few more pieces in place in the puzzle on the dining room table.
Seriously, what’s better than cooking with a bit of red wine and a puzzle?
Step #5:
Put some long-grain brown rice on to simmer, then salt ‘n pepper the breasts and dredge in flour…
… return the bacon fat to a fresh pan (or clean the one you were just using), and fry the dredged breasts at a decently high heat until they’re just done.
Step #6:
Set the cooked breasts aside to let rest. (After all, they’re tired, poor things. They’ve been through a lot.)
Step #7:
Hit the pan with red wine to melt and release the caramelized “taste” stuck to the bottom. Return the juices from the first deglazing…
… and add the apples and bacon back in to reheat as the sauce reduces, thickens, and comes together.
Step #8:
Plate the pheasant and rice, then pour the apple and bacon sauce over top of the pheasant. Add something green to the plate, and prepare to experience field-to-table bliss. (You’ll have to image the green stuff for yourself. We got busy with the puzzle again.)
When the kids were little and we were in our one homeschooling year, as a language arts project we kept a “family meal” journal. The girls chronicled shopping for ingredients (counting, weighing, paying for, etc.), wrote out the recipe, crafted stories of what happened while we were cooking, and then interviewed and recorded the feedback from family members.
I could sell that thing on eBay for millions.
“Eggplant parmigiana” was the first and only entry in the journal for the humble Solanum melongena. In the feedback/interview section for the recipe, Emily wrote, “Mathias cried.”
It was not a big hit, and I hadn’t bothered to cook it since.
Come to think of it, I still don’t cook it, but fortunately, Rick does.
He slices it thinly, and lays the rounds in layers in a colander, sprinkling them with salt, where they rest for about 20 minutes and leak out the mystery juice that can make them bitter.
He gently pats olive oil on them to make them feel better…
… and then slaps their happy little bottoms on the hot grill, where they grow these beautiful stripes and turn utterly translucent and crispy with joy.
We grab some hummus, a few olives, carrot sticks, pita, and maybe a glass of wine, and…
You guessed it. Sometimes it’s so good, I cry.
If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends! Click the “Share It” button just below, select your social media community of choice… and… doink! You’re the instant sharer of enjoyable stuff. People like that.
In our house, not having home-made stock in the fridge is equivalent to running out of eggs or wine. It makes us nervous.
Yes, we keep commercially prepared stock in the cupboard, right next to the apocalypse-ready tins of tuna, canned green beans, and supply of emergency batteries. But as a matter of course, we run towards a “bistro” style kitchen: fresh food, minimally altered.
This isn’t as precious as it sounds.
The “fresh food” part generally means whatever you can pick up from a lap around the periphery of your average grocery store. The “minimally altered” phrase refers to a non-gooped up, labor-intensive or fussy approach to getting the fresh stuff cooked and onto the table.
This leaves plenty of time to actually enjoy the process of, say, making chicken stock.
I think of stock as roast chicken, re-gifted. And it takes about as much work and commitment as throwing in a few loads of laundry after dinner: a little prep work up-front, checking it at intervals to spend a moment or two on keeping things at the right temperature and moving forward, and a modest amount of clean up and putting stuff away when you’re done.
In fact, you can do both things at the same time and still get ‘er done between “Hi, I’m Ryan Seacrest, and THIS is American Idol,” and “… who will be the NEXT American Idol!”
Save the bones from the night before. (And yes, apparently it’s perfectly acceptable to use the bones off of people’s plate for the stock pot. It’s going to simmer for a couple of hours anyway… more than enough heat exposure to nuke any “other people’s cooties” that may have you worried.)
If you’re using freshly cooked chicken (and those $5 Friday deals from Safeway are a GREAT way to start!), remove the meat for sandwiches or tomorrow’s chicken soup and give the skin to the cat. For the stock, it’s all about dem bones, dem bones, dem… dry bones.
And onions. This photo makes me wonder why you never see a recipe call for “the juice of an onion.” Doesn’t it look like you should be able to squeeze it?
Carrots. A sturdy fat brown onion. Celery. Maybe a handful of parsley. If the Qwik-EE-Mart is out of carrots, check the gas station next door. This stuff isn’t hard to find, it’s cheap, and it’s available year round.
I already mentioned the parsley, but I just had to squeak in one more shot of it with those crazy blue flowers in the background. See them?
I love how unfussy the prep is. Chop, chop, chop… whack… whack… and you’re done.
Note the absence of fingers in the pile above. This is an important non-ingredient in chicken stock.
Add heat to what you wish was your Gramma’s favorite heavy bottom stock pot. What you’ll probably use is a medium weight pot that’s just a bit too small that you got as a wedding gift. If that’s the case, go buy a really great stock pot, then go become a Gramma so you can have a great stock pot to hand down to the next generation.
We don’t mess around with our goal-setting here, ya know.
Saute, stir, hum…. Hover, inhale, sip… call in your vote for the only one who can really sing…
… toss in, pour, sniff… relax your shoulder muscles, change wet jeans over to dryer…
… check, call ‘er done, strain… and start thinking about tomorrow night’s soup.
Basic Chicken Stock
Chicken bones
Brown or yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
Carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
Celery, washed and coarsely chopped
Italian parsley
Bay leaves (2-3)
Back peppercorns (5-6)
Olive Oil
Fresh water
Some folks like to add the raw vegetables to an already simmering pot of chicken bones. We prefer to start with chopped onion sauteed in olive oil in the bottom of a stock pot, adding the carrot and celery to the pot once the onion begins to color. A modest finger-pinch of Kosher salt helps the veggies release their moisture so they can begin to caramelize.
When the mirepoix looks softened up and translucenty, pour about a cup of whatever wine you’re drinking into the pot and stir with a wooden spoon to release the brown bits at the bottom. Add the bones and fill the pot with enough fresh cool water to cover. Add the parsley, bay leaves and peppercorns and gently simmer for about two hours.
Remove stock pot from heat and let cool a bit. The final step is to remove and discard everything but the finished stock. Our way is to fish out all the big pieces with tongs and then pour the rest through a strainer into an 8-cup Pyrex pitcher. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to do something lovely with your homemade elixir.
In this case though, there’s no excuse. The silken chicken stock Rick had made last weekend had a serious “lump in my throat” potential right out of the fridge.
Have I mentioned sometimes his soup makes me cry?
We had egg noodles in the cupboard, but a cold Thursday night in March in Teton Valley occasionally calls for homemade everything.
I had never tried to make egg noodles before. Beginners make mistakes, like halving a recipe calling for 5 eggs. What does half an egg look like, and how do you pull off the math in real time?
I still don’t know, but I ended up thinking that I had added too much egg, so I added more flour to compensate, then too much water too late in the game to compensate for the too much flour… The sum total was a stiff little blob and not at all what the recipe described as “a soft dough.”
I left it to sit quietly on the counter for an hour to think about whether or not it might have a change in attitude.
Miracles do happen.
I played with the dough for a full 15 minutes in celebration of the humble egg noodle.
Time to do the final roll out and get down to business.
One of the wonderful things about handmade anything is how okay it is if things turn out a little uneven.
Like life. I love my handmade life.
I also love Rick’s hands, and the part they play in my handmade life.
He’s a hands-on kinda guy. He loves to grab salt out of the bowl and toss it around like Jacques Peppin.
I’m also very fond of his forearms, especially when they are involved in moving pots around on a stove or holding his guitar.
Fragrant stock, tender chicken grilled the day before, and my lumpy lovely little noodles…
I wish we could add a scratch ‘n sniff widget to this blog.
I’d invite you to touch the noodle soup with the inside of your mouth and let the aroma of peace and healing and sanctuary waft up in to your grateful mind and crawl in to your unconscious to keep you company as you sleep.
Until then, how about we just give you the recipe for the egg noodles and let you see for yourself?
Mix together in a large bowl 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon of salt.
Make a well in the center of the flour. Lightly beat together and pour into the well 1 large egg and 4 large egg yolks.
Beat the eggs with a fork, drawing in some flour as you do until they are slightly thickened. Using the fingertips of one hand, gradually incorporate the flour and blend everything into a smooth, not too stiff dough, adding as needed 1 to 2 tablespoons of water. This part gets you into a sticky gooey mess very quickly, so brace yourself. Just hang in there and keep mushing the goo around until it starts to form a ball. I got the last of the dough out of my index finger knuckle well before bedtime, so no worries.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead about 5 minutes to form a “soft dough.” HA! Don’t get stuck on the “how soft is soft?” dilemma. It will get over itself. Add more flour if necessary to keep it from sticking.
Give it a “time out” on the counter, covered in plastic wrap, for 30-60 minutes.
Divide the dough in four pieces and roll each piece out into a lovely, thin, soft circle. Play with the dough for as long as makes you happy. Cut it into noodles as wide as suits your fancy. Throw into boiling salted water/stock/stew/whatever until they’re tender and fabulous.
When we started prepping lunch on Sunday and noticed that the deli-style horseradish in the fridge was six months beyond its “Best by” date, we had a situation. Do we pause the Olympics and make a run to the market, or settle for the underwhelming flavor of cocktail sauce straight from the bottle?
Neither alternative was all that palatable, yet we needed a quick solution worthy of the magnificent chilled prawns we had already plated. There are few things worse than magnificent lukewarm prawns in crappy sauce.
A survey of the spice cabinet revealed a neglected can of powdered wasabi.
Wasabi is that surprisingly green Japanese horshradish that’s so innocent looking, it has been known to fool first-time sushi snackers into sucking back a huge wallop in one mouth full. If you haven’t tried the experience, give it a shot: your sinuses will never be the same, and you’ll sing like Celine Dion in full belt-er-out mode.
And hmm… here’s that can of Old Bay seasoning keeping the wasabi company in the back of the bus. Come forth into the daylight, quothe Rick, and be counted!
I love it when Rick quothes with authority in the kitchen. Sometimes what happens next is so spectacular it makes me cry.
He stirred about a tablespoon of each powder into a half cup or so of Heinz Original.
I didn’t cry.
But between the chopped Romas with feta and good olive oil, fresh bread, decent bottle of Cotes du Rhone, and the zingy, original flavor of Rick’s Kicker Cocktail Sauce, I did get a lovely lump in my throat.
My thinking model on this is as follows: fresh, refrigerated peppers are crunchy, bursting with moisture, pretty, and perfectly fine the way they are without mucking them up.
But I love Rick, and Rick loves roasted vegetables and had a new stuffed pepper recipe he wanted to try.
Plus, he promised to make some delicious bread doodads as a side dish in case I hated the peppers.
I also don’t like cooked chard…
… but Rick cooked the chard in his pretty copper chard-cooking pan…
… and performed amazing chard-flipping maneuvers that were delightful to photograph.
Plus, Rick always cooks with a glass of wine at hand, and if I’ll keep him company in the kitchen with my camera, he always pours a glass for me.
Soon the smell in the kitchen made my mouth water. (And no, I wasn’t drooling from the wine. That was later.)
Add a lightly-floured gift from the ocean, pan-sauteed in butter and oil…
… throw on some nice table linens and a little Diana Krall, open the door to let the fresh air in…
Mmmm… Fresh. Fresh. Fresh.
Is it just me, or does that fork look like you could just hop on the top of it, slide down into the parsley, and coast on into spring?
At least I left the pattern on the plate.
And Rick got the satisfaction of a delicious meal and watching me moan and bang the table over roasted peppers and chard.
3 bell peppers: red and yellow
1 small onion, finely diced
2-3 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 egg
2 cups breadcrumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1 cup grated Mozzarella
Chopped basil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Preheat the oven to 325
Cut the peppers in half (from stem) and remove the seeds and veins
Rub the peppers inside and out with EVOO and place on a baking tray
Saute the onions and garlic until golden
Remove from heat, let cool for a bit, then blend in the breadcrumbs, tomato, egg, cheeses, basil, maybe a little water
Season to taste (salt and pepper for sure, but experiment with a little crushed red pepper, oregano or such)
Stuff the peppers loosely with the mixture and bake for about 45 minutes — when they become beautiful, serve ’em up
