Folks-
I've never once posted a picture of anything here, but I have ranted about other recipe sites and their tendencies of posting pages of unnecessary information before the recipe to...I dunno...make room for more ads, or maybe increase their search engine ranking, so this comic panel from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal just spoke to me.
Here it is:
Folks-
I've been using this recipe for a standard sourdough boule since I started experimenting with sourdough starter. It is really easy, even if it takes roughly 20 hours from start to finish.
Since I'm not modifying this recipe, just including some notes in it, I normally would stick to the original recipe on Farmhouse on Boone, but, darn it!, that website has so many ads and active videos and other doodads that it becomes non-responsive on my tablet and forces a reload when I'm working on the recipe, which is not at all convenient. So I'm parking it here with my notes.
Please notice that I'm only using metric measurements for this recipe. Sourdough anything really benefits from using metric. If you want the volume imperial measurements, go to the original recipe.
Here it is!
Ingredients:
475 grams all purpose flour
100 grams active and bubbly sourdough starter
325 grams water
10 grams salt
Process:
Night day 1: Feed a sourdough starter right before bed and leave it in a warm place overnight. I often take 100 g of discard and feed it 50 g each of flour and water before placing it in a warm cabinet, and feeding the mother starter the same amount before returning it to the refrigerator. That gives me some extra to make Foccacia the next day for dinner.
Morning day 2: By about 9:00 am, using a wooden spoon or your hands mix together all ingredients just until moistened, and allow to sit covered with plastic wrap for 30 minutes to allow the flour to hydrate.
Stretch and fold: Wet your fingers and grab the dough by the back, stretch it up as much as you can without breaking it, and fold it over itself. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat 3 more times to complete one round. Recover it with the plastic wrap, let it sit in a warm space for 30 minutes, then repeat the stretch/fold/rest sequence two more times.
Bulk ferment/rise: Cover with a damp tea towel, a lid (loosely!), or plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size. This may take 4-12 hours depending on temperatures and overall activity of your sourdough starter.
Shape: Lightly flour a surface (I like to cover a counter with parchment paper first) then fold the dough over itself and roll it like a cinnamon roll. If you're making sourdough bowls, this is the time to divide the dough into thirds. Form into a boule ball by rotating the dough on the surface between your hands, and let it sit for 10-15 minutes uncovered. This prevents it from sticking to the tea towel later. Turn it over and shape by grabbing two opposite sides and pinching them together, then turn it 90 degrees and repeat once. This gives it a better spring. Place in a bowl or benneton lined with a lightly floured tea towel, seam side up, cover with plastic wrap or place in a plastic bag, and put in the refrigerator overnight.
Bake day 3: When you're ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven and Dutch oven at 500 degrees for one hour. Remove the dough from the fridge just before you want to put it in the oven. Place on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper, and using a sharp knife or lame, cut the expansion score(s). Place the hot Dutch oven on a heat resistant surface (I use a burner top) take the top off, and holding the corners of the parchment, lower the dough into the oven. Cover it and place in the over for 20 minutes. Remove the lid of the Dutch oven, reduce the temperature to 475, and bake another 20 minutes until golden.
Notes: 1. To make sourdough bread bowls for chowders, chili, or stews, this recipe makes about 3 smaller boules of about 290 grams each before baking. I recommend using a cookie sheet and aluminum chafing dish to cover the loaves. Make sure to drizzle a fair amount of water on the parchment paper using this method, and you'll have to reduce the baking time to about 15/15 minutes, possibly less.
2. Do not grease the bowl to skip using a tea towel when you put the dough in the refrigerator. You can just flour the bowl instead, but if you grease, butter, or spray the bowl the crust will be softer and you won't get the clear expansion score.
Folks-
This is a very versatile base recipe. I've been using it for maybe 18 months now, and I don't think I've ever made it the same way twice. I don't remember exactly where I learned it, but I think it was a YouTube video. I'll include things I've tried that worked well in notes at the end, but believe me, it's super easy and versatile, and it's quick enough that you can start it when you set the water for the pasta on the stovetop to boil!
Here it is!
Base ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
About 1/3 of a medium onion, diced finely
2-5 cloves of garlic, minced
A dash of a good salt
10-18 oz small fresh tomatoes, like grape, cherry, or constellation
A ladle or two of your pasta water
Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a pan and sautee the diced onion with the salt just until it starts to turn glassy, then stir in the minced garlic and tomatoes. Cover and allow the tomatoes to steam until the skins just start to wrinkle a bit in spots, then mash them thoroughly with a potato masher or wooden spoon. Allow to simmer uncovered and stirring frequently until a rubber spatula pushed through it leaves a trail to the bottom of the pan, then add pasta water and continue to simmer until you again get a trail from your spatula. Turn off the heat and serve!
Additions that have worked: Tonight it was 1 tbsp Italian seasoning, 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup sliced Kalamata olives, 1/4 tsp black pepper, and 1/4 cup chopped Italian Parsley. I added everything except the Parsley right after mashing the tomatoes, and I added half of the parsley right about the same time I added the pasta water, then the rest I put on top of the sauce in the serving bowl. In the past I've used zucchini slices, best added after the tomatoes have been mashed, carrot slivers added with the onions, diced celery, diced yellow squash, and other fresh veggies. I've also successfully used Creole Seasoning, crushed red peppers, Herbs de Province, and other seasonings. I suspect a good barbecue seasoning might work in certain cases.
Things that didn't: I don't recommend adding meat directly to this recipe. It just doesn't work for some reason. Meats tend to soak up the liquid and dominate the flavor in a negative way. I've tried crumbled hamburger, crumbled sausage, shredded chicken, and meatballs. If you want meat on your pasta, keep it separate until serving, then place it on top of the pasta and sauce on the plate. Same for cheeses.
Folks-
I've been planning to make an overnight sourdough Foccacia recently, but haven't had the time to spare. Today I adapted a regular Foccacia recipe from Allrecipes to include sourdough starter discard to add flavor, and the family loved it!
I decorated the top using fresh Italian Parsley, Kalamata Olive slices, sliced grape tomatoes, and sliced garlic cloves to make flowers and a sprig of garlic wheat in the middle, which got a lot of attention from the family. I used the Parsley stems as the stems of the flowers, and chopped the unused leaves to make grass for them to root in.
The original recipe called for Parmesan and Mozzarella cheese to cover it. I chose Parmesan and Romano for the lower half, and sprinkled Nutritional Yeast on the upper half so my lactose intolerant middle child could enjoy it, and she really did (especially the garlic wheat sprig)!
Here's my variation of the Allrecipes Foccacia recipe:
Ingredients:
2 cups + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dry oregano leaves
1 tsp dry thyme
1/2 tsp dry basil
A pinch black pepper
3/4 cup water
3 tbsp olive oil
100 grams sourdough starter discard
Cheeses to cover if wanted, or nutritional yeast
Tomatoes/sliced garlic/Kalamata Olive slices/fresh parsley for decorating
Combine dry ingredients. Add water, olive oil, and sourdough starter discard, then mix until dough comes together. Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Turn into an oiled bowl and cover with a damp towel to rise in a warm room until doubled, 20 minutes to an hour. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit. Turn the dough onto a greased cooking sheet and press the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Brush top with olive oil, then cover with cheese or nutritional yeast, then decorate. Bake for 12-20 minutes until the edges are just showing color.
Note: You can make this without the sourdough starter discard by using 2 3/4 cup flour and 1 cup water instead. No other changes are necessary to the recipe.
Folks-
Waffle is kind of a fun word, isn't it? Waffle.
In any case, I've been looking for a good, crisp, tasty waffle recipe for years without success. They always come out limp from my highly-rated Belgian waffle iron. So I finally started to look up what made a waffle crisp, which appears to be vegetable oil in the batter, eggs, and baking soda. Then, after working with the Sourdough Crumpet recipe, I decided it was time to make my own waffle recipe from the beginning. Waffle,
This is not a waffle recipe I waffled together from someone else's waffle recipe; I waffled this one together on my own. Waffle!
The cool thing is this recipe was rather easily adapted to pancakes. I'll include the modifications in the notes.
Waffle.
100g Sourdough Starter Discard
310g All-purpose flour
250g water
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
The night before mix together sourdough starter discard, flour, and water and set on the counter loosely covered to ferment 8-12 hours until active and bubbly. Do not over mix. Batter should be lumpy. The next morning start heating the waffle iron, then mix together the remaining dry ingredients, and beat the eggs. Add the oil to the eggs and give a quick whisk. Fold the egg mixture and dry ingredients into the sourdough leavening and allow to sit for a couple of minutes for the baking powder and baking soda to activate. Bake in your waffle iron per manufacturer directions.
Notes: You can serve these immediately from the waffle iron, or if you want to have a sit-down breakfast with everyone at once, heat the oven to about 200-300 degrees, turn it off, and then place the finished waffles directly on the oven rack or a cooling rack placed in the oven. Do not stack them on top of each other or they become soggy.
To convert this to a pancake recipe, use 2 eggs instead of 3, 2 tbsp of sugar instead of 3, and 3 tbsp of melted butter (cooled to just liquid) instead of 1/3 cup vegetable oil. Everything else is the same.
Waffle.
Folks-
I got on the sourdough train later than a lot of other people, but I'm starting to catch up!
Today I decided to make sourdough crumpets because the recipes I found online were ridiculously easy compared to, say, a sourdough boule or something similar.
Personally, I decided to split my starter this morning to make sure I had enough to make crumpets for everyone, since the original recipe made something like 4. This recipe makes about 12 of you're using 3 inch rings, 10 if you're using 4 inch rings.
It goes without saying that you need a sourdough starter to make this. If you don't already have one, and don't have access to someone else's, it takes about 2-3 weeks to get one going.
Here's my variation on the King Arthur Flour Sourdough Crumpets!
Ingredients:
100g sourdough starter discard
175g all purpose flour
175g water
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
The night before mix the sourdough starter with the flour and water and leave in a warm place to ferment loosely covered for 8-12 hours. The next day heat a griddle to about 300 degrees F. Mix all ingredients to a smooth dough. It should start to bubble and become billowy. Lightly butter the inside of the crumpet rings and lightly oil the surface of the griddle. Divide the batter evenly among the crumpet rings (a scant 1/4 cup or a scant ice cream scoop for 3" rings, a heaping 1/4 cup or heaping ice cream scoop for 4" rings.) Allow crumpets to bake on the top of the griddle until the bubbles are set and the tops are no longer glossy (about 5 minutes), then carefully flip them and remove the crumpet rings and continue to cook for another 3 minutes until golden. Serve immediately, or store in the fridge for about a week, toasting as wanted.
Folks-
This is an easy one, but I don't want to lose it, and I especially want to save it for the kids. Just mix these together and sprinkle on buttered French or sourdough bread and heat it up to make a good garlic bread. You can also make top notch croutons by cutting slightly stale bread into chunks, brushing them with olive oil or melted butter and then toasting them.
Just go to town with it!
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper.
Folks-
My southern food kick is continuing today with hush puppies. I have no family links to these, we just all agreed that they're good with fried chicken or southern fried fish. This recipe is a variation of one I found at Small Town Woman, but of course, I modified it.
Enjoy!
ingredients:
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar or honey
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon Creole or Cajun seasoning
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg, beaten
2 tablespoons cooking oil
3 tablespoons chopped green onions or onion flowers
Whisk together dry ingredients. Beat together buttermilk, egg, and oil, then add the onions. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix until combined. Heat 1 1/2 inches (3-4 cm) cooking oil in a cast iron Dutch oven or pan to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit and fry tablespoons of the dough in the oil just until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Place on a cooling rack over paper towels or parchment paper to drain. Eat while hot.
Folks-
This is a work in progress, but it shows promise. My go-to deep-fried artichoke batter has been McCormick beer batter with added Italian seasoning, but I figured it was time to move on and make space in the pantry. So here's what I have so far.
Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tbsp Italian Seasoning or Herbs de Province
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 Tsp chili powder
1/2 Tsp black pepper
1 cup milk
1 large egg
Combine dry ingredients. Stir in milk and egg until combined and no dry flour is seen. Batter will be lumpy. Dip fresh/frozen artichoke hearts into batter and deep fry at 350 degrees, flipping once, until golden brown on both sides.
Folks-
I've been experimenting a lot with Southern cooking lately, and decided to make Fried Catfish and Hushpuppies with Creole Remoulade tonight. So I don't forget the Remoulade recipe, here's my version made using one from Food52.com.
Ingredients:
