• The Wettest Dough Yet

    This one-day bread is not difficult to make, though the first time around you will fret over it because it will be the wettest dough that you have ever yet made, I bet. Learning the ropes of handling puddle-wet dough as opposed to an elastic-ball of dough that you can knead the crap out of is certainly challenging, but also fun. Eventually it becomes simple, and then it starts feeling like old hat. (To be honest, I’m not there yet, so that last sentence is purely hopeful speculation.)

    The point of having such a wet dough is that you get lots of nice, big holes. This bread should be served alongside something that you can dip it into, such as soup or Peposo. It’s also very good split in half and toasted—kind of like an English muffin.


    The bread is best fresh because after the first 24-36 hours it tends to harden quite a bit. I think the leftover pieces will make a splendid bread pudding.

    Silverton uses this dough as a basis for a number of other recipes, such as Rustic Olive-Herb Bread, Focaccia, and Italian Bread Sticks, so there is lots of room for playing around.


    Rustic Bread
    Adapted and roughly summarized from Breads From The La Brea Bakery by Nancy Silverton

    2 2/3 cups (1 pound and 6 ounces) water, divided
    2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (1 pound and 3 ounces) white starter
    1 teaspoon yeast
    8 3/4 cups (2 pounds and 3 ounces) bread flour
    4 teaspoons sea salt
    3 tablespoons milk
    3 tablespoons olive oil
    semolina flour, or cornmeal, for dusting

    Put 2 1/3 cups water, the starter, yeast, and flour in your hand-dandy Kitchen Aid mixing bowl and mix for six minutes (or do it by hand and get really big arm muscles). Cover the dough with a cloth and let rest for 20 minutes. Add the salt and mix for 2 more minutes.

    In a small bowl mix the remaining 1/3 cup water, the milk, and the olive oil. Keeping the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients. No matter how slowly you add the liquids, there will still be some sloshing, so have a cloth ready to loosely drape over the mixer to act as a make-shift shield. Once the liquids are blended in, mix for another 4 minutes. Cover the bowl with a shower cap or plastic wrap and let it rest for 2-3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.


    Heavily sprinkle your work surface with flour and dump out the risen dough. Sprinkle the puddle of dough with more flour and cover with a cloth and leave it alone for 20 minutes.


    Get out two cookie sheets and cover them with large pieces of parchment paper. Sprinkle the papers with cornmeal and then bread flour.


    Cut the dough in half (it will feel like you are cutting Elmer’s glue),


    and somehow, with much rigorous maneuvering of your shoulders, transfer one of the dough puddles to a cookie sheet, roughly spreading out the dough as you lay it down so that it is about 8 x 10 inches and about 1 ½ inches thick (mine was more spread out and thinner—gotta work on that).


    Repeat the process with Dough Puddle Number Two. Dimple the dough-puddles with your fingers, and sprinkle the tops of the dough with bread flour and cornmeal. Cover with a cloth and let them proof for 2 hours.


    Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, re-dimple the dough, and when the oven is ready, slide Puddle Number One, along with it’s piece of parchment paper, onto the baking stone.

    Make sure to spritz the oven with water: once before putting in the loaf of bread, once right after putting the loaf in, 2 ½ minutes later, and then 2 ½ minutes later. Reduce the oven temperature to 450 degrees and keep the oven shut for the next 15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and allow to bake for another 5-10 minutes. Crank the oven back up and repeat with the next loaf, er, puddle.

  • Beef, Beyond Simple

    I have posted almost nothing about food lately. Well, at least not about anything other than bread. But I’m going to change that. Right now.


    Cooking with beef, besides the ground stuff, intimidates me. There are all the different types of cuts to choose from, and then there’s the browning part which is really messy, and then the baking/roasting part and the accompanying struggle to determine when it’s done, not to mention that you need to figure out what “done” means to you. It’s all very confusing and tiring.

    But I have found a recipe that is beyond simple. There are only five ingredients and there is no messy browning and you bake it to death so there’s no question as to when it’s done. And it’s delicious and sophisticated to boot.


    I made it last night for supper and then reheated it for lunch to day and there is still a bunch leftover. That’s a good thing.


    Peposo (beef with black pepper and red wine)
    Adapted from Heat by Bill Buford

    The original recipe calls for four heaping tablespoons of black pepper, but I use considerably less, about two teaspoons, which is a nice amount of spicy though still too hot for the young and unsophisticated taste buds of the little people in my house.

    2 beef shanks, or soup bones with lots of meat still hanging on, or another cut of tough meat
    1 bottle of red wine (Buford calls for Chianti, but any kind will do—I’m not that sophisticated), and then maybe some more
    1 head of garlic, cloves peeled
    1-3 teaspoons sea salt
    2-6 teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper

    Put the meat in a big baking dish. Sprinkle it with the salt and pepper. Toss in the cloves of garlic and pour the bottle of wine over all. Cover the dish well, either with a lid or some tinfoil. Bake at 350 degrees for one to two hours, and then turn the oven back down to 250 degrees and continue baking for another two to five hours. Check the meat every hour or so to make sure that the liquid isn’t evaporating away too much, adding more wine as needed.

    Serve with crusty bread to sop up the juices and a glass of red wine. That’s all you need.


    Anything else is superfluous.

  • Ballerina Daredevils

    This post is for those of you who wanted to see The Baby Nickel simultaneously expressing his feminine side and daredevil prowess. (I don’t tend to think of jumping off tables as a daredevil stunt, but other people believe differently. Or so I’ve been told.)

    A couple times a day, Sweetsie and Nickel will be struck with an inexplicable urge to don the ballerina get-up and squirrel themselves away in the downstairs bedroom (that is really not a bedroom) where they blast Wee-Sing Bible songs on a broken tape deck while they jump off the furniture.

    These pictures were taken over the course of two days. While looking at these photos, if you want to get the full effect, sing Rejoice In The Lord Always at the top of your lungs, while periodically stomping the floor with your foot. Then you’ll know what it sounds like around here.

    First, from the table to the futon.

    Second, jumping in the other direction, from the table to the floor. The soft landing wasn’t challenging enough, I guess. (Hanging upside down under the table is another stunt.)

    Now The Baby Nickel is breaking out the pink.

    Look at him go!

    What a guy, my little heart throb.