Recipe: Covid Pizza Dough

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Covid Pizza Dough

Covid Pizza Dough after initial rise and punch-down.

Covid Pizza Dough won’t give you Covid, nor will it cure Covid as far as I know. The title reflects the stultifying new normal when the days run together and you are too lazy to go upstairs where you keep your baking notes. It is an easy to remember formula following Jon in Albany’s precept that a pizza dough should be at 62% hydration, and as a bonus you will end up with a clean kitchen when you are done. Makes ~2 pounds of dough, enough for 2 medium or 3 individual pies.

Ingredients:
310 g water, warmed to body temperature
1 t active dry yeast
Scant 2 t Kosher salt
500 g all purpose flour (or 00 flour if you have it)

Method: bloom the yeast in the warm water for a few minutes in a bowl, then add flour and salt. Mix roughly with a spoon and autolyze for 15 minutes or more. Turn out onto a floured bench and knead with your hands for at least 7 minutes. As you go, incorporate the flour left in the bowl and the flour that sticks to the bench. (Scrape it up with the edge of a chef’s knife.) At the end of the knead, your goal is to have a virtually clean counter and bowl because all the flour has gone into the dough.

Covid Pizza Dough in Bag

Covid pizza dough in the bag after 24 hours, looking good

Put the dough back in the bowl, cover, and rise an hour or two till it starts to expand significantly. Transfer to a ziploc®™ bag and toss in the refrigerator. Leave it at least 24 hours and as long as 4 or 5 days. When you are ready to make pizza, bring it out and divide into sections of equal weight. Make pizzas according to your usual process and if there is any dough left over toss it back into the refrigerator for another day.

We will be using this dough to try to correct the many mistakes in our previous attempt at making a Frank Pepe’s-style pie. Stay tuned.

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Recipe: Montreal Vinegar Slaw

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Montreal Vinegar Slaw

Montreal Vinegar Slaw.

Montreal vinegar slaw is just what you need to cut the fat when you are eating Montreal smoked meats (a version of pastrami, though I don’t think you are supposed to call it that) and poutine as served at a local place celebrating Montreal Month. Adapted from this recipe, which appeared in the Washington Post back in 2007. Makes quite a bit, maybe 16 servings.

Ingredients:
1 medium head green cabbage, shredded
1 T Kosher salt
4 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely grated, about 2 c
½ green bell pepper, pith and seeds removed, coarsely chopped
½ red bell pepper, pith and seeds removed, coarsely chopped
4 T white wine vinegar
1 T sugar
½ t ground pepper
½ t Kosher salt
2 T neutral oil
4 green onions, cut in half lengthwise then coarsely chopped, including some of the green, about ½ c

Method: place the shredded cabbage in a large bowl and add 1 T Kosher salt. Work the salt in with your fingers so it contacts all services. Rest for half an hour to two hours till the cabbage has wilted slightly and begun to throw off liquid. Transfer to a colander, rinse thoroughly to remove salt, then squeeze out most of the water with a kitchen towel pressed into the top surface.

Mix sugar, salt and pepper with white vinegar and stir till solids are dissolved; add oil and mix. Add cabbage, carrots, red and green peppers and mix to distribute dressing. Refrigerate for at least an hour then taste for seasoning; we found it needed more salt and black pepper. Mix in green onions just before serving.

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How to find hot spots in your oven

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Find Hot Spots in Oven with Biscuits

Top and middle rows of biscuits after our hot spot test.

I fell into a deep slumber during The Weekend’s LV Super Bowl halftime show and badly overcooked my Oven-Roasted Buffalo Wings. The wings on the bottom rack were salvageable but those on the top shelf were literally toast. This motivated me to mount an experiment to identify the different heat zones in my new BlueStar oven.

Bottom Rack Biscuits

Bottom rack biscuits from oven hot zone test.

I bought a couple tubes of those pop-and-bake biscuits and a dozen Simpson plates from Lowe’s. (They are used in construction to strengthen a joint where two boards are connected.) One biscuit went on each of 12 plates which were labeled as to shelf (top, middle, bottom) and corner of the oven. I then followed the directions on the package and cooked my biscuits for 13 minutes. The results are in the pictures. Top got the darkest, then middle, then bottom. (There are some more subtle differences like top right being darker than top left, which may get further investigation in time.)

Next I got my laser thermometer gun (affiliate link) and spot-checked the temps in roughly the same corners. (Rough is the operative word: I aimed it as best I could but may have picked up rack vs a section of the wall of the oven, and the experiment was definitely skewed by repeatedly opening and closing the oven door.) Back is hotter than front by a significant amount in every case: well over 400 degrees F for an oven set to 400 degrees in the back, well under 400 in the front.

The laser gun measurements don’t correspond in any way to the results of the biscuit test, suggesting it’s the air circulation inside the oven (and I’m talking the natural circulation with help from the BlueStar’s fan, because the convection was not turned on) that makes the difference as to hot spots. (The big oven in the BlueStar has the ability to load an entire sheet tray in the slots which are normally used for the racks, which will certainly have an effect on air circulation. Looking forward to another experiment with this.)

The best news in this test is the lack of hot spots where one area of the oven is much hotter than the rest. I now have a broad understanding that in my oven the higher you go, the hotter you will get. Most items will go on the middle rack, the bottom will be reserved for slow cooking (the rack rolls out on bearings, making it easy to load a heavy pot) and the top for quick heating.

So, try this test in your own oven. The biscuits are cheap and the Simpson plates were less than a buck apiece and can certainly be used for something else (maybe even a construction project) in the future.

P.S. Tom Thibeault of BlueStar told me the hottest spots are the top front and the bottom back. My test doesn’t bear this out. It’s not surprising that two hand-assembled ranges from the same manufacturer would have different hot zones, another reason to do your own test.

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Share recipes, not COVID, during the Super Bowl

Posted on February 6, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers

COVID wings look like regular, except you get to eat them all by yourself.

COVID wings! The CDC is recommending we celebrate Super Bowl Sunday with as many virtual activities as possible, such as sharing recipes for wings and other snacks, vs getting together in person and yelling in one another’s faces. Sounds good to us. We have repeatedly published tips for cooking and saucing wings, both Buffalo- and Korean-style. Here’s a reference guides to past posts, which we’re offering up today because some of these methods require a 24 hour lead time for brining.

Oven-Baked Wings Taste Test. Can you enjoy greasy, finger-licking wings without dredging them in flour and cooking them in oil? Absolutely. This extensive experiment tried a number of oven cooking strategies head to head. Read it first, then head to this post for the results.

Oven-Fried Wings in Baking Powder (Dry) Brine. Another taste test, comparing different formulas for a salt and baking powder dry brine to dry out the skin so it will cook up nice and crisp. Interestingly, we have not done a playoff comparison of the winner from this test and the one above. But you need to brine overnight, so we’ll save this for next year.

Korean Fried Chicken. This recipe will deliver the mouthwatering sweet and salty and spicy delicacies that are suddenly everywhere for good reason. Yet again we present two prep alternatives; we prefer the second, AKA Korean PTA Potluck Chicken, where the wings are sauced in advance so the juices can soak in.

Easy KFC Chicken. The base KFC recipe includes gochujang, which is Korean chili paste. If you don’t have it in your pantry or fridge and can’t get to an Asian market today, here is an alternative that is very close and made with ingredients you probably do have already.

As to the game itself, we’re torn between rooting for KC, because their QB is from Texas, and Tampa, because their QB is a geriatric. We feel the same about the above recipes. Whatever your preference, they’re all good, so you can’t go wrong.

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Recipe: Chinese Coleslaw

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Chinese Coleslaw

Chinese Coleslaw

Chinese Coleslaw is adapted from the Omnivore’s Cookbook. It’s a good side dish with Chinese and Thai mains which contain similar ingredients like Chinkiang vinegar, cilantro and sesame oil. It contains very little salt so it doesn’t cure over time like most cole slaws; thus you can serve it as soon as you make it. Serves 8.

Ingredients:

4 c (half a medium head) cabbage, or a mix of green and red cabbage, grated
1 medium carrot, grated
2 green onions, sliced in half lengthwise then coarsely chopped including some of the green
2 T cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped
1 T neutral oil
2 T Chinkiang vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 T honey
2 t sesame oil
2 t fish sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ t Kosher salt
1/3 c roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped.

Method: mix wet ingredients in a bowl with garlic and salt until well combined. Add cabbage, carrot, green onions and cilantro and toss. Garnish with chopped peanuts and serve immediately as a side dish. Chinese coleslaw keeps well for a day or two.

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Recipe: Bakmi Goreng (Indonesian Stir-Fried Noodles)

Posted on February 2, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Bakmi Goreng

Bakmi Goreng.

Bakmi Goreng is another Asian street food built on a sweet soy sauce base—in this case an Indonesian product called kecap manis. This recipe is easy, adaptable and flavorful but if you are in the New York Capital District I urge you to try the bakmi goreng at Yono’s and DP Brasserie, the two restaurants managed by Dominick Purnomo.  Dominick has been a tireless supporter of out-of-work restaurant folk during the pandemic, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed those in need, and the least you can do is eat his noodles. Makes 4 main dish servings

Ingredients:
12 oz fresh Chinese egg noodles (or substitute 8 oz uncooked spaghetti)
2 T neutral cooking oil
8 oz protein such as chicken, shrimp or tofu, chopped (if shrimp, use whole)
2 large eggs
4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
2 c napa cabbage, coarsely chopped (or use standard American cabbage)
¾ c celery (about 3 stalks), chopped
½ c green onions, cut into rings, including some of the green
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 T Kecap Manis (ABC brand seems to be the most popular)
A generous pinch each of ground coriander and cumin (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Fried onions for serving, about ½ c (optional)

ABC Kecap Manis

ABC brand seems to be the kecap manis that everyone uses.

Method: cook the noodles in a generous amount of boiling water until tender but not flaccid; drain and rinse with cold water, and reserve. Heat the oil in a wok and add garlic and onion; cook until soft. Push to one side and add the egg; beat with chopsticks and cook briefly until done. Push the egg to one side and add protein; cook until just done. Add cabbage, celery and green onion and cook until soft. Add back cooked noodles and kecap manis plus optional coriander and cumin and stir until the mixture is hot and well combined. Serve with optional topping of fried onions or shallots.

*Compared to the Healthy Boy Black Soy Sauce we tried the other day, kecap manis has a similar flavor profile but is less complex, without the additional flavor of wheat. You could substitute the Healthy Boy sauce—or just use molasses.

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Thai secret sauces: Gold Mountain and Healthy Boy

Posted on January 28, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Thai Secret Sauces

Thai Secret Sauces: Healthy Boy and Gold Mountain

Thai secret sauces probably aren’t essential to cooking authentic Thai dishes, but they’re a powerful short cut and I suspect part of most street vendors’ repertoire. Gold Mountain Seasoning Sauce is the saltiest soy sauce you have ever tasted; it tastes like it contains fish sauce as well but the ingredient list says no. Healthy Boy Dark Soy Sauce is similar to molasses in its thickness and a sweetness which is also slightly bitter. You can find them at the aforementioned Amazon affiliate links as well as at many Asian groceries.

Kao Ka Moo

A nice platter of Kao Ka Moo.

We employed both sauces this week to make a kettle full of Kao Ka Moo, a comfort-food dish which is common in San Francisco but hard to find on the east coast. A chunk of pork leg (we use pork shoulder because it’s far cheaper) is simmered in a savory broth until tender, then the broth is strained and cooked down with pickled mustard greens and hard boiled eggs and served over rice. We used this recipe, which incorporates both sauces, and it wasn’t quite there so we added a few squirts of each Thai secret sauce as might be done at a street stand and we were good to go.

Amazon reviewers have lots of good ideas for how to use Gold Mountain which is why we included the above link, but you can get it quite a bit cheaper from their third party vendors. For the same reason we’ve included the most popular link for Healthy Boy Dark Soy Sauce and it’s not expensive but is a small container so you might want to buy something larger. In doctoring the above recipe we probably used a T of Gold Mountain and 2 T of Healthy Boy so the small Healthy Boy container would run out quickly.

If you prefer to go to your Asian market for these Thai secret sauces, you might have to snoop around a bit because they probably aren’t in the same aisle as mainstream soy sauces; we found them in the Indonesian section. (Along with ABC Kecap Manis, which we will report on at another time.) Enjoy!

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Recipe: Happy Bellyfish Kimchi

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers

Happy Bellyfish Kimchi.

We made this kimchi through a class with Happy Bellyfish, an online cooking school based in Germany that specializes in fermentations. (More about them later when we review Zoom cooking classes as a trend/necessity.) It’s a good solid basic rendition and easy to prepare. One interesting twist: most kimchi recipes have a starch element to thicken the sauce and most use glutinous rice flour which will be hard to find in many places; happy bellyfish substitutes a grated raw potato. Makes about 1 liter kimchi.

Ingredients:
1 kg napa cabbage (one small head or half a large head)
2 T kosher salt
200 g daikon radish (buy a six inch long radish or use equivalent amount of a larger radish, peeled and cut into inch-long matchsticks)
100 g (1 large) carrot, peeled and cut into inch-long matchsticks
3-4 scallions
1 c hot water
1 medium raw potato, peeled (or 2 T potato starch or glutinous rice flour)
4 T or more gochugaru (Korean chili powder, do not substitute)
¼ c fish sauce
¼ medium raw onion, coarsely chopped
¼ ripe pear, cored and coarsely chopped (I peeled but don’t know that you need to)
6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
One inch piece of ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
Salt to taste
1 T sweetener (honey, agave syrup or sugar)

Method: chop the cabbage into bite size pieces about 1 ½ inch square. Massage 2 T kosher salt into the leaves then cover with water and brine for at least 1 hour but no more than 5 hours. Drain the cabbage, wash it to remove salt, then pat mostly dry with a kitchen towel. Peel and cut the carrot and daikon, cut the scallions crosswise into 1 inch sections (including some of the green) and mix with cabbage in a large ceramic or glass crock or bowl.

Make the paste: grate the potato with the finest mesh on a box grater then mix with the hot water; let stand a few minutes to leach out the starch. Drain and transfer to a blender jar along with gochugaru, fish sauce, onion, pear, garlic, ginger and sweetener and blend briefly till smooth. Pour over the vegetables in the bowl and mix very thoroughly with your hands, pressing the paste into the vegetables so every surface is exposed to the cure. (It is a very good idea to use disposable gloves when doing this.) Taste and add salt if needed (probably only a little if any) and additional gochugaru if you want it hotter. Cover with a plate then a weight and press down as much as possible to extract liquid. Cover the bowl or crock and allow to cure 5 days on a countertop in a room around 68 degrees ambient temperature. Check daily and toss the mixture lightly; remove any mold that forms with a spoon or tongs or your fingers. (Our sauerkraut frequently develops a bit of harmless but annoying mold; the kimchi did not, probably because the chili powder inoculates the brine and keeps the mold from growing.)

After five days, taste the kimchi. The cabbage should be reduced in volume and there should be a good amount of rich red brine. It’s fine to eat at this point, but you should transfer most of it to a glass container (like an empty kimchi jar) and store in your refrigerator so it can continue to develop. Will keep for several months.

How to eat kimchi? Koreans eat it with almost any savory dish, and so can you. Use as a condiment like any pickle, or mix into kimchi fried rice.

Posted in Condiments, Eating, Recipes, Sides | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

On the floor at Fancy Food Show 2021

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Sioux Chef

Sean Sherman and Dana Thompson of Sioux Chef, a rising trend for 2021.

No, not really. In a normal year we’d be on our way to San Francisco for the Winter Fancy Food Show 2021 where we’d sample wares, talk to producers, and guess what food trends would be hot and not in the coming year. But currently we can’t get into San Francisco (actually we can, but we’d immediately go into a 10 day quarantine) and the Fancy Food Show is happening virtually through something called Specialty Food Live! 2021.

Reminiscent of the many Zoom food tasting and preparation events in 2020, the Specialty Food Association offered vendors the chance to participate in a “virtual tasting experience” in which they could get their products into the hands and mouths of prospective buyers for a fee of $249; the sessions sold out. Beyond that there have been a number of online seminars we could access with our press credentials, and a virtual showcase where vendors are invited to put up a web offering equivalent to the experience of tasting at a booth at the live show. But specialty food businesses are typically not internet-savvy because so much of their business is done in person and the showcases we sampled were mostly predictable press releases.

Still, we found among the emails and web pages a few developments worth noting:

  • The annual Trendspotters’ Index predicts that home-bound customers will be willing to spend more for a restaurant-quality food experience, eg “smoked watermelon salt for use on fruits and vegetables; a sauce that combined the seven toppings of the classic Chicago Hot Dog into one condiment [editorial comment: why?]; sliced Calabrian chiles; and cocktail mixes like a smoked maple old-fashioned syrup for at-home bartending.”
  • Godiva Chocolates’ 128 retail stores are closing by end of Q1 2021, in response to the pandemic and changing consumer habits. “The company has begun to shift its focus to food, drug, and mass retail outlets and online options to meet growing consumer demand.”
  • Costco, famous for its high quality goods and long checkout lines, is testing curbside service in Albuquerque. Consumers can choose from 2000 items and have them loaded into their cars for a $10 fee. There is a minimum $100 order, as you’d expect from Costco.
  • We don’t know what it is but it sounds exciting: Farmstead opens a series of “dark stores” which we’ll guess are equivalent to “ghost kitchens” for restaurants that don’t have a physical presence; in this case the products are home-delivered high end produce and the service is making a profit in San Francisco while the new location in Miami has a waiting list.
  • In Minneapolis, a new restaurant called Owamni will introduce Twin Cities residents to native American foods. Sean Sherman, the “Sioux Chef”, told MPLS Magazine: “It’s the food from exactly right here that’s exactly under your feet that seems foreign for some reason. People are always asking me where to get the ingredients for my recipes: Where do you buy fresh cedar for tea? You don’t. Go outside with a knife.”

If these tidbits leave you hungry, we feel the same way. But it’s not likely this hug-centric, mouth-stuffing event will return to its classic format any time soon.

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Food for thought: The Department of Salad

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Burnt My Fingers
Pimento Salad

Shaved Celery Salad with Pimiento Buttermilk Dressing, from Issue #8 of The Department of Salad.

Good news: whereas our usual Food for Thought items require clicking a dread affiliate link to purchase, today’s is absolutely free. Emily Nunn is a wonderful food writer who says of herself, “I live in a barn in rural NC dairy farmland and have dedicated my remaining years on this planet to salad.” How she will support herself at this remains to be seen, but for the present we can reap her bounty for free by subscribing to the Department of Salad newsletter. [UPDATE: the publisher has announced she will be charging a small fee, like $6-7 a month, so check out a few issues now and see if it’s something you want to pay for.]

Each issue of this approximately monthly newsletter (she says weekly, and maybe it will be soon[UPDATE–last issues have indeed come weekly]) features a discussion with a chef or contributor with recipes from that guest, followed by Nunn’s own related recipes—virtually all of them salads. It started last March and is currently at issue #11, plus this bonus recap that lists all the issues and recipes so far. (which makes it a good place to start your own explorations.)

Our favorite issue so far has to be #8, which as you might expect has a Southern theme. Atlanta Constitution food columnist Chadwick Boyd shares his Shaved Celery Salad with Pimiento Buttermilk Dressing and then Emily Nunn is doubly inspired and shares celery salad recipes AND her own pimento cheese recipe.

If you feel guilty about getting all this goodness for free, Emily suggests you make a donation to No Kid Hungry. Then follow this link to start your own subscription, and check the website to catch up on past issues.

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