My first porchetta

Posted on May 14, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
My First Porchetta

My first porchetta. Potatoes are added ttoward the end, so they can crisp in the delicious pork fat.

A whole pork belly had been languishing in our downstairs freezer for way too long. With no big gatherings on the horizon, it was time to make my first porchetta. And it proved surprisingly easy and successful.

Porchetta is a rolled-up, skin-on pork belly with something delicious inside. As it cooks, the fat renders while the skin becomes a crispy-crackly treat. If you have a good relationship with a butcher, the interior might be loin meat still attached to the belly. More typically, a partial loin of appropriate size is trimmed to fit inside the belly when it is rolled up. Perhaps that loin will be butterflied and stuffed with fennel fronds, broccoli rabe or even orange peels. But it’s possible your belly will have enough meat left on that you can simply score it, season it, roll it and serve an all-belly porchetta.

Taverna Novo Style Porchetta

We served our porchetta in the style of Taverna Novo, our favorite local restaurant, with potatoes in the center of the all-belly slice and some arugula in tart vinaigrette on the top.

That’s what we planned to do with our 12-pound belly from Rolf’s Pork Store in Albany, NY. But as it was curing (a process that takes at least overnight, and possibly longer) we decided we should experiment with some loin meat so we ended up with a franken-porchetta, all belly at one end and stuffed at the other. Kenji Lopez-Alt, the usually reliable source of our recipe, warns against using loin because today’s hogs are raised too lean. But we thought a few hours being bathed in pork fat and spices might fix that problem.

The result was that the loin meat was every bit as good as the belly, having picked up the flavor of the rub. Absolutely no reason not to do this and expand the amount of deliciousness you will end up with. We had actually purchased a whole boneless loin but decided we didn’t need it because the belly itself had more meat than we expected. We cut most of the loin into stew meat; fortunately we kept a 1.5 lb roast from the large end and that became our stuffing. If you follow this route, be sure the grain of the loin meat is in the long direction (front to back of the belly) rather than crosswise which is what you’d get if you simply tossed in some pork chops.

Pancetta Cross Section

Cross-section of our frankemn-porchetta. The darker meat in the center is loin; the black layer is the spices that were rubbed into the belly.

Many people are intimidated by the task of cooking a whole turkey or prime rib roast for a holiday meal because the stakes are so high: overcook or undercook it and you’ll have a public disaster on your hands. Porchetta would seem to be a similar challenge, but it really is easy and Kenji’s recipe is nearly fool proof. We cut our cured rolls into three sections and the other two will be enjoyed at future meals, maybe even with company.

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Recipe: Sourdough Banana Bread

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Sourdough Banana Bread

Sourdough Banana Bread

This isn’t banana bread with leftover starter added for flavor interest. It’s sourdough banana bread because sourdough is the only leavening agent and there is no aded sugar, either. It came out pretty good. It’s tart and tangy but with enough sweetness from the bananas to make it a treat. Add some nuts if you like and maybe a ¼ t baking soda if you’re not completely confident in the strength of your starter. Makes one loaf.

Ingredients:
80 g lively starter @60%
125 g water
250 g all purpose flour
2 large eggs, beaten
4 or so very ripe bananas
½ c chopped walnuts (optional)
1 T vanilla extract
½ stick (2 oz) unsalted butter, melted
¾ t Kosher salt

Method: make a sponge by combining starter with flour and water in a clear glass bowl. It should be the consistency of 60% starter, with not quite enough liquid to fully mosturize the flour. Autolyze 30 minutes, stir and evaluate, and add a bit more water if there are still dry lumps of flour. Now cover tightly and let sit in a warm place until you can see big air bubbles through the sides of the bowl, which might take a few hours or a couple of days.

Banana Bread Crumb

Sourdough Banana Bread Crumb

Add eggs, mushy bananas, vanilla and salt to a mixing bowl; add melted butter at the end so it doesn’t curdle the eggs. Add nuts if using. Add sponge and mix on low (first) speed until ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Mixture will be quite liquid with some banana bits floating in it.

Turn out into a 9×5 loaf pan which has been greased with butter and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the top comes out clean. Cool and cut it right in the pan into serving slices. Goes great spread with butter or cream cheese and topped with some nice jam.

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Let’s have a pupusa party!

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Pupusa with Curtido

Pupusa Party results. (Yes, this was the only one that turned out good enough to take a picture.)

Looking for something fun to do with your COVID co-confinees? Have a pupusa party! Making a serviceable pupusa turns out to be quite a challenge. But, though your early attempts will be comically inept, you’ll get better with practice and your mistakes will be delicious.

Pupusa Workspace

Mis En Place for pupusa party. It gets messier!

Pupusas are a national dish of El Salvador and a close cousin to the Mexican taco. They use the same lime-treated corn flour base, but instead of getting flattened into tortillas the dough is shaped around a variety of ingredients then griddled. In my travels I’ve had locoro pupusas (locoro is a tropical vine that is hard to find in the US, but you can buy the leaves frozen in some regions), bean-and-cheese pupusas, and “pupusas revueltas” which add meat to the cheese and beans and are more expensive. But because of the difficulty of making these as a novice, you’ll want to go with 100% revueltas.

Overfilled Pupusa

Comically overfilled pupusa

The challenge is in shaping the dough without having it fall apart. It helps to have little bowls of oil and water nearby so you can adjust the dough if it’s too crumbly and dry, and keep the raw ingredients from sticking to your hands or work surfaces. This video shows you how it’s done, and the accompanying text has a good recipe for the special ground pork filling called chicarron. (It’s much closer to carnitas than to fried pork rind chicharrones, but not the same; do take the trouble to follow the recipe exactly.)

Pupusa Progress

Pupusa progress, going let to right. Our results got a bit better toward the end.

The cheese can be good old shredded mozzarella, and the beans El Paso Traditional Style refried beans—one of the few commercial products I’ve found that’s better than what you can make at home. Have an even quantity of each of these three items available, mix up your dough, and get ready to make a great big mess.

The first mistake you’re likely to make is a dough patty that falls apart; cracks around the edges are a telltale sign. Add more water and re-knead. Your next mistake will be putting in too much filling so it oozes out—something you’ll get better about estimating in time. In cooking, cheese is your friend in helping the pupusa stay cohesive as the cheese melts, but then it will stick to surfaces as it cools. I found a good strategy is to cook the pupusas in a skillet with tapered sides so I can slide it out when it’s done. Put it briefly on a paper towel to blot off excess oil, then transfer to a non-stick surface like a silicone mat.

Now you’re ready to eat and share, and I predict you’ll like pupusas revueltas quite a bit. Do take the time and trouble (in advance) to make curtido, the traditional cabbage slaw accompaniment. The recipe in the Curly and his Abuelita post mentioned above is excellent, though I adapted it with a bit of chile. ¡Disfrute!

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Recipe: Hawaiian Stromboli

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Hawaiian Stromboli

A couple nice slices of Hawaiian Stromboli

Hawaiian Stromboli came about because we have some Hawaiian pizza haters among our confinement group, and wanted to prove them wrong. Stromboli is simply a pizza with a different (and arguably better*) form factor, but it allowed us to slip the dreaded pineapple under the radar. We sautéed the pineapple chunks in olive oil to reduce the liquid (a trick picked up from King Arthur’s recipe) and used feta, salty prosciutto and salt-cured olives to balance the sweetness. Success! The chief hater went from “an abomination” to “you can make that again”. Serves 4-6.

Ingredients (all measurements are approximate):
Pizza dough, approx. a pound of your favorite (we used half a recipe of our overnight pizza dough with the addition of a bit of olive oil)
½ c tomato sauce
¼ c feta cheese, crumbled
½ c mozzarella, shredded
½ c pineapple, cut into ½ inch chunks
¼ tart black or green olives, pitted
4 oz prosciutto or other salty ham, chopped into ½ inch pieces
1 egg, beaten

Stromboli Prep

Hawaiian Stromboli ready to be rolled and baked. Leave the top 1/2 clear for your egg wash.

Method: preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place a silicon pad or parchment paper in a half-sheet pan. Spread out the dough  till it comes close to the edges of the pad. Spoon the tomato sauce onto the dough, leaving a strip at the top length-wise that is about 1/3 of the width. Sauté the pineapple chunks in olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes until they start to color, tossing to expose all sides; if using canned pineapple you might want to squeeze out some of the juice first with a paper towel.

Add the cheeses, pineapple and ham in any order you like, reserving a bit for topping. Finish with a row of olives down the center. Brush the beaten egg generously onto the un-sauced strip then roll up the stromboli, starting at the bottom, making it as tight as you can (a spatula helps to lift up the dough). Press down the top to seal with the egg-covered strip. Garnish by brushing on the rest of the egg, then sprinkling on a little cheese. Make a few diagonal slashed up and down the length of the rolled-up dough so air can escape.

Stromboli Baked

Hawaiian Stromboli, done

Bake in 450 oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Slice crosswise and serve hot.

*Why better? Because stromboli is a more efficient hand food you can easily pack up like a sandwich to take with you wherever you are headed. And it’s delicious cold or at room temperature.

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Comfort Classics: Texas potato salad

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Texas Potato Salad

Texas Potato Salad

When you run across a bag of potatoes you bought in the early days of the pandemic, and they’re starting to sprout roots, it’s time to make Texas Potato Salad. This is a true comfort classic that goes with any grilled or smoked meat—chicken, brisket, burgers, we’re getting hungry just thinking about it.

You can identify Texas Potato Salad by its signature yellow tone, which comes from the egg yolks and a squirt of yellow mustard. Our recipe is here, but it’s really more like a set of guidelines. You should use white or red potatoes, not russets which will fall apart in cooking. You need celery for crunch, some chopped onions for funk, pickle relish or chopped pickles for tartness and ideally a bit of pimento or roasted red pepper for color. Mediocre potato salad tastes like undercooked or underseasoned potatoes; this should have an assertive, salty-sour taste. However, let it sit for a few hours before you do your final seasoning or add too much vinegar because it will definitely pick up flavor during that time.

Still got potatoes to deal with? Then make German-style potato salad! This relies on bacon and bacon fat, onions which have softened in that fat, a generous amount of cider vinegar and… wait for it… MSG. But don’t worry, the amount you’ll use is about the same as in a couple servings of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing so your guests shouldn’t have a problem with it. (Of course, you can also leave it out, but we’ve compared and it definitely tastes better with MSG.)

If you’ve STILL got potatoes after all that, make Potato Chip Pizza. Two of a guy’s favorite things in one food! Then go out for some nice solitary exercise and work off all those carbs.

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Recipe: Easiest Sourdough Bread

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Easiest Sourdough Bread

Easiest sourdough bread topped with sesame seeds (left) and Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel seasoning. The latter was a fun idea, but the garlic in the seasoning burned a bit and got bitter.

What makes this the easiest sourdough bread? First, it has a lower ratio of water to flour so it’s easier to handle and less likely to deflate in the oven if you let it proof too long. Second, it relies on a very long rise that takes the place of a lot of kneading. It’s still a great loaf, one of the best we’ve made. Recipe produces two 1 ½ lb loaves, just right for making sandwiches.

Ingredients:
125 g sourdough starter made with all-purpose flour @60%
487 g water
75 g whole wheat flour
675 g all-purpose flour
20 g salt (a little more than a tablespoon of Diamond kosher salt) plus possibly more after tasting
Sesame seeds, poppy seeds or a combination for topping (optional)
Polenta for lining the pan

Method: refresh your starter so it is very lively and full of air bubbles when you begin. Mix starter and water in a large glass bowl till well combined. Add flours and mix until most of the water is absorbed; let it sit (autolyze) at least half an hour or as long as two hours, covered. Add salt and do the first of four stretch-and-folds* half an hour or so apart. (All dough handling with this recipe is on a loose schedule which can be adjusted to accommodate your own schedule.) After a couple of stretch-and-folds taste the dough for salt; if it seems under-salted add a bit more.

Banneton with Seeds

Banneton has ben prepped with seeds for the dough.

After the final stretch and fold the dough should have transformed from a shaggy mess to something with a lot of integrity and tensile strength. Now, cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 48 hours. At the end of that time, let the dough come to room temperature (this will take a couple of hours) then shape into ovals, let rest 20 minutes or so, then transfer to oval bannetons. (If you don’t have bannetons you could use a bowl of appropriate size or simply let the loaves proof on the counter covered with a towel.) If using seeds for topping, shake a generous amount into the bottom of the banneton before adding bread; you can retrieve any excess for reuse after the bread goes into the oven.

Let the shaped loaves rise for two hours; the last half hour heat two 5-qt Dutch ovens in a 450 degree oven. Being careful not to burn yourself, transfer the heated pans to a heat proof surface and sprinkle a little cornmeal or polenta on the bottom to prevent sticking and burning.

Turn the proofed loaves, one at a time, into your hand then carefully transfer to the Dutch oven. Score the top—this loaf seems to like one long end-to-end cut—then put the preheated lid on and bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes remove the lid and bake another 20 minutes as the bread develops its crust. Check for doneness with a meat thermometer (you want an internal temperature of 206 degrees or a bit higher) or by thumping the loaf and listening for a hollow sound.

Turn out on a counter and allow to cool. If you want some delicious warm sourdough with butter or cheese, it should be ready in 30 minutes. To slice for sandwiches, allow to cool completely.

*Stretch-and-fold and other sourdough basics are explained in detail in this post.

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Baking sourdough bread during the pandemic

Posted on April 23, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Sesame Sourdough Bread

Baking sourdough bread during the pandemic results in happy results like this one.

Lots of new folks are finding their way to Burnt My Fingers these days, and many head straight for our post on how to make sourdough bread in your Instant Pot. But it’s a bit of an (intentional) misdirection because we use the IP for proofing, not actual baking. If you want to get serious about baking sourdough bread during the pandemic, there are better places to start.

Do you need a sourdough starter? This post tells you how to get one including buying, borrowing or creating your own from scratch. Or try the paper bag method which seems quirky, but it works. Once you have a lively starter—one that produces bubbles within a few hours of feeding—you’re ready for your first loaf.

This recipe is what we used for years for a basic sourdough bread, and it has all the steps you want to follow plus measurements are in cups, not grams so you don’t need a scale. We later took a few classes at King Arthur’s wonderful baking school in Norwich, VT, and graduated to this more complex recipe which we use day in and day out; we shared it (along with our favorite starter) with a neighbor and she was able to achieve success on her very first loaf.

Our very favorite sourdough recipe? It would have to be this one for olive bread. It’s unusual because it requires a very large amount of rye starter (made the same way as a white flour starter, but with rye flour) but the recipe is not hard to follow and you are going to end up with a loaf you can be proud of.

Sesame Bread LoavesPlease do invest in one special piece of equipment, the Lodge 5-qt dutch oven which will give you professional quality loaves, with a beautiful crust and perfect crumb, in your home oven. You probably shouldn’t attempt baguettes on your first attempt, but when you’re ready check out this post for an equally successful home steaming method for baguettes.

Following all the above advice, we whipped up the sesame sourdough shown at the top which is probably as good a loaf as we’ve made. Try some of the many bread formulas already on the blog, and we’ll share the recipe next time.

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Comfort Classics: Better-than-Mounds-Bars

Posted on April 21, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Cashew Coconut Clusters

Cashew Coconut Clusters are better than Mounds Bars. Try some and see for yourself!

Our Cashew Nut Clusters really are better than Mounds Bars! You get the same holy trinity of dark chocolate/coconut/nuts but without the corn syrup and preservatives, and we up the game by using high quality dark chocolate, cashews instead of peanuts, and gently toasted unsweetened coconut. If you like Mounds, you’ll love these, guaranteed. That’s why they are good to have around in these uncertain times.

Trader Joe Pound Plus

Pound Plus dark chocolate bar from Trader Joe’s.

We’ve modified our approach after making these many times. Everything we now use comes from Trader Joe’s where we buy a couple of those big (“Pound Plus”) bars of 72% dark chocolate with the red package, a couple of packages of raw cashew pieces, and a bag of unsweetened coconut slices. Even when the shelves were stripped of peanut butter and snacks, all these items were in stock at our local store.

We make a triple recipe which takes 9 oz of chocolate (each square of the Pound Plus bar is half and ounce so this will take roughly half the package), 2 c cashew pieces and a generous half-cup of the loosely packed coconut shreds. We preheat the oven to 375 degrees and make up a double boiler by floating a metal bowl in a pan of water on the stove to melt the chocolate. The cashews go on a silicone mat on a half-sheet pan and bake for about 7 minutes till they are fragrant and beginning to brown, then we toss the coconut on top and bake for 3-4 minutes until several pieces are starting to color.

The sheet pan comes out of the oven and cools while we wait for the chocolate to completely melt in the double boiler bowl. Then we remove the bowl from the pan and dump in the cashews and coconut using the silicone pad (which is now cool enough to handle) as a chute. Put the pad back on the pan and start making candies, one very generous tablespoon of the chocolate/nut/coconut mixture at a time. You’ll just about fill the half-sheet pan with about 18 candies, each a couple of generous mouthfuls.

Chill in the refrigerator until hard, then transfer to a container which you’ll also keep in the fridge because this chocolate is just a bit melty at room temperature. Then eat one for a low-sugar pick-me-up whenever you need a boost. They really are better than Mounds Bars and the kind of comfort classic we need nowadays. Enjoy.

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Recipe: Perfect Egg Cream

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Perfect Egg Cream

Perfect Egg Cream. Sorry for the background distractions; we had to move fast to get the shot.

While this recipe is likely to produce a perfect egg cream, we can’t predict how many tries it will take you to get there. The good news is that the failed drinks will taste the same as the good ones so you can painlessly dispose of your mistakes. By the way, everybody talks about the appearance and texture of an egg cream, but what about the taste? Being made mostly of seltzer water, it’s a mild concoction that is especially pleasant on a hot summer day. So don’t feel bad if you have to drink several of them. Makes one egg cream serving (at a time).

Ingredients:
1 part Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate Syrup, preferably Kosher for Passover
2 parts very cold milk (try putting it in the freezer till ice crystals start to form)
4 parts very fresh* seltzer (not club soda or mineral water)

Method: start by pouring maybe 3/4 of an inch of U-Bet in the bottom of a glass, then add double that amount of milk. Add the spoon you will use to stir; it should be long enough to extend over the top of the glass. Now tilt the glass and pour in the seltzer, slowly so it will not form a head.

Overmixed Egg Cream

Overmixed Egg Cream. Note the uniform brown color and imperfect head.

Now comes the magic: place the glass on a flat counter and agitate the spoon vigorously, up and down as much as side to side, stirring at the very bottom but keeping the rest of the glass and ingredients as undisturbed as possible. What will happen (in a perfect egg cream) is that the layers will magically separate so you get syrup and milk on the bottom and a perfect white head on the top. Serve at once, before the head dissipates.

(What is more likely on your first attempts is that you will overstir, so the white foam gets mixed into the drink and the bubbles go away. Drink up and try again.)

*Can’t emphasize VERY FRESH enough. Best to use a soda siphon or start with a fresh can of seltzer for each drink. We used a half-liter bottle and it was losing its fizz by the third drink.

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Let’s make Chinese takeout at home!

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Burnt My Fingers
Sweet and Sour Pork

Chinese Takeout made at home: Sweet and Sour Pork

In upstate New York, almost all Chinese takeout places are currently closed. A local paper surveyed them* and found that most were unable to get standard ingredients, like egg roll wrappers, that are shipped from the NYC area. Hopefully that will change soon, but in the meantime we can make many Chinese-style dishes at home.

Sweet and sour pork is an example. Most of the ingredients are already in your kitchen or available in your local supermarket, even in times of short supply. (If you can’t find rice vinegar, use white or cider vinegar.) Follow our recipe and you’ll end up with a product that is likely better than the takeout dish you’re used to. And, by the way, a little research suggests that while sweet and sour pork is American in origin, it was created by Cantonese in California who were attempting to duplicate a favorite dish from home.

Orchid Noodles

Orchid Noodles after Barbara Tropp–made with Manischewitz Fine Egg Noodles were on sale for the holiday

If you want to get a bit more ambitious—with the ingredients, not the preparation—try Orchid’s Chinese-Style Cold Noodles. This easy cold dish was a potluck favorite, back when we had potlucks. You do need toasted sesame oil, but that’s a common enough ingredient that you should still be able to find it in your local store if you don’t already have a bottle. The rest of the ingredients can be hacked with standard American products though I would really urge you to make the effort to order Chinkiang vinegar from Amazon and wait the few days until it arrives. It’s full of deep flavor, unlike the standard black vinegar you see in Asian markets that’s darkened with molasses.

Try “Chinese” in the search box to find a few more Chinese takeout recipes you can make at home.

*The link will take you not to the article in the Daily Gazette, which has a firewall, but to a blog piece in the Albany Times Union which cites the Gazette piece and adds some interpretation. Read the unfortunate comments (you have to scroll way down past the ads) and you’ll feel some extra globalist pride in making these dishes, in the same way we were going out of our way to eat at Chinese restaurants a few weeks ago.

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