Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Pastrami

Silly title, I know, but I can’t help but thinking of the intro song to Thank You For Smoking when I think of smoke in any capacity.  It’s a catchy tune, and I heartily suggest you give it a listen. 

Now that that’s out of the way…

Allow me to refresh your memory about what I’m working on…  In my last post, I explained that I am preparing turkey breast, pastrami style per Stephen Raichlen’s recipe.  I took the ‘cured’ turkey out of the fridge, removed the plastic wrap, and let it warm up a bit at room temperature.  I’m always hearing this is the right thing to do when cooking meats, so I do not question.

This is what the turkey looked like the night before cooking:

You can see most of the cure didn’t stick to the meat and it looked very dry, sandy almost.  Below, you can see what the turkey looked like after a night’s slumber.  The salt and sugar pulled some moisture from the bird to make the spice mix into a sticky, fragrant paste.

I put the turkey breast, minus extraneous cure, on the grill with plenty of charcoal and hickory chips.  The charcoal and wood chips were positioned on one side of the grill with the meat on the other.  The lid was on the grill throughout cooking, except when I was checking on the meat and snapping pics.  I positioned the holes in the lid over the meat to draw the smoke over it, and also rotated the meat 180° halfway through cooking so the other side of the turkey got some exposure to the hotter side of the grill.  I did this more for even smoking than even heating.

I really just wanted to cook the turkey recipe, but needed to find a way of serving it.  I settled on turkey Rueben sandwiches.  So while the turkey was on the grill, getting its smoke on, I got to work on the accoutrements for my mini-Ruebens.  They include this triptych of sauerkraut, Russian dressing, and emmental.:

Not content to serve up run-of-the-mill sauerkraut, I headed to Fairway for true Alsatian choucroute.  What’s the difference between choucroute and sauerkraut?  Oh, about $6.  Seriously, this stuff was $8 for the bucket. 

I’m reminded of a joke I heard, I want to say from Alton Brown: What’s the difference between EN-dive and ahn-DEEVE? 

The price!

Actually, the choucroute was less vinegar-ish (normal people might say “acidic”) than regular sauerkraut, and had more of a funky, fermented taste to it.  It was good, but I wish it had a bit more punch.  I suppose I should mention what I consider ‘regular sauerkraut’: something like Boar’s Head.

 

I got to work straining the choucroute, but really, there wasn’t very much moisture to drain away.  There’s something I love about this picture.  You may have to be a little crazy to love any picture of sauerkraut, so count me in the crazy club, I guess.

When the turkey was 160°F, I pulled it off the grill and let it rest and cool.  There was a piece of turkey skin on there, but since it was beneath the cure, it didn’t crisp up much.  I suppose next time, and there WILL be a next time, I could wipe the excess cure off the skin.  It pretty much fell off while slicing anyway.

I love how the smoke from the grill gives meats that delightful amber hue.  It is delightful, isn’t it?

A couple years back, after several bouts of foul sliced meats from various proprietors, my family protested store-bought deli meats and decided to roast our own turkey breasts, roast beefs, etc.  We bought a meat slicer, which goes largely unused these days, but I did rock it for slicing the turkey.  It does a brilliant job, as you can see.  

While slicing the meat, I may or may not have eaten about five slices.  Of course, if I did eat any, the first two would have been eaten to verify that the turkey wasn’t poison.  The next three would, of course be eaten because they were too ugly to put on a sandwich.  If I had tasted the meat, it would have been nicely smoky, not too spicy, wanting more black pepper, but plenty moist and tender.  If…

Anyway, I got to work buttering some cocktail rye and pumpernickel breads.  Splendid photo, right?  I love several of this batch of photos.

Next, I cut the cheese…hehe.  Seriously though, I gave the emmental the meat slicer treatment.  Although I purchased about $12 worth of cheese, I only used half, and let the other half grow moldy in the fridge, only to throw it out with the remaining $6 of choucroute a couple weeks later.  I’m going to hell for all this food wasting…

The Pioneer Woman (my current FAVORITE blogger because she’s living MY life while I’m here in suburbia) has a thing for bokeh.  I wonder if she’s ever seen bokeh over cheese.  Hmmm….

I was actually bringing these sandwiches to a party.  I love showing up to a party with surprise food, especially when it’s a bit out of the ordinary.  Doesn’t everybody love surprise food???  I laid these sandwiches out, open faced, on a few baking sheets so I could melt the cheese at the party.  I don’t have any shots of the finished sandwiches, but just imagine those in the picture below with another piece of bread on top.  To be more specific, they each got a squirt of homemade Russian dressing (ketchup, mayonnaise, cayenne!) and another piece of bread.  I managed to put rye bread on top of the pumpernickel-bottomed sandwiches and pumpernickel on the rye-bottomed sandwiches, but there were no complaints.

I got good feedback from the party-goers.  Everyone seemed to enjoy these little guys, and there were no leftovers.  My own criticisms were that the bread was too dry – no cocktail breads anymore; there was not enough dressing, although I purposely limited it for mess reasons; and finally, the sauerkraut wasn’t nearly tangy enough.  I think using a different sauerkraut and baking up some fresh bread should solve two out of three of these problems.  And I might just add a messy glob of sauce too, just because the mess would be worth it.

First Sourdough Bread...Blah

Note: I'm having trouble with images. I'll get them up ASAP.

I’ve had a bad taste in my mouth (quite literally) since I baked my first sourdough boules, and that’s why Ihaven’t blogged in a while. I followed the basic country white recipe from Nancy Silverton’s book. I was unimpressed with the first rise, but the bread seemed to proof well enough in the basket.

Nevertheless, I put the boule in a 500F oven, then turned it down to 400F after 5 minutes. I misted the oven during the first five minutes as well.

I guess my cuts in the top were not sufficient, because the loaf split in a couple of places. Also, it smelled like burning – because it was. Check out the bottom. I baked it for 35 minutes.

I did let it rest for quite a while (maybe a couple of hours). The interior didn’t have irregular holes and had a sort of dense texture. I actually made two boules and the second was worse than the first. Sad. Also, the crust was very thick and did taste a little burnt. Finally, the bread was actually kind of dry. It just wasn’t something I really wanted to eat.

But I think I know what one major problem was:

This weekend, I made a non-sourdough white bread. It turned out great! It was really tasty and had a great texture. Not too crusty, but that was okay. Now, I think this was useful for my sourdough because although my oven was at the right temperatures (500F, then 400F just like the sourdough), the bread cooked in 15 minutes less time than the recipe said (30 mins instead of 45 mins). I measured it with my new thermapen – the recipe recommended a temperature of 210F. I actually took the bread out at 205F, and was not disappointed. It did continue to cook.

So I think this weekend I’m going to try to bake the sourdough again. I need to make sure my starter is really going strong and this time, I’m going to take the temperature of my sourdough after half the cooking time. If not, I’m going to make my other bread again and hope to have photos either way.

Sourdough Starter: Day 10

Finally the starter is done fermenting. Day 10 involves removing the grapes, throwing away most of the culture, and then feeding the rest with flour and water. That's just what I did today.


I started by removing the grapes and really squeezing them out into the starter. I was able to extract a lot of liquid from them. I was surprised when I opened the sack of grapes -- some looked just like grapes, others looked like rot. Curious, I thought.


Then, I mixed the culture really well with my hands. I wanted to make sure I got everything off the bottom.



It took a couple of minutes, but wasn't a big deal, really. When everything was mixed, the consistency was kind of like milk. Perhaps you can tell from the photos...

I then poured off 1 lb 2 oz of culture. Silverton says to throw the rest away.
I saved a small container for backup. I popped that in the deep freeze with a note that says "Do Not Throw Away". Hopefully I never need it, but if I do, it'll be there waiting for me. It's probably a good idea to stash away a little every few months.


I washed and dried my culture bowl, then added the small amount of culture back to it. Then I added warm water (78F) and flour and again mixed with my hands. Many of the lumps didn't break up, despite my best efforts. I really tried to squeeze the little pearls of flour, but there were just too many! This mixture was thicker than the previous culture, and not even all the flour dissolved. This was more like heavy cream.


The smell is still horrific. The family is describing it as cheese, but I'm smelling vinaigre. Hopefully now that the grapes are out, it won't be so vile. Although, I did smell the grapes closely and they smelled like.....grapes! I wanted to eat one. I have to keep feeding until day 14. I'm supposed to feed thrice daily, but I don't see that happening. I am supposed to wait 4-6 hours between feedings, but I'm not getting up in the middle of the night. I'll feed twice probably -- before and after work. And on the weekend, I'll try to do it three times. But I might skip ahead and bake bread on Friday, especially if my supplies arrive in the mail. Oh yeah, I dropped $200 on supplies (including a $100 thermometer -- of my own choosing). This bread better be great.

Sourdough Starter: Day 09

I've been slow to post about the starter lately. That's because there's nothing going on. It just sits on my counter and stinks. Here are a few photos from tonight of what it currently looks like. I smell nothing yeasty per se, although I do smell fermenting grapes when I mix everything up. Notice the two phases. I flip the bag of grapes over each day when I stir it up. Tomorrow I begin feeding this beast.

Superbowl 2008: Pulled Pork on Homemade Rolls

Every American knows what the Superbowl is really all about: food. Really tasty, not-very-good-for-you food. I decided I was going to make pulled pork and homemade sandwich rolls from the La Brea bread book.

My pork recipe came from Gourmet Magazine originally (here's a copy), but I wanted to do a barbcue-style pulled pork, so I adapted the recipe by adding in some smoked paprika (or pimenton), some chili powder, and one habanero. I slow-roasted a pork shoulder for hours and hours on Saturday because I'd need the oven Sunday for rolls and other tasty treats.

I chilled the pork and its drippings overnight. Here's a photo of the pork after it was chilled. You might see that it has been disturbed -- that is from Tackle Box and me pulling off the skin and a few morsels of marbled meat. It was amazing. But I could feel my arteries clog. But who cares.

Before shredding:



After shredding:



Here are the drippings from the meat that I refrigerated overnight. I didn't add anything to the pan itself but a little water.



I scraped the brown gelatinous layer off and melted it in a pot. Into that, I shredded the pork and added some barbecue sauce. I cheated and used K.C. Masterpiece. I felt like a sellout. But the pork was phenomenal. I think I'll use the fat for some hash browns.

I started working on my sesame semolina sandwich rolls at about 8AM Sunday morning. I calculated that they'd need about 5 hours and wanted them done way before 4:30PM when my dad had to go to work. I combined my flours (12.5 oz white bread, 14 oz semolina, 10 oz durum), water (5.5 oz at 70F), starter (6 oz; yes, even though it's not done yet), and yeast (0.5 tsp). I was supposed to use packed fresh yeast, but Silverton says early in the book that you can substitute dried yeast, but to use about half as much as a recipe says because fresh yeast is more than just yeast. I put this mess in my Kitchen Aid mixer and turned it to stir. I stirred and stirred, but it was really just a powdery disaster. This dough wasn't going to come together. So I added more 70F water -- maybe 1/2 cup more, which I thought was quite a lot. I was petrified of adding too much liquid, so it took me 10 minutes to get the dough to come together. Then I added the salt. Silverton says to mix on medium, but I don't think my mixer had it in him (or her?). I had it on stir and the mixer was struggling -- it was getting hot and I smelled a burning smell. Retrospectively, maybe it needed a bit more water, but I was afraid. Silverton says to knead until the dough reaches 74F, but this wasn't happening. I gave up and shut down the mixer. I put the dough in an oiled bowl and allowed it to ferment for at least 2 hours. It was supposed to double in volume -- it didn't.

Here's the before and after. They look oddly similar, don't they? It only rose a little.



Then I shaped the dough into rolls and allowed them to proof. They really didn't. So I baked them.

Needless to say, these rolls were sub-par. They were quite dry and chewy -- gave my jaw quite a workout -- but I think they looked damn good. They needed more salt, but maybe if my starter was ready, they'd have more flavor. I really need to be patient. I shouldn't have any deadline whatsoever. I have to remember that when I make my first real loaf.



The pork was great and the rolls weren't bad. When all was said and done, I only ate half of a pulled pork sandwich. Here's a list of what I served at my Superbowl party:

• Warm Spinach and Artichoke Dip
• Baked Jalapeno Poppers
• Buffalo Chicken and Cheddar Quesadillas
• Buffalo Wings
• Bagel Bites
• Barbecue-Style Pulled Pork
• Sesame Semolina Sandwich Rolls
  

Sourdough Starter: Day 05

This project has now been going for five days and things are still pretty funky. The slurry that is my culture separates into a liquid phase and a goo phase. The liquid is sort of brownish-purple, but transparent and only lightly tinted. The smell: putrid. It is horrible. But, since I'm keeping it tightly sealed with plastic wrap, it really only stinks when you open it or come really close.

Here's a pic of Tackle Box tasting it.



He nearly refused to try it, but I assured him it doesn't taste nearly as bad as it smells, and in the end, he agreed. There's not really any activity -- no bubbling or anything. It's just rotting.

Sourdough Starter: Day 04

I walked into the kitchen this morning while getting ready for work and my mom was making a face. It was her something-stinks-in-here face. I smelled it too. She spied some ravioli on the top but she was pretty confident that ravioli were to blame. I didn'tof the trash and decided that was the source of the stink. It did smell a bit like cheese, afterall. I suggested maybe it was my vat of rotting stuff, argue.

I was pretty nervous when I saw my pitcher of goo this morning. It had really bubbled up a lot overnight and I was afraid it was going to overspill its bounds. Unfortunately, the Long Island Rail Road waits for no one, and I had no time to transfer my muck to the one-gallon vessel Silverton suggests using in the first place. I asked my dad if he would do it, or at the very least, put it on a cookie sheet or something. He put it on a dinner plate. Good enough.

When I came home from work, I saw the bubbling had subsided a bit. The volume had actually decreased slightly. Everyone kept touching the plastic wrap I had on top, so I'm not sure if the volume decreased on its own, or because of all the poking and prodding. I don't think it matters. Since I had to add another 4 ounces of flour and 8 ounces of water, I was definitely going to move to a larger container. The best I could do was a 4-liter Pyrex mixing bowl. Good enough, though I'd have preferred something taller.


I knew taking off the plastic wrap would expose us to the funky aroma, and I was kinda looking forward to it. Then I did it. I removed the wrap. Wow, was that vile smelling goo. It smelled like rotting cheese, really. And the texture was spongy, but very sticky -- not too wet

I mixed up my flour and water. My scale has the pesky habit of losing mass if you leave something on it for a minute or two. For example, when I first added the flour, the reading was precisely 4 ounces. When I went to add the water, the reading was 3 7/8 ounces. Damn! So I added flour until it read 4 1/8 ounces, then added the water to 8 1/8 ounces -- which then dropped down to 8 ounces. Beautiful. But really annoying.

I dumped the whole lot of culture into the bowl with the fresh flour and water and saw that my cheesecloth sack-o-grapes was inflated just as Silverton said it might be. That means the grapes are still actively fermenting, thus filling the bag with gas (presumably CO2 and maybe some methane). The grapes themselves were very plump -- surprising because I squeezed each grape individually when I added them to the paste. Silverton says one must add new food (flour) on day four to keep the balance between yeast and bacteria. Apparently, if one does not feed one's culture, the bacteria out-compete the yeast, which is a bad thing indeed. I'm not sure about the logic here (why don't the bacteria eat the flour also, or is it that the bacteria would gang up on the yeast with no other food source available, or something else entirely?), but I do believe it works. I trust Silverton. Bread is her life.

I mixed everything thoroughly, though I did not stick my hand in and mix everything up, swooshing around the grapes. I relied on my trusty green spatula to do that. I may have done it if I didn't think my spatula was up to the task, but I had no reason to doubt him today. He performed beautifully. Then, despite my better judgment, I licked the spatula. I made sure I was next to the sink, just in case... Well, I had an audience (just my mom -- she was both repulsed and attracted to the stink, and her curiosity got the better of her), so I dramatically licked the spatula, then flipped it over and licked the other side. Truth is, the second lick was completely unnecessary. The mixture still tastes kind of raw (although I did add fresh flour today, so it probably still should) and had a mild fruity flavor. I could definitely taste the grapes. I got a hit of alcohol, and still fish. I decided the fish must be acid -- probably lactic -- because it also reminded me of vinaigre.

I'm still really optimistic about this. I can't wait for that first loaf of bread. Though Silverton says it won't get really good until about the fifth loaf. Is that because of the culture or improved technique, or both?

Sourdough Starter: Day 03

It's been almost exactly 72 hours since I first combined my flour, water, and grapes to begin my sourdough starter. I was really nervous yesterday (really -- I felt a little nauseas -- sad, right?) because absolutely nothing was happening. Okay, well, actually all that happened was that the flour and water began to separate. I thought I saw some white mold, but it was really just the cheesecloth floating up.

I came home from work today at about 6:30PM and didn't see much going on again. I was really disappointed. I realized my kitchen is a little cold, so I convinced myself my starter was retarded (as in slow to get its groove on, of course) and that maybe I'd fallen a day or so behind. Well, I went into the kitchen a couple of minutes ago to take some photos for the ol' blog (I felt guilty I didn't yesterday -- sorry my zero readers!). I was totally expecting nothing again -- or, rather, still. Boy was I surprised.

As you can see from the photos, the total volume has increased quite a lot. Lots of yeast and bacteria lovin'. Oh yeah. The color is a bit more yellowish-brown. The vat o' crap is bubbling quite a bit -- it's not exactly edge-of-your-seat excitement, but if you watch for a couple of minutes, you can totally see the bubbles float to the surface, overcome surface tension, and pop. And it's o-so-satisfying to actually HEAR the bubbles pop. I have a renewed enthusiasm here. In just about 3 hours, things totally turned around. My flea-like patience just got a little boost. Maybe now I can have cat-like patience. Better not count on it, though.

Oh, and for the record, I did taste it as reccommended by Silverton. I was surprised by the raw flour taste, because I'm a doofus. (Did I cook it? Of course it'll taste raw.) It's got a nice funk going -- my refined palate detects flavors of alcohol and fish, with a mild yogurt finish. Mmmm-mmm good. And check out the picture with my finger in it. How good does that look? Remind you of anything? God, I hope not. But it is interesting that the texture has changed quite a bit. Or, at least interesting to me.

Sourdough Starter: Day 01

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I baked some bread. It turned out pretty well, but is lacking a bit in flavor. Truth be told, I think the bread would have benefited from much more time proofing and rising. My yeast was a bit sluggish. ...And I forgot the salt. Yeah. Bland. Yeah...

Well, I did a little research and decided I'd like to follow Nancy Silverton's recipe for sourdough starter and make a couple of breads from her book Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery. This requires a 14-day process, but you theoretically only have to do it once in your lifetime...or until you forget about it...or otherwise murder it. SO TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT!!!

Okay, so I ordered the book online and also checked it out of the library because I just can't wait for it to arrive. I didn't read the foreword or intro yet, but it's pretty dang long. I do plan to read it, but the way I see it, I have 14 days to catch up. I flipped through the recipe for the starter in the library and stopped at the market on my way home. I bought 20 pounds of bread flour, some grapes, cheesecloth, a large container (actually this is to store my open bread flour, not for the culture), and a jar of wheat germ. The wheat germ isn't needed until I actually bake some bread...in 14 days...but I'd be pissed if I'm missing ingredients when bread-day arrives.

Day 01 requires just flour, water, and grapes. I couldn't get organic grapes, so I bought regular red grapes and rinsed them gently. I wrapped 'em up hobo-style in cheesecloth and added them to my mixture of flour and water. I squished the fruit and dunked it a bunch of times, then sunk it to the bottom of my pitcher (you can see 'em in the photo above). I covered it tightly with plastic wrap and walked away. Tomorrow I should see some bubbling. I don't actually have to do anything until day 04, unless mold starts to grow.

P.S. You can see some bubbles here, but they're in there just because I whipped some air in when I mixed my flour and water.