Dancing Spoon

The Simplicity of Bread

Simplified Culinary

by J. Michael Wheeler
Flour, Water, Yeast
Bread: “…the culinary domestication of…hard, bland seeds.” Harold McGee.

There’re a lot of different kinds of bread. There are ashcakes, baguettes, biscuits, bloomers, Boston brown breads, ciabattas, cobs, cottage loaves, crispbreads, granary loaves, harvest loaves, milk breads, potato breads, Vienna bread, white, marble rye, and whole-wheat breads.

There are breads made with wheat, rye, corn, barley, chocolate, fruits and veggies. There are flatbreads, braided breads, round loaves, square loaves, and sticks. There are even breads made just to hold a hot dog. Walk into a boulangerie in France and witness an entire world of breads.

That Staff of Life
But what really is bread? It’s just flour (usually wheat), water, and yeast. You mix, you knead, you let it rise. Shape it. Bake it. You got bread. Simple.

What’s Inside
You really need only three ingredients to make a loaf of bread.

1. Flour Grind up an edible grain fine enough, and you’ve got flour. While bread can be made from many types of flours, the main cereal grain used for bread is wheat because of its high protein (gluten) content.

For a grain to be made into bread, it must be milled (ground) into a flour fine enough to mix into a dough. The most primitive means of milling grain is the mortar and pestle, but the grind is too course for bread and is more suited to porridges and gruels.

2. Leavening You could mix flour and water together, shape it into a thin disk, and bake it; you’ll end up with a flatbread. To make a risen loaf, the “loaf of bread” loaf, you’ll need to add a rising agent such as yeast.

Yeasts are almost magical little single-celled plants. They’re a tiny, little fungus. In fact, one teaspoon contains hundreds of millions of yeast cells. The magic is that they make breads rise, grape juice turn to wine, and grains and water turn to beer.

And here’s the magic that’s important in bread making: yeast breathes air and exhales carbon dioxide, just like we do. Given a lot of air and some food (like flour), yeast grows fast and produces a lot of carbon dioxide. And it’s this gas that makes bread rise.

3. Water And water.

Cooking with Photoshop

Beyond Above &

by J. Michael Wheeler
Boot Up the Oven
Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m both a foodie and a bit of a geek. Cooking with Photoshop...I can virtually smell it now! Enjoy.

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

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Roast Sausage & Fennel

Fare Winter

by David Shepherd

Roast Sausage & Fennel
This recipe is a no-name mid-winter weekend comfort food special (think Sunday Football in front of the TV), ideal for being a fast, one-pot prep, ready to roast in the time it takes you to chop. Nothing fancy here, not a lot of thought required; the ingredients are left deliberately chunky, cacciatore style. The fennel is what separates this dish from an otherwise fairly typical preparation. Roasting it releases a subtle sweetness, a pleasing counterpoint to the licorice flavors this vegetable is known for, as well as to the boldness of the hot sausage. Overall, the roasting time gives you to the time to get ready for the big game. If you've got a crowd coming, over double the recipe. Use a disposable roasting pan for easy post-game clean-up.

Ingredients
Serves 2-4.

3-4 small to medium Yukon Gold potatoes
1 lb. good-quality Italian sausages (a mix of hot and sweet is good)
1 small fennel bulb, stalks discarded, trimmed
1 small red pepper
1 small zucchini
1 small Valida onion (though yellows or Spanish will suffice)
4-5 oz. large whole mushrooms
3-4 large garlic cloves
3-4 tablespoons of cooking-quality olive oil
Dried Italian seasoning
Dried rubbed sage
Dried rosemary
Salt, pepper

Pre-heat oven to 400°

1. Rough-peel the potatoes, if at all. Slice into thick steak-fry shape. Repeat with the fennel, and the pepper and zucchini. Cut sausage links into 1” pieces. Cut mushrooms into thick slices. Coarsely chop garlic and slice onion. Tranfser the pile into a very lightly oiled roasting pan (I take a quick wipe with a paper towel moistened with olive oil; a light spritz of an olive oil cooking spray would also work) large enough to hold everything (I use a large glass Pyrex, but any roasting pan will do); make sure all ingredients are more or less evenly distributed. Season with salt, pepper and very healthy pinches of dried herbs to taste.

2. Drizzle with olive oil; do not stir to mix. (Note: you could hold out the zucchini and perhaps the mushrooms as well for the first 20 minutes or so of roasting, because they’re not as robust as the other items. But it’s not absolutely necessary. The zuke will break down a bit, but remember, this is a no-worries dish, so who cares?)

3. Place pan on rack in center of oven. Roast for 30-35 minutes, remove, stir ingredients, loosening any that might be sticking to the pan, return to the oven for another 40 minutes. Roasting time is dependent on your oven, of course. Figure 75 minutes, and adjust accordingly. Everything should be nicely browned and crisped at the edges of the pan.

4. Remove, let it sit for 5-10 minutes; just slightly cooled, more of the flavors become noticeable, I think. Serve with a nice big hunk of crusty Italian bread, a glass of a simple quaffing red, and you’re in business.

This dish is fine as it is, and, despite the potatoes, it makes a great sandwich, too, on that same loaf of Italian. It’s also open to interpretation: substitute something, if you’d like--green pepper for the red, change up the seasonings, add a dash of red pepper flakes for extra heat, maybe toss in some chopped black olives 15 minutes before roasting is complete. As I said, it’s a casual dish. Truth of it is, the leftovers are probably better in flavor than when everything first comes out of the oven, but you’ll be hard-pressed to leave enough left over to find out.

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O’Reilly’s Most Excellent Scones

Scones Visionary

by Edie Freedman

Tim O’Reilly’s Most Excellent Scones
Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media (oreilly.com), is many things: visionary, writer, technology advocate, and much more. He also happens to be an excellent baker.

I have worked with my friend Tim for nearly two decades and I know that his scones are legendary; he makes them for friends, colleagues, and just about anyone who shows up around breakfast time chez O’Reilly. I can speak from experience: it’s hard not to wolf down more than your share of these wonderful pastries, especially when they’re just out of the oven.

Tim's most excellent scone recipe follows...

Don't Knead Bread?

Trends Food

by J. Michael Wheeler
No Need to Knead: A Simple Way to Bake Bread
All Things Considered, March 22, 2009
National Public Radio's Jacki Lyden talks with Nancy Baggett, author of the new cookbook Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads. Now, with Nancy Baggett's revolutionary new Kneadlessly Simple method, even complete novices can bake bread quickly and easily in their own homes, with no kneading and no kitchen mess. The secret is in Baggett's slow-rise method, which allows the yeast to grow slowly and develop the same full, satisfying flavor of traditional bread, without any kneading at all.

"Kneadless bread, in fact — we think of it as very novel and revolutionary now — kneadless bread is actually the way it was made before people figured out that you could knead bread," Baggett says.

Baggett lives and bakes in the Washington, D.C., area. NPR's Jacki Lyden paid a visit to her kitchen a few weeks ago to learn the secrets of no-knead baking.

Listen to No Need to Knead: A Simple Way to Bake Bread: Click Here. There's even a recipe for Baggett's Crusty White Peasant-Style Pot Bread

Related Links
Bread Simplified What really, is bread?
The Artisan An Artisan Baker Talks of his Craft
Re-Thinking Wheat Food Trends
Weigh In Weigh, Don't Measure

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"Nancy Baggett's technique is simple and virtually fool-proof."

Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads
For years, countless home cooks have shied away from baking their own bread because they were intimidated by all the mess, the experience, and of course, all the kneading required. Now, with Nancy Baggett's revolutionary new Kneadlessly Simple method, even complete novices can bake bread quickly and easily in their own homes, with no kneading and no kitchen mess. The secret is in Baggett's slow-rise method, which allows the yeast to grow slowly and develop the same full, satisfying flavor of traditional bread, without any kneading at all. The technique calls for minimal ingredients, often mixed in one bowl with one spoon, eliminating all the mess of traditional bread recipes, and it can be used to produce a wide variety of breads, from Whole Wheat Boules and English Muffin Loaves to Raisin Bread and Caraway Beer Bread. With this innovative new method, anyone who can read, measure, and stir can now make delicious, fine-textured yeast bread at home.

Hand selected books are at Foodie's Emporium! Click here.

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O'Reilly's Excellent Scones

Scones Visionary

by Edie Freedman

Tim O’Reilly’s Most Excellent Scones
Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media (oreilly.com), is many things: visionary, writer, technology advocate, and much more. He also happens to be an excellent baker.

I have worked with my friend Tim for nearly two decades and I know that his scones are legendary; he makes them for friends, colleagues, and just about anyone who shows up around breakfast time chez O’Reilly. I can speak from experience: it’s hard not to wolf down more than your share of these wonderful pastries, especially when they’re just out of the oven.

Tim's most excellent scone recipe follows...