Rheinbrot - A Winey Bread

This bread is called Rheinbrot because it contains Riesling in the sponge/starter. I've made bread with beer, but never with wine. This was going to be an adventure.

As I often do, I jumped into the recipe without reading it all the way through, and didn't realize that the sponge needs about 14 to 16 hours of fermentation. Starting at noon (which I did) meant that I would have to mix up the final dough around two in the morning. I love baking bread, but I love sleep too.

I figured out I should have started around 6pm and then let the starter ferment overnight. Fortunately, I was able to slow down the fermentation by putting the starter in the refrigerator after about ten hours and leave it there until the next evening. While the original recipe does not call for a cold fermentation, I am including it in my directions.

What else did I do differently? Instead of baking the loaf in a steam oven, I baked it in a preheated cast iron Dutch oven. While the dough was very loose, the oven spring in the cast iron pot was amazing. Other than the timing and the cast iron pot, I followed the recipe as written.

How was the bread? Soft, moist, and chewy with a fairly thin crispy crust. The flavor was wonderful, perfect with the rest of the bottle of Riesling.

This recipe was introduced to the Bread Baking Babes by Astrid of Paul Chen's Food Blog.  She found the original recipe on this forum and translated it. I'm so glad she did.

Rheinbrot Recipe

Ingredients

Sponge

50 grams of semisweet Riesling

50 grams bottled water

100 grams unbleached all purpose flour

50 grams of 100% sourdough starter

Dough

All of the sponge

250 grams unbleached all purpose flour

135 grams water

6 grams of salt

Instructions

1. Whisk the wine, water, and sourdough starter together in a 1 quart bowl.
2. Mix in the 100 grams of flour. 
3. Cover and ferment the sponge for four hours at about 80 degrees F. I usually heat up a cup of water in the microwave and then put the dough in there. 
4. After four hours, stir the sponge and recover with plastic wrap. Let it ferment at room temperature for 10 to 12 hours. Alternatively, after a few hours, move the bowl to the refrigerator and let it ferment for 18 to 24 hours. 
5. Remove the sponge from the refrigerator about 1 1/2 hours prior to mixing the dough. 
6. Add the flour and water, mix until you get a shaggy ball, cover, and let sit for about 45 minutes, covered. 
7. Add the salt and pinch the dough with your fingers to fully incorporate it. Form the dough into a ball and place it into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it ferment for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Fold the dough over itself at 60 minutes and 90 minutes. 
8. Form the dough into a boule and place it into a floured bowl or basket (I used a plastic brotform sprayed with oil and sprinkled with rice flour). Cover with plastic wrap. Let it proof until doubled in size, about 60 to 90 minutes. Meanwhile, place a cast iron Dutch oven in the oven and preheat the oven to 475 degrees F.
9. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven, remove the lid, and dump the dough into the pot. Slash the dough, cover, and place in the oven. 
10. Bake for 10 minutes, and then remove the lid. Lower the oven temperature to 400 degrees F and bake for 20 minutes more. 
11. Cool on a wire rack. 

Stir-Fried Cilantro Chili Noodles with Egg and Crab | Wok Wednesdays

This Stir-Fired Cilantro Chili Noodles with Egg with some added lump crab meat is heaven in a bowl. There are about 13 ingredients in the dish, not including the crab meat, and there is a full cup of chopped cilantro tossed into the noodles. Rice noodles, chicken broth, soy sauce, rice vinegar, eggs, Anaheim chiles, ginger, sugar, salt and pepper, and sesame oil, along with the cilantro and crab meat. So good.

Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread

This sourdough cinnamon raisin bread is pretty phenomenal. It's loaded, I mean really loaded, with with plump raisins. I love the contrast between the sweet raisins and the mild sourdough. It makes the absolute best toast for breakfast (with butter of course).

The dough is fairly high in hydration, so it's a little sticky. When working with it, lightly flour your work surface and your hands, and be sure to have both a dough scraper and bench knife to work with the dough. Keep dipping your hands in flour. It's messy, but it's worth it.

You can control the amount of cinnamon sugar you add and cut back on the raisins if you like. I chose to go really light on the cinnamon sugar swirl but go full on with the raisins. When I am running late in the morning, two slices of this toast makes a quick and totally filling breakfast.

This bread takes about five hours to make (most of this time is inactive), but don't let that intimidate you. It is actually really easy. Just be sure to use freshly fed and bubbly sourdough starter.

The original recipe for this bread calls for a biga, which is a mix of flour, water, and a little bit of yeast that is allowed to ferment in the refrigerator overnight. I adjusted the flour and water for my 100% hydration sourdough starter. The recipe has been adapted from Amy's Bread, Revised and Updated: Artisan-style breads, sandwiches, pizzas, and more from New York City's favorite bakery.

For a sourdough raisin bread with no additional yeast, be sure to try Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Bread. 

Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

2 ounces warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)

1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

397 g ripe sourdough starter

13 ounces room temperature water

600 g unbleached all purpose flour

12 g Kosher salt

425 g dark raisins

1/4 C plus one T sugar mixed with 1 T cinnamon (I used only about a tablespoon of this mixture and reserved the rest for cinnamon toast)

Extra flour and water to make adjustments to the dough

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the warm water and yeast and let stand for about 3 minutes. 
2. Add the starter and room temperature water and stir until everything is dissolved. 
3. Add the flour and salt and continue to stir with a dough whisk or wooden spoon until you have a shaggy ball of dough. 
4. Knead with the dough hook for about four minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for for 20 minutes. 
5. Knead with the dough hook for about 5 minutes, adding flour or water by the tablespoon until the dough is tacky and elastic. The dough should be fairly sticky but just clear the sides of the bowl. 
6. Place the dough into an oiled dough rising bucket or bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise for 60 minute. 
7. At the 60 minute mark, reach into the bowl and gently push down on the dough. Pull the dough up from all four "sides" and stretch it and fold it over itself. Flip the dough over and place it seam side down. Re-cover the dough and allow it to rise for another 45 minutes, until doubled (mine was tripled). 
8. While the dough is rising, place the raisins in a bowl and add just enough warm water to reach just below the level of the raisins. 
9. Oil or butter two 9 inch by 5 inch bread pans and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and drain the raisins. 
10. Lightly flour a work surface and turn the dough out onto it. Lightly flour your hands and press the dough into a 14 by 12 inch rectangle. With a bench scraper, cut the dough into two pieces. 
11. Sprinkle the pieces with the cinnamon sugar and then press the raisins into the dough. There are a lot of raisins. Just go with it. 
12. Roll up the dough pieces into logs and place them into the two bread pans, seam side down. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 60 to 90 minutes, until doubled. 
13. Bake the loaves for 15 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 375 degrees F. 
14. Bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, until the internal temperature of the bread reaches about 190 degrees F. If the loaves are getting too dark, tent with foil. 
15. Cool the loaves in the pans for 5 minutes, and then remove them from the pans and cool completely on cooling racks. 

Enjoy!

Submitted to Yeastspotting

Transitional Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

This transitional whole wheat bread is perfect for when you want to get your whole grains, but still want a bread that is mild enough for sandwiches. The loaf is 56% whole wheat flour and 44% bread flour, and the recipe includes milk, honey, and just a little bit of butter.

The dough is super easy to work with, and rises beautifully both prior to baking as well as in the oven. Ah, the joys of "oven spring," where I sit on a stool in front of the oven window to stare at my baking bread.

The bread requires a little bit of planning. The day before baking, you mix both a soaker of whole wheat and milk, and a biga of bread flour, water, and yeast.

Soaker? Biga? Biga is an Italian term for a preferment... meaning you take some flour and water and add a little big of yeast and let it develop flavor overnight or maybe a bit longer. It can also be referred to as a sponge. A soaker is a mixture of grains and/or seeds with a liquid left overnight in order to soften the grains/seeds and develop more flavor.  Once the soaker and biga have been given enough time to develop, they are combined with the rest of the dough ingredients to make the bread.

To view and print the recipe, go my post on the Grain Mill Wagon site.

Disclosure: I am participating in the Grain Mill Wagon Challenge and received a WonderMill grain mill as part of the challenge. And, yes, I milled my own whole wheat flour! How cool is that?

For the recipe, click here.

Braised Carrots with Leeks

These braised carrots with leeks will surprise you with their savory-ness. At least they surprised me. Their flavor is fresh and reminiscent of vegetables from a Provencal marche.

This is an easy dish that can be made right before serving, or made in advance and served at room temperature the next day.

You can use spring carrots, or if you cannot find them, you can cut regular carrots cut into thinner pieces by quartering the fat ends and cutting the thin ends in half lengthwise.

To clean the leeks, cut off the root ends and the dark green parts, slice the pieces length wise, place them into a bowl of cold water, and swish them around. Drain the leeks and and place them back into cold water. Once the water in the bowl is clean, the leeks are ready.

We had this with a goat cheese, onion, mushroom, and red pepper tart with a filet mignon. It was definitely a luxurious dinner with an amazing combination of flavors.

For another great dish with leeks, check out this Asparagus, Pea, and Leek Stir Fry. For another great carrot dish, check out these Sauteed Carrots.

Braised Carrots with Leeks Recipe

Adapted from Mark Peel's New Classic Family Dinners.

This recipe serves four.

Ingredients

3 T olive oil

1/2 pound of leeks, white and light green part only, cleaned, with the root trimmed off, and cut into thin lengthwise strips

3/4 tsp Kosher salt

1 garlic clove, minced

1 pound peeled carrots, either small spring, or cut as described above. They should be about 4 to 6 inches in length. 

1/2 C water

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 T fresh chopped chervil, or 1 tsp dried chervil

2 tsp fresh chopped tarragon

Instructions

1. Heat 2 T of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. 
2. Add the leeks and a bit of the salt and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes. 
3. Add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. 
4. Add the carrots, water, and the rest of the salt, and bring to a simmer. 
5. Simmer over low heat, covered, for about 15 minutes, until the carrots are fork tender. 
6. Transfer the carrots to a platter and bring the rest of the ingredients to a boil.
7. Add the rest of the oil, the lemon juice, the chervil, and the tarragon to the pan and cook for about a minute. 
8. Spoon the contents of the pan over the carrots.
9. Serve immediately, or tent with foil and serve later at room temperature. 
10. You can also refrigerate overnight and serve the next day. 

Macanese Stir-Fried Chicken | Wok Wednesdays

According to Grace Young, the author of Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge, Macanese food is a fusion of southern Chinese, Portuguese, and Southeast Asian styles, as well as other European and Indian cultures.

This dish is super easy to prepare, even though it calls for 17 (se-ven-teen) ingredients. Not including the rice.

Amazingly, I had most of the ingredients on hand. The only two ingredients that gave me a challenge were Spanish Chorizo and canned coconut milk. Spanish chorizo, which is a cooked and cured meat, is not the same as Mexican chorizo (found everywhere here), which is uncooked. It's sort of less spicy and more smokey than pepperoni, and more spicy than smoked kielbasa. It's the sausage that is usually used in paella.

Seventeen ingredients you say? Try chicken, garlic, cornstarch, two kinds of soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, coconut milk, chicken broth, vinegar, oil, shallots, the chorizo, turmeric, sweet paprika, tomatoes, and salt.

The orange "look" of this dish comes from the turmeric. My only hiccup on pulling this recipe together? The instructions say "sprinkle on the turmeric..." and I took that to mean that I should use my fingers to really "sprinkle" it. Turmeric is also used as a dye, a factoid I did not know. I now have orange fingernails. Oops.

The orange manicure not withstanding, we loved this dish. I texted my son that I was doing a stir fry and "feel free to stop by" and he did. He loved it too and took home all of the leftovers. (He also cracked up watching me take pictures of my bowl prior to dinner. My secret life exposed.)

I am participating in Wok Wednesdays, a group of individuals cooking their way through Grace Young's Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge. We've all agreed not to publish the recipe in order to support book publishing. I encourage you to get the book and try this amazing, amazing dish. I've not been disappointed with any stir fry I have tried from the book. Join the group and wok along!

French 75 Cocktail

This cocktail is rumored to have gotten its name from a 75 mm artillery piece that Allied soldiers used during World War I. It definitely depends upon both the French (Champagne) and British (gin), and packs a decent kick (like the field gun).

According to Wikipedia, the holder of all earthly knowledge (a title I used to own prior to Wikipedia stealing my thunder), this cocktail was invented in 1915 at Harry's New York Bar in Paris.

There are several versions of this cocktail out there. This is my favorite. If you'd like a sweeter version, just drop a sugar cube in the bottom of the glass after assembling the ingredients.

French 75 Cocktail Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 ounces gin

1/2 ounce orange liqueur

Lemon twist

1 1/ 2ounces Champagne or Cava 

Sugar cube (optional)

Instructions

1. Place the gin and orange liqueur into an ice filled shaker and shake for 20 to 30 seconds.
2. Strain the ingredients into a chilled coupe. 
3. Drop a lemon twist into the coupe and top with Champagne or Cava.
4. Drop the sugar cube into the bottom of the coupe. 

Boom.

Thank you to my friend Nancy for introducing me to the French 75.