This tart made a delicious dinner. The tart was lighter than a traditional quiche because of the yeasted crust. We really enjoyed the Chard and saffron filling. (Hans: I’m thinking this is right up your alley and that you will come up with some magnificent variation!) I used crème fraîche in the dough but will use butter next time. Although the crème fraîche made the dough very tender, I think butter would have made the dough easier to work with and given the finished product a more flavorful crust. In other words, I thought the crust was a bit on the bland side.

The tart, dough and recipe, were adapted from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison.

Yeasted Tart Dough

1 teaspoon instant yeast

¼ cup warm water

1 large egg, room temperature

150 to 200 grams flour (I used Guisto’s Baker’s Choice)

½ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons crème fraîche or soft unsalted butter

Dissolve the yeast in water. Combine 150 grams of the flour and salt in a medium bowl, and make a well. Break the egg into the middle of the well and add the crème fraîche or soft unsalted butter (I used crème fraîche, and an extra large egg, so had to add additional flour), and dissolved yeast.

Mix everything together with a flexible spatula, shape into a loose ball, cover and let rise until double, about 1 hour.

Chard and Saffron Tart

1 large bunch of chard, enough to make 8 cups of leaves roughly chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, medium diced (about ¼” dice)

2 cloves garlic, finely diced or pressed

¾ teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 ½ cups milk or cream or a combination of both (I used regular cream-topped milk)

Large pinch of saffron threads, soaked in 1 tablespoon of hot water

½ teaspoon finely grated fresh orange zest

6 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 1/2 ounces)

Nutmeg

2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

pepper

3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted in a dry pan

Prepare the yeasted tart dough and set aside to rise in a warm place.

Cut the chard leaves away from the steams and chop the leaves into pieces about 1 inch square, wash well, and drain in a colander.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and soak the saffron threads.

Heat the butter and oil in a large 12-inch skillet. Add the onions and cook over medium heat until soft and translucent (do not brown), about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chard leaves and salt. Turn the leaves over repeatedly with tongs until they are tender, about 5 minutes. Set pan aside.

Prepare the tart shell: Flatten out the dough and place in a quiche pan (I used a 10” x 2” deep tin quiche pan with a removable bottom sprayed lightly with pan-spray)*. Press the dough out to the edge using your finger tips and up the sides. You can let the dough relax for 20 minutes if it starts shrinking back on you. I was only able to coax the dough about half-way up the side of the pan which was just high enough to hold the filling. The dough should be thicker on the sides and thinner on the bottom. I was pleased to see that as the tart baked both the dough and its filling rose up to the top of the pan.

Make the custard: beat the eggs, stir in the milk or cream, infused saffron thread liquid, orange zest, Parmesan, a few shaving of nutmeg, and the parsley. Stir in the chard and onion mixture, taste, and season with more salt if needed, and pepper.

Pour the filling into the tart shell and scatter the toasted pine nuts on top.

Bake until the crust is nicely browned and the custard is set, about 50 minutes. (I placed the quiche pan on a baking tray. If I had placed it directly on the rack, the baking time might have been shorter.)

Unmold and serve with a salad (I made a salad of butter lettuce and fresh navel orange slices tossed with a herb shallot walnut oil vinaigrette).

Serves 4 to 6

--Pamela

*If you don't own this type of deep quiche pan, I think you might be able to use an 8" inch spring-form cake pan. You don't have to worry about the filling leaking out because the tart dough is like bread dough.

Hi to everybody. I've missed not being on this forum over the past few months. My husband was diagnosed with early Parkinson's disease mid-August and that really threw us for a loop. I've had MS for 40 years and although I am very active and strong in many ways, I can't walk very fast any more. Anyway, we've had to make a lot of decisions about whether to stay where we are or move, plan for the future, get educated on his disease, etc. I just felt too distracted to continue participating.

Plus I think I literally wore my oven out testing for PR's new book. I finally got a new oven installed last month.

Anyway, we're over the shock and awe of our situation now, and I have an oven again, so I'm looking forward to participating again in this forum.

I haven't made any bread since mid-August. I hope my SD starter can be revived.

--Pamela

Yesterday I tried the ciabatta pizza that trailrunner posted about a week ago. I was very impressed with the results.

The pizza formula has a lot of yeast in it and went through bulk fermentation like a rocket (I had to put it in the fridge to slow it down.) When it had tripled (after about 3 hours in fridge--probably faster but I just let it sit there until I was ready), I heavily floured my counter, literally poured the glutenous dough onto the flour, and then sprinkled more flour on the top. I patted the blob into a circle about 1/2 an inch thick. Then the trick was how to get the blob onto the pan-sprayed parchment. I did the best I could but had to reshape it a bit after it landed. Didn't seem to hurt it any. I topped it with tomatoes and basil (topping basil was an obvious mistake at this point because it dried out in the oven--next time I'll put it on as a garnish; sometimes in the heat of the moment I do stupid things).

I baked it on a preheated stone on the bottom rack for 8 minutes. (Trailrunner had warned me that I needed to bake the moisture out of the tomatoes and that was good advice.) After taking it out of the oven with my peel, I removed the parchment paper, topped it with some of TJ's marinated rope-type mozzarella, and slid it back in the oven for another 8 minutes. It rose up real nice in the oven and produced a delicate, soft, thickish pizza crust. The pizza as a whole didn't have as much flavor as I was hoping for but my tomatoes weren't home grown (I used an heirloom supermarket variety), so I'm not surprised as the topping was so plain. Next time I think I'll reduce the yeast to 3 g (I used 7 g by mistake) so it will take longer to go through bulk fermentation and perhaps develop a little more flavor. But all and all I was pretty happy with the results. Thanks trailrunner for posting this great pizza!

Topped with tomatoes and ready to go into the oven.

After 8 minutes

After 15 minutes (TJ's cheese had some oil in it so that's why it browned; regular mozzarella probably wouldn't brown.)

Crumb (or is it slice?)

250 g AP flour

227 g water (I might reduce to 210 g next time)

3 g yeast (I misread the recipe and used 7 g by accident)

7 g salt

tomatoes, thinly sliced or halved cherries, or a combination of both

mozzarella cheese, grated or thinly sliced

fresh basil leaves, for garnish

olive oil

kosher salt

Put the flour, water, salt, and yeast in mixer bowl and mix with paddle to incorporate. Let dough rest for 5 minutes to hydrate. Knead with dough hook on speed 2 for 10 minutes. (My dough never formed a ball like trailrunner's so next time I'm going to use a little less water).

Put dough into a container and let triple.

Place dough onto a heavily floured countertop, sprinkle top of dough with flour, and pat into a round about 1/2 inch thick. Transfer dough to pan-sprayed parchment paper, top with thinly sliced tomatoes, and bake on a stone in a preheated 500º oven for 8 minutes to drive off the moisture from the tomatoes and set the dough. Remove pizza and parchment from oven, discard parchment and top with mozzarella cheese. Return pizza to oven and bake until done, about another 7 to 8 minutes.

Garnish with fresh basil leaves, and a light sprinkling of kosher salt and olive oil.

Makes one pizza (serves two people).

The original post is from LilDice.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/3621/quick-rustic-ciabatta-pizza-recipe-full-howto-pics

http://hollosyt.googlepages.com/quickrusticciabattapizza

I also found another link to this pizza with pictures and discussion. NB: the reduced amount of IDY.

http://www.prurgent.com/2009-04-15/pressrelease36039.htm

--Pamela

I really like Norm's method of using re-hydrating dried onions. They tasted fabulous on the rolls. The dough was very stiff and tight when I removed it from the mixer for bulk fermentation, but when I went to shape it was amazingly light and easy to work with. I don't know why I expected the finished product to be bagel-like. These rolls are light, tender things with a mild onion and poppy seed flavor, and nothing like bagels! I couldn't help myself and gobbled one down before they were even cool. Thanks, Norm, for sharing this terrific recipe with us at TFL.

I think these rolls would also make great hamburger buns too either with or without the onions.

The original thread is here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/normsonionrolls

Ready to proof

Out of the oven

Being eaten

My interpretation of Norm's formula and method:

The onion mixture

Rehydrate 1/3 cup dried, minced onions in about 1 1/2 cups of boiling water. When the onions have absorbed all the water that they can, drain them (I pressed them with a spoon when they were in the strainer to make sure I got most of the water out), and add a little salt (I added 1/2 teaspoon kosher), 1 tablespoon of canola oil (I forgot to add the oil so I just dapped a little on the top of each roll before baking them), and 2 teaspoons of poppy seeds to the mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use. Norms says that you have to used dried onions to get the authentic taste of these rolls.

The roll dough

21 g sugar
7 g malt syrup (I used 14 g by accident because I was pouring from the bottle and it got away from me)
7 g salt
21 g egg, beaten
21 g vegetable oil
454 g bread flour
227 g water
7 g instant yeast

Place all ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and mix with the paddle until everything is incorporated, about 1 minute. Let dough rest 5 minutes to hydrate. Change paddle to dough hook and knead on speed 2 for 10 minutes until dough is quite smooth. Norm cautions that this is a very stiff dough and that you should keep an eye on your mixer so that you don't overheat it. I think this dough might knead very well in a food processor; of course it would probably only require a couple of minutes of kneading.

Place dough in a bowl, cover and let rise until double, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

Gently deflate dough and cut into 2 to 4 ounce pieces (I used 3 ounce pieces for my rolls), form pieces into balls, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, dump the onion mixture onto a lipped cookie sheet and spread it out.

When the 10 minutes are up, pick up the relaxed dough balls, turn them over onto the onion mixture, and press them flat with the palm of your hand. You want to balls to be flattened to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

Place the rolls onion side up on a baking sheet, and preheat your oven to 450º.

Cover the onion rolls lightly with plastic wrap and let fully proof, about 1 hour. Just before they are ready to go into the oven, press down in the center of each roll with your thumb to make an indentation.

Bake for about 20 minutes on the middle oven rack until nicely brown and crisp, spritzing them with water once a minute during the first 5 minutes of baking and rotating the pan 180º after the first 10 minutes. Watch them closely near the end of the 20 minutes because they can burn fast--I caught mine just in time. (Next time I make these I might try 425º for 25 minutes.)

Makes 9 three-ounce rolls

I baked two sourdough's today. The first, David's Pain de Campagne is rapidly becoming one of my favorite breads because it's so easy to make, is practically foolproof, and has such a wonderful flavor and crumb. I use Guisto's Baker's Choice instead of KA French style flour for this bread, and my own home-ground wholemeal rye. (I think Guisto's Bakers Choice has about 10.5% protein, so it is softer than KAAP.)

The second was kind of an experiment with Dan DiMuzio's SF Sourdough. I wanted to see if I could bake baquettes out of the dough instead of the more normal batards.

I mixed both doughs up by hand using a throw and slap method. (I had just finished watching a video by Richard Bertinet and thought I would give his technique a try.)

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/video/2008/03/bertinet_sweetdough

I put both doughs through four of the throw and slap sessions allowing about 20 minutes in between. It was kind of a fun procedure, and I really enjoyed getting down and dirty with the dough. I think this method help to incorporate air into the doughs and probably contributed to their open hole structure.

The hint of rye in this bread really gives it a spectacular flavor and crumb.

I couldn't get my scoring to open up very well on these baguettes. I'm not sure why except that the dough really got a lot of oven spring.

I cut the baguette horizontally for a sandwich. I was very happy with the large holes in the crumb.

I

I retarded half of Dan's formula overnight in a banneton and baked it this morning. It was a little overproofed which didn't surprise me considering the amount of starter. Still, it baked up pretty well this morning. A little bit flat, but the flavor is very nice and the crumb isn't bad either!

--Pamela

When I was cleaning out my pantries a couple of weekends ago, I discovered a number of bags of various specialty flours. One of the bags was Bob's Red Mill Durum Wheat Semolina Flour. I was looking around today for a way to use this flour and found a recipe on the King Arthur site for 100% semolina bread. I adapted my bread from the recipe found in Judith and Evan Jones' "The Book of Bread".

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/semolina-bread-recipe

It is a moist bread with a nice even crumb and a mild taste of semolina. Very easy to make, I'm sure it would be well accepted by children because of its slight cake-like texture. It's kind of like corn bread with out tasting like corn (sounds strange, I know, but that's the way it strikes me). I think this bread would make great stuffing for turkeys and pork chops (see my comments below).



It did make great toast and go well with bacon, lettuce & tomato.

9 g instant yeast

340 g water

28 g soft butter (olive oil would work fine too)
28 g nonfat dry milk
8 g salt
600 g Durum wheat semolina flour (I used Bob's Red Mill Durum Wheat Semolina Flour)

Place all ingredients in bowl of mixer and mix with the paddle for a minute to incorporate all ingredients. Switch to dough hook. Knead on speed 2 for 4 minutes--dough should clean to bowl and pass the window pane test.

Place dough in an oiled 2 qt. container, cover and let rise until nearly triple, about 1 1/2 hours.

Deflate dough and divide into two 18 ounce pieces, for 8 1/2 x 4 inch loaf pans, or four 9 ounce pieces for mini loaf pans. Roll each piece of dough into a rectangle and then roll up tightly, cigar-style.

Place loaves in oiled bread pans, cover with oiled plastic wrap, and let rise until nearly double, about 1 hour.

Bake in center of preheated 350º oven until bread is a light golden brown and internal temperature reaches 190ºF, about 30 minutes. Turn loaves out onto a rack and let cool.

Would I make it again? Probably not. It is a little boring for my tastes, but I'm sure it will make great toast for breakfast. But it serves a two-fold purpose: I needed to use up this sack of semolina and I'm out of bread (my SD starter won't be ready to go until tomorrow.)

I tried making the grilled pizza margharita featured last week on WildYeast over the weekend. The recipe makes two pizzas so I grilled one Friday night and the second, Saturday for lunch.

Friday night's pizza was about a 10" round. I had difficulty getting our gas BBQ to heat evenly (it has three elements running front to back but the backs of all three are hotter than the fronts). Consequently, it cooked too fast, got too brown on the back side, and was slightly underdone in the middle (didn't cook all the way through).

To remedy the problem I decided to make Saturday's pizza into a rectangle and lower the heat so it would cook all the way through. My second attempt was much more successful: nothing got burned and the pizza dough was cooked all the way through.

Grilled pizza is definitely different than its oven baked cousin. It was thicker and the crust had a nice crunch, but the flavor of the mozzarella just seemed a little blah on the grill. Would I make it again? Yes, but with a stronger topping, e.g., sausage and firmer, perhaps marinated mozzarella or pesto and shrimp. It was nice not to have to preheat the oven for an hour on a day when the temperature was nearly 100ºF here!

--Pamela

A good friend of mine sent me this recipe last weekend. She and her husband used to eat this excellent appetizer or meal at Sayat Nova in Chicago many decades ago. She was pleased to see that it is still on their menu after all those years!

To call this "pizza" really doesn't tell the story of either its base or topping. The base has crackerish qualities lacking in bread and its topping, rich only with meat, fragrant spices and herbs, and devoid of any cheese-like quality. We gobbled down these meat pides last night with astounding speed.

Yesterday, I found a video demonstrating how to make them on youtube. Before watching it you might want to mute the sound because the music, which they offer for sale, is a bit harsh for my ears.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOj7-kzADcQ&feature=fvw

The authentic choice of meat is lamb, but if you object you could substitute beef. I ground my own lamb with the grinder attachment of my KA, but mincing it with a food processor would also work nicely. Of course you can also just buy the product already ground, if you choose.

The flavor of the finished pide is greatly enhanced by a lot of fresh lemon juice.

I took a lot of pictures, but, alas, didn't have the CF card in the camera except for the last shot.

LAHMEJUN

(Makes 12)

Dough:
7 g instant yeast
227 g warm water
7 g salt
7 g sugar
56 g shortening (I used Crisco, but you could probably use olive oil with good results)
340 g AP flour

Topping:
1 1/2 lbs. lean ground lamb
3/4 cup chopped parsley
3/4 cup finely chopped green pepper
2 medium cloves garlic, finely chopped or passed through a garlic press
1/4 cup tomato paste
14 oz. can pear-shaped tomatoes (you can also use peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh tomatoes)
1⁄2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika

Lemon wedges, fresh mint, and olive oil

Mix dough ingredients together adding enough extra flour, if necessary, to make a soft pliable dough.  Knead for about 5 minutes to make it smooth and non-sticky.  Turn into greased bowl, cover, and let rise until double, about 1 hour.

Punch down and divide into 12 equal pieces, each slightly under 2 oz. Shape into balls, arrange about 2” apart, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 450º with rack on lowest level, and prepare topping. Drain tomatoes and finely chop the pulp.  Add pulp to remaining topping ingredients and mix with a fork until completely blended.  Divide meat mixture into 12 portions of about 1/3 cup each.

Take 2 pieces of dough and roll each to a 7 to 8” circle (dough will be very thin).  Place them slightly apart on ungreased lipped baking sheet lined with either parchment or a silicon baking pad.  Using a fork, spread meat mixture evenly to edges of dough.  

Bake one sheet at a time at 450˚ for 10 to 12 minutes until lightly browned on the bottom but still capable of being folded. Remove and cool on racks. Repeat until all are baked.

Serve with lemon wedges.  Armenians put pickles or salad on top, and fold in half to eat.  

Store in sets of 2, with meat surfaces together (I put waxed paper between.)  Wrap well, and refrigerate or freeze.

To reheat:  Thaw, if frozen.  Leave in sets of 2.  Bake at 450˚ for 5 to 7 minutes until piping hot.  Separate and serve with lemon wedges.

Notes: May be top with salad dressed with 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice, 4 tablespoons olive oil, salt & pepper, and lots of fresh chopped mint.

--Pamela

When I saw Sylvia's sandwiches I immediately knew what we were having for Father's Day! I made BBA's Italian Bread. Thanks to information gleaned from David's posts I knew to increase the mixing time. I think it took about 10 minutes on medium speed in my KA to pass the window pane test.

I used a regular biga (is there really any such animal?) that I made the day before and held overnight in the refrigerator. I made one loaf and 4 hoagie-style rolls (each roll weighed about 5 ounces).

Note to self: whenever putting sesame seeds on the outside of loaves, rolls, etc., brush the target with egg white wash or most of them will be on the floor and not in your mouth. I can't tell you how many times I swept the kitchen floor yesterday! Before bagging the breads, Jim said, "Why don't we just scrape the seeds off!" I agreed whole-heartedly!

My meatball recipe is oddly (just kidding) similar to Sylvia's. It comes come foodtv's Ina Garten. You can read it here if you are interested.

I, like Sylvia, really think San Marzano tomatoes are the best and use them in all my special dishes.

The meal was a winner and the bread held up very well to the meatballs and sauce. I dressed the meatball with a semi-firm whole-milk mozzarella and popped them under the broiler for a few minutes.

I wanted my picture to look like just like Sylvia's but was out of parsley, so I had to substitute a sprig of cilantro :-) which I threw away after taking the photo.

Happy Father's Day to all,

--Pamela

I saw these luscious looking onion rings on YeastSpotting several weeks ago and just could not get them out of my head. After eating them only once, I'm more obsessed with them than ever!

What a terrific way to use up your sourdough discard! Heck, these were so good that I'd make sourdough starter for the express purpose of turning out these tasty little rings.

Why were these onion rings so good? They weren't at all greasy (I recovered almost all the oil after cooking), they stayed crisp even when cool (not that many had the chance to get to that state but I had to save a few for the picture), and they had a wonderful flavor.

This was the best batter I have ever used. It would work great on fish (fish & chips) as well as vegetables (tempura). It is a total winner and many of us at TFL have an ample supply of SD starter in our kitchens at all times.

I made a few little changes to the original recipe.

The Batter:

130 g ripe sourdough starter (that was all I had; the original recipe called for 150 g)--my starter was firm, 67% hydration

Heaping 1/3 cup AP flour (original recipe called for 1/2 cup)

Heaping 1/3 cup water (original recipe called for 1/2 cup)

Mix together well and let sit on counter, covered, for about 3 hours then refrigerate until very cold (about another 3 hours).

(The original recipe just fed the starter and immediately refrigerated it, but I felt a little funny about that so I let it sit out for a while and start to grow.)

When you are ready to make the onion rings:

Heat 48 ounces of canola oil in a heavy bottomed pot to 375º. I used a pot that was about 3 1/2 inches x 9 inches; my oil was about 2 1/2 inches deep and that worked out just fine.

Cut one very large yellow onion in slices about 1/4 inch wide and separate them into rings (you can leave them in either two or one ring slices--I did both types).

Place one cup of AP flour into a pie plate and season it with 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper and 1 teaspoon granulated garlic (I don't like the taste of garlic powder so if you can't or don't want to obtain a superior product, I'd just skip it--I use Morton & Bassett granulated garlic with parsley).

Take your starter out of the refrigerator and whisk it with 1/4 cup cold seltzer (or soda) water. It will require some work to get the starter and water mixed up. The batter will be very thick.

Dip the onion rings in the flour, coat with the batter, and then drop them in the hot oil. Don't crowd the pan (one onion required two batches for me). Turn them over several times while they were cooking (about 6 minutes, I think, but you will know when they are done).

Remove to a lined platter and reserve in a 250º oven while you are getting the next batch done.

Sprinkle with kosher salt when they come out of the oil. A dap of your favorite hot sauce makes a nice accompaniment.

Serves 2.

--Pamela