The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Spinach

October 10, 2011 - 9:55am
loydb's picture
loydb

Experiments in Pasta #2: Spinach-Garlic Fettucini

Last night was my second attempt at homemade pasta using home-milled flour. While my first attempt (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25340/experiments-pasta-milling-my-own-flour) was delicious, I tried a few new things based on comments there and reading elsewhere.

 I started out milling a 50/50 mix of durum wheat (14%) and hard white wheat (13%). After milling, I used a #30 mining pan (yes, as in 'gold mining.' It fits perfectly on 5 gallon buckets and large containers like the one shown) to sift out some of the bran, ending up with 85% extraction by weight. I ended up with a little more than 2 cups of flour.

Next, I medium-chopped three cloves of garlic and sauted them in a tablespoon of butter for 5 minutes or so, then added 6 oz of fresh spinach, sprinkled lightly with kosher salt, and cooked 3-4 minutes, until nicely wilted. Moved to a seive and let drain and cool a bit for 20 minutes.

After draining, I put the spinach/garlic mix into a blender, added two room-temperature eggs, a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of olive oil (remember there's butter and salt from the spinach). Blended up, and poured into a well with the flour.

I worked this in with a fork until it became too much to stir. After ending up with an excessively wet dough last time, I was determined to sneak up on the proper hydration this time. I dumped the still-dry mixture onto my board, and began working in water by hand until it just came together.

After about 12 minutes of kneading, it came together into a nice dough that felt like Play-do. It wasn't at all sticky, nor was it noticably dry. I sprayed it with olive oil, put the lid on the container, and then went about my day. I got back to it four hours later. I put it on a lightly floured board, rolled it out to about the thickness of a pencil, and fired up the Atlas.

This time, I only had to add a tiny, tiny bit of flour to the sheets between setting 3 and 4, and they cut perfectly. They got to dry for right at an hour while I worked on everything else.

Here's the final dish. Toasted almond slivers, mushrooms, onions, garlic and green peas with shrimp. The pasta was cooked for around 4 minutes, then mixed in with everything for a couple of minutes in the pan. It had a great flavor, and was sooooo soft, almost like udon.

 

Debra Wink's picture

Jim Lahey's Popeye Pizza

March 14, 2009 - 6:02pm -- Debra Wink
Forums: 
Pizza, focaccia, and flat breads

I debated between naming this thread Jim Lahey's Popeye Pizza, and Jim Lahey's No-Knead Pizza Dough. But since Jim Lahey's name is practically synonymous with "no-knead," maybe the latter is redundant. Anyway, it's green, and St. Patty's day is this week, so I thought I'd share.

Click here: Popeye Pizza   (the video is worth watching)

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December 5, 2007 - 8:45pm
umbreadman's picture
umbreadman

Three Breads. One Day. The First. Time. Ever. (at least for me)

Three Breads. One Day.

Loaf 1: ~5lb Sourdough High Extraction Miche Type loaf

Loaf 2: Garlic Explosion (Garlixplosion?) W/ Cheese

Loaf 3: Spinach and Feta Cheese with Caramelized Onions.

They were all around 65-70% hydration doughs, all with a small amount of sourdough culture thrown in as a preferment/leavening. The miche was leavened solely by the sourdough, I added some active dry yeast to the other two.

PICTURES!!!

Garlic!! SO MUCH GARLIC!! (Many liked it. A few picked out the cloves. One was weak, and just barely finished her piece. Muahahahahaha!!!) I used shredded cheddar and parmesan cheeses here, since they were already in our fridge, though I think that it would indeed be better with chunks. On the other hand, the cheese that was at the crust gave a fantastically unusually textured, but tasty crust. It was thick, but not hard, and was kinda flakey. I can't really describe it well, but it was very strange/good. I also added dried rosemary and ground oregano to it, but I would very much prefer fresh herbs to dried / powders.

Spinach/Feta/Onion. A little weak on the salty/feta taste. The cheese didn't pack the flavor I was used to from feta cheese, so I think next time I will go with a French feta, as opposed to this greek style, and in a larger quantity. Very spinachy flavor though. This had about 25% chopped spinach, drained, by flour weight. It sprung up well, but I was hoping for a bit more. Maybe longer proof/more yeast next time.

Spinach Exterior. A bit dark. I've found that my loaves get quite dark before they're fully baked, and I wait longer with the temperature turned down at the end after at hot start. Maybe if I started it at a lower temp? Or turned it down sooner?

Inside the MICHE! This guy was huge. I think 5lbs of dough is my largest boule yet. This one took quite a while to bake, I think it was over an hour. Since I'm baking for a lot of people, I figured I would make this unflavored bread in a large amount. Aaaannndddd I felt like one loaf would be easier to deal with than 2-3. Hence, this. Someone said it was the size/weight of a newborn child. I think I'll name it alfred.

It surprised me. I slashed it in a circular sort of 8pointed compass style, and it expanded beyond that, splitting down the middle. You know alfred, I'm sorry I even tried. Clearly you didn't want to cooperate, so you went and did your own thing. I thought it might look nice the way I cut you, but no, you HAD to disagree. Now you look like some kind of tribal, african mask, and I can't even claim that it was my idea.....oh how can I stay mad at you? You're so tasty.....(i think alfred is now 2/3 of its original size...ish.)

The Triforce. Garlic in front. Spinach to the left, Miche on the right. Hungry onlookers out of frame.

I would really like to figure out how to have the bread color and be fully baked at the same time. I've been using a stone and preheating to about 425-450 or so and then turning it down about 15-20 minutes in....which might be my problem. Maybe if I start it slightly lower, or didn't wait so long to drop the temperature...

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