Portuguese Beer Bread

by Gabi // 2014/10/08

This Portuguese Beer Bread has a nice, full and slightly ~~bitter~~ malty taste from the Porter and molasses. It is a great foil for clam chowder or other creamy soups or just slathered (don’t you love that word?) with a bit of sweet fresh butter.

Makes 2 medium sized loaves.

Portuguese Beer Bread

2 cups of lukewarm Porter or other dark beer that you like

1/2 ounce or two packages active dry yeast

2 Tablespoons organic molasses or Steen’s dark ribbon cane syrup if you can find it

1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour- I use King Arthur Organic

2 teaspoons salt

4 Tablespoons olive oil, plus more for bowl

4 cups AP flour, plus more for kneading board

Warm the beer to lukewarm (feels neither cold nor hot to your finger- just slightly warm) and add the molasses or cane syrup and half the yeast. Let stand until foamy (about 5 minutes) and then sprinkle remainder of the yeast over. You should see a big bloom of yeast happen at that point.

Place into the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or if you don’t have a mixer you can beat with a wooden spoon) and add the whole wheat flour and the olive oil. Mix thoroughly and then add the salt in and the AP flour by cupsful just until a stiff dough forms. It should be elastic which means it should pull back into place when you stretch it. Don’t expect to be able to do a “window pane” test as there is too high a percentage of whole wheat to white in this recipe. It will be slightly shaggy like this:

Remove the dough to a kneading surface sprinkled with another 1/2 cup of flour. Knead well for around five minutes until it becomes smooth and satiny more like this:

Clean the mixing bowl just so there are no dry bits of dough remaining and coat lightly with more olive oil. Place the dough ball into the bowl and turn it around in there to coat the dough with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put a clean dish towel over it and leave it to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. Punch it down and let rise again, covered the same way.

When doubled again, remove it to a slightly floured surface and divide the dough into 6 pieces without deflating it entirely. In other words be somewhat gentle. Roll each piece of the dough gently into a long rope of about 15 inches. Braid three together and then coil the braid into a round, turning under and pinching the ends together. Repeat with the other three. This will make two loaves.

Place them on a large baking sheet (or two if you don’t have a full sized sheet) and cover loosely with plastic wrap then top with the dish towel. Let rise until doubled again, about an half hour to an hour. Preheat your oven during this time so it is fully hot to 475F. Place an empty shallow metal baking pan on the bottom of your oven to preheat with the oven. Place some water into a spray bottle or a small bowl with a pastry brush. Remove the plastic wrap and mist the loaves right before you place the sheets with them into the oven. Throw 4-5 ice cubes into the preheated empty baking pan to create steam and close the oven door quickly. Mist the loaves again after 5 minutes and again at 10 and again at 15 minutes. Then leave to bake for another 20 minutes or until baked through and hollow sounding when thumped on the bottom. They will be a lovely deep golden brown. Let cool on a baking rack but this bread tastes great warm or toasted.

This is a view of the crumb of an end piece.

Enjoy warm with some lovely homemade clam chowder or toast to make a yummy chicken salad sandwich with these.

Enjoy!

Robert May’s French Bread with the Bread Baking Babes

by Gabi // 2014/09/22

This month I am once again baking along with the Bread Baking Babes and Friends, that lovely group of intrepid bakers who choose a bread to bake together each month. I joined their page on Facebook many months ago but so much time goes along and often I miss out on baking the recipe before the due date.

This month I wanted to join in as Ilva of Lucullian Delights has chosen a recipe adapted from Elizabeth David’s “English Bread and Yeast Cookery”, 1977. Ms. David is one of my favorite food writers of all time and I have been a fan of Ilva, too for many years. Within Elizabeth David’s book is a recipe for Robert May’s French Bread from his book The Accomplisht Cook; Or, The Art and Mystery of Cooking from 1660.
Ilva also challenged the group to decorate the loaves as the recipe is quite simple and easy. The ones I have seen are gorgeous! Check out the BBB members here:

Bake My Day Karen
Bread Baking Babes Katie
blog from OUR kitchen Elizabeth
Feeding my enthusiasms Elle
girlichef Heather
Life’s A Feast Jamie
Living in the Kitchen with Puppies Natashya
My Kitchen In Half Cups Tanna
Notitie Van Lien Lien
My Diverse Kitchen Aparna
Bread Experience Cathy

Here is the recipe as given by Ilva my notes are in pink:

ROBERT MAY’S FRENCH BREAD
from Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery, 1977. (I have adapted her recipe a little, not the ingredient list but the directions.)

500 g/ 1 lb 2 oz preferably a half-and-half mixture of unbleached white and wheat-meal (King Arthur organic whole wheat)
15 g/ 0.5 oz of yeast (fresh) (active dry yeast for me- 15g equals about 2 packets)
2 egg whites
280-340 g/ 0.5 pint to 12 oz water and milk, preferably 3/4 water and 1/4 milk (warm to lukewarm in a saucepan)
15 g/ 0.5 oz salt (I always use less salt than suggested in bread recipes and did so this time as well, I know that Elizabeth used 10 g and I suggest you do that too) (I used 10g too)

Warm flour and salt in a very tepid oven. (You can skip this but I did it)

Pour in the yeast creamed in a little of the warmed milk and water mixture. Add the egg whites, beaten in a small bowl until they are just beginning to froth. Pour in the remaining milk (but not all at once like I did, I had to add more flour to get the right consistency). Mix as for ordinary bread dough.

Leave to rise until spongy and light. This will take 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on the temperature of the ingredients when the dough as mixed.

Break down the dough, divide it into two round loaves-or long rolls if you prefer. (I made one roundÂ loaf). I covered it with a round bowl but Elizabeth David recommends covering the bread with plastic or a light cloth and leave it to recover volume. About 30 minutes should be enough. If you plan to decorate the bread like I did, don’t forget to put aside a part of the dough.

Decorate crust with cuts or with dough decorations. Bake in a pre-heated oven (230°C/450°F) for the first 15 minutes. Then to prevent the crust to get too hard, cover the loaves with bowls or an oval casserole. In another 15 minutes the loaves should be ready.

I followed all of Ilva’s suggestions and my loaf turned out deliciously. I baked it on my baking stone and covered it as suggested with a stainless steel bowl. I chose to decorate with fleur de lys and a wee bee. It made me think of a French garden.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to Ilva for a lovely challenge and to the Babes and Buddies for letting me jump in here and there with a bake-along. 🙂

Pork Chile Verde and Smothered Enchiladas

by Gabi // 2014/09/09

Â One of the best things about learning to cook is having the freedom and the ability to make what you want to eat taste the way you most enjoy it, and also to be able to make it with the ingredients you decide to use. I believe that your food should be about making what you enjoy- without rules imposed by others. Skills that get you there?, well yes, those are things that you should learn and eventually master so that you can get the result you want from your cooking. Recipes should be a launching point to give you a structure to improve and make each dish your own. This is my Pork Chile Verde recipe. It may not be how others make it and it may not even be traditional but it’s what I like, the way I like it- that’s all that matters to me- not making it “perfect”. You can eat it in a bowl with cornbread or tortillas or you can use it in and or on top of enchiladas, burritos, tostadas and chimichangas. Really- it’s good in any form. You choose. Here’s the recipe:

Pork Chile Verde – my way

4 pounds of boneless pork shoulder (Boston Butt) trimmed of most of the fat and all of the connective tissue you can see

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2-4 Tablespoons cooking oil, I use sunflower seed oil

4 links breakfast sausage

2 medium yellow onions, peeled and diced

4-5 smallish garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1-3/4 cups fresh roasted Hatch green chile paste (recipe below)

1 large can whole tomatillos (or about 3 cups fresh tomatillos)

2 cups chicken stock, organic if possible

1 large can green enchilada sauce

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon good chile powder ( I use Rick’s homemade)

1/4 teaspoon Mexican oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Hatch Green Chile Paste

2 cups fire roasted, skinned and seeded green Hatch chiles

2 Tablespoons white vinegar

2 teaspoons salt

Roast the chiles, skin and seed them, then measure 2 cups in the bowl of a blender. Add the vinegar and salt and blend until smooth. Store in the fridge until use.

To make the Pork Chile Verde:

Trim the pork and cut into bite sized pieces. Pat dry as you can on a bed of paper towels. Mix the AP flour, 1/4 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a medium bowl. Add the pork pieces and toss with your hands to coat. Shake off excess flour. The pork should be lightly coated. Heat the cooking oil in a heavy bottomed large Dutch oven or stock pot. Add the pork in small batches, taking care to not overcrowd the pan. If you do the meat will steam instead of brown. Remove to a plate and keep warm in the oven while you cook all of the pork. Then cook the links of sausage in the same pan, breaking them into crumbles as you go, and remove the sausage to a paper towel lined plate to drain off the grease. They will be adding a toothsome richness of little bites of meat to the sauce. There will be lots of brown bits “fond” in bottom of the pan when you are finished. Add the onion and cook until it turns translucent, scraping up the fond as you go. This adds a depth of flavor to the dish. When the onions are soft, add the minced garlic and cook it together for a few minutes. Add the Hatch chile paste and stir it all up. Cook for about 5 minutes more. Drain the can of tomatillos. Place them in the blender with 2 cups of chicken stock and whiz up. For fresh: remove them from their papery husks and give them a rinse. They have a soapy, greasy feel and you want that removed. Cook them in the chicken stock until they are softened. Blend them and proceed with the recipe. Add the blended tomatillos and chicken stock to the pot. Add the green enchilada sauce too, and the cumin, chile powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. Stir it all up and cook until hot. Add the sausage and stir in. Finally add the pork pieces with any accumulated juices on the plate to the pot. Heat it all through. At this point you can let it simmer away for another couple of hours on the stove on low, stirring fairly often, or you can put it in a crockpot and leave it covered and mostly unattended for the same amount of time. I always start my crockpot on high to get everything bubbling away and then turn to low until ready.

Cheese Enchiladas Smothered with Pork Chile Verde

Flour tortillas (I use whole wheat)

1 medium onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

oil

Shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese or whatever you want

Pork Chile Verde

Sauté the onion and garlic in oil until softened. Mix the cheeses. Roll the onion mixture and the cheese into a tortilla, line in a baking dish, cover with chile verde and top with more cheese. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes until heated through and bubbling. Enjoy!

« Older posts

Newer posts »

The Feast Within

Recipes for Loving Life in our Kitchen, Home, and Garden

Portuguese Beer Bread

Robert May’s French Bread with the Bread Baking Babes

Pork Chile Verde and Smothered Enchiladas