I woke up to the wonderful sounds of rainfall in the city. For anyone that has been following the situation here in California, you know there is an historic drought plaguing the state. Rain is not only needed, but welcome at this point. It is also a pleasant change from the blistering heat we were experiencing just a couple of weeks ago. Autumn has truly come to Los Angeles (at least for today).
One of my favorite things about the changing seasons, is the change in the culinary landscape. Though California is blessed with an extended growing season due to our mild winters and agriculture friendly climate, the coming of cooler weather, allows for more hearty dishes, and foods that would generally be less comfortable to cook and eat during the dog days of summer.
Living in Downtown LA gives me access to some amazing artisan bakeries and specialty shops, but sometimes, its just more fun to exercise your DIY muscle, and on a wonderful rainy weekend, making baguettes just seemed like fun.
I love a freshly baked loaf, and have been devouring about a baguette a week from Clark Street Bread, thanks to my buddies at Vagabond Cheese. Clark Street supplies the bread for some of Los Angeles' most popular restaurants, and though it took a while for me to warm up to it, I am now a fan. But tonight, I wanted to try my hand at a "pre-ferment" technique called "poolish". It is done using minimal amounts of yeast, with equal amounts by weight of water and flour, and allowing the yeast to ferment for 12-14 hours. This increases the flavor complexity of the dough, as well as its extensibility, or ability to to be stretched.
So I brought out my stand mixer, with the dough hooks (I never get to use the dough hooks) and thus began my quest to make artisanal quality bread at home. Not having very exciting flour, nor very fancy yeast was not going to be a deterrent, as I like using what I have on hand at any given time to make meals. And, after having let my poolish ferment for 14 hours, I started my dough. The recipe was pretty straight forward, flour, water, yeast, and salt, but I was using yeast that I was unsure about, so I wanted to give it a little boost. I did so by adding about a half tablespoon of honey to the mixer with my poolish and water. It was kneaded, then left to proof for about 2 hours. Then punched, formed, and left to rise for one final hour as I was trying to give the yeast every opportunity I could to influence the flavor of the finished bread. During the last hour, I preheated the oven to 450 F, moved my bread stone to the center rack, then put a cast iron pan on the lower rack with water in it, to create steam. After an hour had passed, I transferred the bread from its perch atop the parchment on my counter top, to the oven, admittedly with some difficulty, hence the unique shape of the final loaves (all I'm going to say is paper+hot oven=fire).
To accompany my bread, I fired up the cast iron dutch oven, sautéed some carrots, leeks, and garlic, with a mix of fresh and dried herbs and spices to create the base for my soup. To that, I added some chicken breast pieces, rice, "better than bullion" chicken stock, and water. For additional color I added some turmeric, and brought everything to a boil.
I've got to say, for my first time trying a pre-fermentation technique using a poolish, I am extremely impressed. Though Bread Lounge, and Clark Street won't be losing any sleep over my bread creations stealing their shine, I have proven, at least to myself, that with a little time, information, and creativity, the home chef can achieve artisanal flavor with readily accessible ingredients.
Chicken and Rice Soup with Vegetables and Poolish Baguettes finshed just before midnight.
the Midnight Chef
No comments:
Post a Comment