Food

[Henry Krinkle]

Second habanero harvest this week.

[Henry Krinkle]

Oh, and: Hot Sauce #6. This will not be the last one, but it is the one for all the marbles. No vinegar. Fermented. In order of heat, low to high: Costa Rican, shishito, aji, a weird thing I never intended to grow, Hungarian wax, tabasco, cayenne, and habanero plus salt, water, time and a bit of pimiento wood. Nothing else.

[Raza]

I cooked the other night. Made a makeshift cacio e pepe with turkey meatballs I made from scratch. It turned out awesome, but my plating isn’t for shit.

[Henry Krinkle]

I'll have a plate of that.

[skywatch]

I have a few little cooking projects in the works today. First, brining/marinating a fillet of wild Chinook salmon and a whole small duck. (Edit: forgot to mention I plan to smoke them both tomorrow.) Also making some Baltic style sour seed rye, and using up the duck giblets in a sauce with wild lobster mushrooms, chicken stock, Madeira and black truffle salt. The sauce is first because the lobster mushrooms are hogging space in the fridge.

[skywatch]

Here's part two of the day's project: Sourdough seed rye bread. I keep a wild-caught sourdough mother, so this doesn't use extra leavening. No sugar to help the yeast, either. The carbs in the rye flour seem to be enough to feed the wild yeast, it just takes a little longer to rise. I cook it slowly in a meatloaf pan, with foil cover, because I don't want to accentuate the crust too much. The crust can be tooth-breakingly hard if you let it get dry like a good white round for example. The seeds are sprouted pumpkin, sunflower, flax and chia - about 2 cups rye, one cup seed blend, 2 1/2 cups sourdough mother (heavy cream consistency), ~ 1/8 cup extra water as needed, 1.5 tsp salt. Baked 100 minutes at 350ºF (177ºC). One thin slice of this (toasted) in the morning suffices for breakfast.

[Henry Krinkle]

I heartily approve of never using sugar, though occassionally I do throw a bit in for last minute pizza.

[Henry Krinkle]

All hail the mighty lactobacillus!

[skywatch]

I heartily approve of never using sugar, though occassionally I do throw a bit in for last minute pizza.

Totally true. If I am making a white bread pizza crust, it's all about the rise. White flour, oil, sugar (I still use my sourdough starter though, because I love that tang.) Lactobacillus "San Franciscans" is such a beautiful thing to fall from the sky on a foggy night. The mother becomes so feisty, like a white wine soaked in lemon juice, and the bread takes on a wildness I don't taste even in modern San Francisco Sourdough breads (because the factories don't wait long enough for the rise without sugar, and their ovens don't have the moisture to make the crust.) I am not an expert at making the style of SF Sourdough I grew up with (it has gone extinct, almost) but I can make these rustic sour ryes and I live by them!

[Henry Krinkle]

Totally true. If I am making a white bread pizza crust, it's all about the rise. White flour, oil, sugar (I still use my sourdough starter though, because I love that tang.) Lactobacillus "San Franciscans" is such a beautiful thing to fall from the sky on a foggy night. The mother becomes so feisty, like a white wine soaked in lemon juice, and the bread takes on a wildness I don't taste even in modern San Francisco Sourdough breads (because the factories don't wait long enough for the rise without sugar, and their ovens don't have the moisture to make the crust.) I am not an expert at making the style of SF Sourdough I grew up with (it has gone extinct, almost) but I can make these rustic sour ryes and I live by them!

I generally fridge age my pizza dough now. I'll make it three days ahead of time, without sugar. I use warm water and as soon as the yeast starts to bloom I'll cover it up anf throw it in the fridge.The 90-100F water stays warm enough that the yeast will be active for 10 or 12 hours and then the risen dough will get tangy for the two and a half days after that.

I freely admit I haven't used a sourdough starter in at least a year, since our fridge started acted up in fact. I am considering harvesting some yeast off of my grapes and starting a new one, but I am having a lot of fun with the wild variations of loaf one gets across the lifespan of the 14 day fridge dough.