Sourdough Waffle Recipe

*Yields about 6-8 waffles depending on size

• 250g Sourdough Starter (Poolish)
• 200g All Purpose Flour
• 50g Whole Wheat Flour
• 250g Liquid (Buttermilk, Water, Whole Milk, etc)
• 60g Butter, melted
• 15g Kosher Salt
• 2 Eggs
• 7g/1 Tbs Vanilla
• 15g Sugar
• 8g/1 Tbs Baking Soda

1. The night before, mix starter, flour and liquid together with a whisk. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to stand overnight. (Careful, it will almost triple in volume, so make sure whatever bowl or container you use is big enough to accommodate).
2. The next day, mix in melted butter, salt, eggs, vanilla and sugar. Whisk thoroughly to combine.
3. Right before making the waffles, mix in baking soda. The acid in the sourdough batter and the alkaline in the baking soda will create a reaction that will cause the batter to froth and foam. Once foaming begins, it’s time to cook!
4. Ladle batter into a hot waffle iron that has been sprayed with pan release. Cooking times and batter amounts will vary depending on the size and type of waffle iron you use. Here’s the waffle iron that I use and love.

Apple-Pecan Syrup

Here’s a nice little syrup that goes great with the sourdough waffle recipe above. Of course a good Vermont or Canadian Maple syrup will do the trick, but if you’re feeling a little ambitious, the following recipe will help take your breakfast to the next level.

• 57g/2 oz Whole Butter
• 224g/8 oz Pecan Halves
• 2 Apples, Cored and Sliced
• 14g/2 Tbl Sugar
• 60ml/2 oz Brandy or Cognac
• 480ml/2 Cups Maple Syrup
• Dash Cinnamon
• 1 Bunch Chives, Minced
• Salt and Pepper To Taste

1. Melt butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add pecan halves and toast until they start to release their nutty aroma.
3. Add apple slices and sugar, and continue to saute until the apples start to caramelize.
4. Deglaze with brandy or cognac and reduce moisture until the pan is almost dry (add your brandy or cognac off the flame, and always have a lid nearby to cover the pan in case the flame gets out of control).
5. Add maple syrup, bring to a simmer, and season with cinnamon, chives, salt and pepper.
6. Serve over waffles or pancakes while still hot.

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Sourdough Soft Pretzel Recipe

• 400g/14 oz Sourdough Starter (Poolish)
• 365g/12.5 oz  Bread Flour
• 130g/4.5 oz  Beer
• 100g/3.5 oz  Brown Sugar
• 20g/.7 oz  Salt
• Baking Soda and Water For Cooking
• Additional Salt For Sprinkling

1. Combine all ingredients in a stand top mixer and mix on the second speed for about 6 minutes, or until the dough is stretchable and smooth.
2. Place in an oiled bowl and let rise for 2-4 hours at room temperature, until the dough has doubled in volume.
3. After dough has doubled punch down and portion into six, equal sized logs.
4. Roll each piece of dough into a rope, and allow to rest for about 10 minutes.
5. If the ropes are not as long as you would like, repeat step #4.
6. After dough is rolled out into a long rope, allow to relax for an additional 10 minutes. If the dough is not relaxed, it will shrink in on itself when formed.
7. After the resting period, twist ropes into pretzel shape, place on greased sheet pan, and allow to chill in your refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
8. Bring water in a large mouth pot to a simmer. Your water needs to be at least 3-4 inches deep. For every cup of water used, add 14g/2 Tbl of baking soda.
9. Simmer pretzels for about 2 minutes on each side.
10. Remove pretzels from simmering water and place on a greased baking sheet.
11. Sprinkle pretzels with your favorite kosher salt and bake in a 475F/245C oven for 10 minutes or until a beautiful, golden brown.
12. Serve hot with good mustard.

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Discussion Segment

Learn the underlying science and secrets to forming great crust and crumb.

Technique Segment

Learn the step by step process for mixing, forming, proofing and baking sourdough bread. Also, the “No-Knead” method is discussed in detail.

Home Work Assignment

Bake your very own sourdough bread using the recipe below. This recipe will allow you to mix, form and bake your sourdough bread from start to finish in 4 hours.

Culinary Quick Tip

• High Altitude Baking (Baking above 5,000ft)

How did your sourdough bread turn out? Questions or comments about the process? Post them below!

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If you have anymore questions regarding sourdough, please feel free to ask them in the comment section of this post.

For more information on this subject, I recommend The Fresh Loaf.com.

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Busy summer schedule aside, the reason why I’m just now getting around to reviewing Japanese Kitchen Knives – Essential Techniques and Recipes is because only now do I have time to give this book the attention it truly deserves.

In this book, world renowned Chef Hiromitsu Nozaki takes you through the three main knives used in Japanese cuisine; the usuba, the deba, and the yanagiba. Each knife has a section devoted to the proper use of the knife and its corresponding techniques.

Anyone who is a loyal listener of the FCS podcast knows that I’m always preaching technique over recipes and this book is a great illustration of this point. As Chef Nozaki takes you through different knife skills to master, he’ll then show you a simple recipe that will help you put this new found technique to work.

Besides just being a book on Japanese knife skills, it also has fascinating sections on how Japanese knives are made, proper griping and posture techniques, plus care and maintenance, including how to keep your investment sharp and slicing like new.

Even if you’re not into Japanese food and have no desire to go out and buy a Japanese knife, this book is just fun to flip through; the pictures taken by photographer Yasuo Konishi are absolutely beautiful.

So if you’re looking for a fun and informative book to add to your collection, I think you should at the very least check this one out. In an overcrowded marketplace of “Follow My Recipe and It Will Be The Best X You’ve Ever Made,” its nice to see that real chefs like Nozaki are still writing books about what really matters; technique.

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In This Episode

Discussion Segment

• Learn about the four major ingredients of bread making, flour, water, salt and yeast, and the importance of their interaction.
• The difference between Instant Dry Yeast, Active Dry Yeast, Cake Yeast, and which type you should be using.
• The Different Types of Flour Available and which is the best for baking bread.

Technique Segment

• Learn about the “baker’s percentage” and its importance.
• The different types of Sourdough Starters and Pre-Ferments used, how best to use them, and which is the right one for you.
• How to make and maintain your very own sourdough starter.

Do you use Sourdough Starters or Pre-Ferments when baking bread? Which do you prefer, and what are some of the problems you’ve encountered along the way?

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But fear not; this article will jump start your understanding of not only the underlying chemistry of sourdough starters, but also how to make and maintain your very own.

What Is A Sourdough Starter?

A sourdough starter is nothing more than a mixture of water and flour that contains natural occurring yeast. Back before the advent of Active Dry Yeast and Instant Dry Yeast, this is how bakers, even at home, made their fresh breads, often daily.

Bread baking as a whole has really lost popularity, with people being resigned to purchasing mediocre bread at their local supermarket if they’re not lucky enough to have a neighborhood bake shop. And even then, the mark-up is incredible.

Just to put the price into perspective, I purchased a 50# bag of bread flour at Costco the other day for a total of $12.95. If you buy four or five loaves of artisan sourdough from your local baker, chances are that you’ve already paid for that 50# sack.

What Gives Sourdough Its Unique Flavor?

The unique sour flavor comes from the bacteria that love to live in sourdough starters. Much like yeast, these bacteria will consume the sugars present in the flour, and in turn give off carbon dioxide (which helps your bread to rise), as well as acid.

The two most common acids that are produced by these bacteria are lactic acid and acetic acid (the same form of acid found in vinegar). It is the acetic acid that gives sourdough its signature sour flavor, and the lactic acid helps balance the acetic’s harsh bite. Without the lactic acid being present, the acetic acid will take over the flavor of the sourdough.

But if the thought of having bacteria living in your sourdough starter scares you, don’t fret. These bacteria are harmless and very territorial; the acidic environment they create is uninhabitable for most other forms of bacteria. Not to mention that the finished internal temperature for most bread is around 195 F, plenty hot to kill any harmful bacteria that may be present.

What Are The Different Types Of Sourdough Starters?

There are three main types of sourdough starter which I’ve listed below. They all work fine, and which one you use will depend more on your own personal preference and how often you want to use your sourdough starter for bread making.

Biga

A biga is basically a stiff sourdough starter with a 50-60% water content by weight. This is favored by bakers who don’t bake more then once or twice a week, because it takes longer for the Biga to reach its peak fermentation stage, especially when retarded in the refrigerator. Although you can start a Biga with natural yeast from the skins of fruit or from rye flour, because of its stiff quality, it is much more difficult to get this form of sourdough starter going.

If you still want to work with a Biga starter, I would recommend starting a Poolish, (see below), and then once it is active, add more flour to reduce the water content to the appropriate 50-60%.

Poolish

A Poolish starter is similar to the Biga except that it has a higher water content; in fact, its a straight 1:1 ratio by weight. So for every 100 grams of flour, you will also add 100 grams of water.

The easiest way to inoculate this form of starter with yeast is the addition of fruit peels (apples, grapes, pear, etc).

Scrap Dough

A Scrap Dough Starter is just how it sounds; after a bread dough is kneaded and before it is left to proof, a small piece of dough is cut off and reserved for the next batch of bread. This is an old school technique favored by cooks who use to bake fresh bread every day, before the advent of supermarkets.

How Do I Make My Own Sourdough Starter?

If you’re interested in making your very own sourdough starter, just follow this simple recipe below. This recipe will be enough to make about four medium sized sourdough loaves with some starter left over.

You will need:

• 800g bread flour
• 800g warm water
• The peels of two apples
• A 2ft section of cheese cloth

1. Mix bread flour and warm water together thoroughly with either a wooden spoon or the dough hook attachment of your KitchenAid, (always mix on the second speed).
2. Once the flour and water are evenly combined, resembling an extremely loose dough, place in a container large enough to allow the starter to at least double in size.
3. Place the apple peels in a cheesecloth pouch and shove down in the center of the sourdough starter. The peels can be added directly to the starter without the cheesecloth, but you will eventually have to separate the peels from the starter, which can be a pain.
4. Cover the container with a clean towel and place it in a warm but not hot place in your kitchen. You should start to see some initial activity in about 3-5 days.
5. Once your starter is bubbling and has doubled in size, remove half from the container (about 800g) and replace with 400g water and 400g bread flour.
6. Let sit out at room temperature overnight.
7. If in the next day it has doubled in size and seems very active, then repeat step #5. After feeding, you can now cover your starter with a lid and place in your refrigerator for storage.

Feeding Schedule

If you store your Poolish Sourdough Starter in the fridge once it’s active, you will need to feed it about every 3-7 days by removing half of the starter and replacing it with a equal parts water and flour.

If you starter seems to become “inactive” you can usually revive it by the same process as above, and letting it sit out at room temperature overnight.

OK, So I’ve Made A Starter, Now What?

Stay tuned for our the next podcast episode and blog post where we’ll have an in depth discussion on how to take your active sourdough starter and use it to bake your very own artisan sourdough loaf.

For more information about sourdough starters and pre-ferments, listen to FCS Eisode 18| Sourdough Starters and Pre-Ferments.

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Active Dry Yeast

Active dry yeast is cultivated in large tanks. When it’s harvested, yeast is dried in the form of compact granules and then covered with a protective coating of yeast “debris.” The yeast can be stored at room temperature for months, although its strongly recommended that you store it in your fridge. If you have more than three months worth of yeast, you can store it in the freezer.

Active dry yeast is reactivated by soaking in warm water (about 105-110 F). Hydrating the yeast at a lower temperature leads to inconsistent results and can also inhibit the proper gluten formation.

Instant Dry Yeast

Instant dry yeast was an innovation of the 1970s. The yeast is dried much faster then active dry yeast, and on a microscopic level they resemble porous rods that rehydrate much more efficiently then the dense granules of active dry yeast. Because of this innovation, instant dry yeast does not need to be re-hydrated before being mixed into bread doughs.

Cake Yeast

Cake yeast comes in a compressed cake form (hence the name) and is mostly used by professional bakers or extremely ambitious home cooks. Its a little inconvenient for the average home cook because its somewhat hard to find and is perishable, with a shelf life of 1-2 weeks.

The yeast cake itself actually contains live yeast cultures, which is why its important to keep it chilled, and is a much more powerful leavening agent then the other previous forms of yeasts discussed above. For this reason, you will have to reduce the amount of cake yeast used in a recipe that calls for instant dry yeast or active dry yeast.

For more information on yeast and other bread baking ingredients, listen to The Free Culinary School Podcast Episode 18| Sourdough Starters and Pre-Ferments.

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Here’s a video I did to promote our new Summer Menu at the restaurant. The Fredrick’s website is still somewhat under construction, but stay tuned for more info. I also plan on releasing these videos in a separate stream in iTunes.

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Here’s the basic concept. Plant some tomatoes, lettuce, and even buy yourself a chicken so you can use it’s eggs to make the mayonnaise. Take a photo and submit it to Ruhlman’s Blog.

This challenge, although lots of fun, is important on a much grander level. What could be more simple than a BLT? But looking at it from the standpoint of growing everything from scratch, curing your own pork belly into bacon, and baking your own bread will cause one to pause and ponder: how much work really goes into the simple foods we consume on a daily basis?

Its amazing how things come full circle. Just a century ago people ate locally and sustainably because they had no choice; it wasn’t a political cause, and Chef’s didn’t become famous for serving local produce. If it hit the dinner table, chances are the food was grown and raised near by because there was no choice in the matter.

And while Chefs in developed nations now toot the horn of “local organic,” people in undeveloped nations are sure to ask “so what’s the big the deal?” Like us 100 years ago, they’re forced to cook and consume local produce and meat because they have no other choice. And then we wonder why ethnic cuisines, as simple as they may be, are so damn tasty.

So take a moment today to ponder on what exactly goes into the simple food you eat on a daily basis. The peperoni pizza that you had the other night; where’d the cheese come from, the tomatoes for the sauce, and the flour for the crust?

Now I must admit that I don’t use this platform for what has become a political cause for local, sustainable agriculture, but as a chef, when at all possible, I source products as locally as possible.

Is it so I can sleep better at night? Not really, my fitfull dreams of Mr. Murphey running a muck in my kitchen insures that sleep doesn’t come easily. I try my best to source locally because it simply tastes better.

The fact is, you’ve never tasted a better tomato then the one from your back yard. Sure the hard work has something to do with it, but truly vine ripe tomatoes are something of an enigma now days since most are picked and shipped green, gassed with ethylene to force ripening, and pawned off as a ripe tomato.

Now I know that we have quite a few ambitious cooks who are a part of the FCS community, so I say to you: pick up the gauntlet that Ruhlman has thrown down and run with it. Make us proud. Start a thread about it on the forum, and I’ll help anyway that I can, whether it be directions on how to cure pork belly, or a great bread recipe for your roll.

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Canapes are those nice little one bite hors d’oeuvre that you’ll find at cocktail parties and wine tastings.

Books Referenced

• Hors d’Oeuvres At Home With The Culinary Institute Of America

Listen to this episode by clicking the “Play Now” link below. Also available on iTunes.

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So, I went to my local kitchen store, and did something totally out of character. I betrayed a brand that I already knew and trusted.

I was seduced by this sleek looking Oxo scale. It had all sorts of pretty digital read outs like capacity limit, battery strength, and even had an “Extenda-Display” that you could pull out to make weighing large bowls more convenient. It was so nifty, I was totally smitten.

Shame on me.

The problem with the Oxo is it won’t stabilize to save its life. Right out of the box, it would fluctuate between 1 and 0 grams.

When weighing out a bread recipe, with about 3,500 grams worth of ingredients in the bowl (a little more then half the capacity), the readout would not stabilize, and fluctuated within a 30 gram range!

Take into consideration that this same bread recipe calls for 40 grams of salt and you see my problem. Did I add 10 grams or 40 grams? Big difference.

Now I’m willing to give this scale the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was a dud. But quite frankly, I don’t have time for duds, and with recipes that call for 2 grams of an ingredient, I need a stable scale.

I miss my Escali. ;-(

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Quick note: The chicken shown in this video was simply seasoned with salt and fresh cracked black pepper and roasted in a 375 degree F oven for an hour and ten minutes. The oven is then turned off and and the chicken is allowed to rest inside for about 15-30 minutes (perfect amount of time for putting together the asparagus recipe shown in this video).

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Videos Mentioned In This Podcast

• Composed Salad Video – Butter Lettuce
• Plating Video Part One
• Plating Video Part Two

Books Referenced

• The Flavor Bible
• Garde Manger: The Art and Craft of the Cold Kitchen (CIA)

Supporting Articles

• Flavor and Texture Pairing for Composed Salads
• Roasted Beet Napoleon

Discuss On The Forum

• FCS Episode 16 Discussion Thread
• FCS Episode 16 Homework Assignment

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Sour & Tart/Sweet

• Sour & Tart: Dried cherries, vinaigrettes, citrus (lemon, lime, grapefruit, yuzu).
• Sweet: Honey, sugar, berries, ripe fruit, caramelized onions.

Warm/Cold

• Warm: Roasted or grilled meats, grilled vegetables, poached or grilled shellfish, grilled lettuces such as Romain.
• Cold: Cucumbers, melon, frozen grapes.

Tender/Crisp

• Tender: Poached fish, red leaf lettuce, braised meats.
• Crisp: Bread sticks, croutons, fried wontons, fried rice noodles.

Rich & Fatty/Lean

• Rich & Fatty: Duck confit, bacon lardons, creamy dressings.
• Lean: Ice berg lettuce, bean sprouts, acidic ingredients (vinegar, citrus)

Spicy/Cooling

• Spicy: Strong mustard, black pepper, chilies such as Jalapeno, Habanero, Thai Chili, etc.
• Cooling: Melons, cucumbers, lettuces with high water content (Ice Berg), granite (flavored shaved ice).

For more information, listen to The Free Culinary School Podcast Episode 16| Composed Salads.

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Here’s a quick video that I did to illustrate the concept of a composed salad. It’s meant as an add on to FCS Episode 16| Composed Salads.

PS: Don’t adjust you computer screens…the video seems to drop off at the end, but trust me, its the full video. I started to stutter and stammer like an idiot at the end, so I just edited that part out. It was a busy day for me at work, so I didn’t have time to re-shoot the video. As long as you get the basic concept of plating a composed salad, then all is well.

Feel free to ask any questions or poke fun at me by clicking on the comment button below.

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Free Culinary School Podcast Episode 1| Basic Knife Skills

In this class you will learn:

• What kind of knives you really need in your kitchen
• How to pick out the right kind of knives for you
• Basic knife skills such as how to dice, julienne, brunoise and batonnet.

Related Articles

• How to hold your knife like a professional chef
• How to use your guide hand(...)
  Read the rest of Basic Cooking Course Class Syllabus (414 words)

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  ]]> http://freeculinaryschool.com/basic-cooking-course-class-syllabus/feed/ 3 http://freeculinaryschool.com/plating-sauces-and-garnishes-part-2/ http://freeculinaryschool.com/plating-sauces-and-garnishes-part-2/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:00:17 +0000 Jacob Burton http://freeculinaryschool.com/?p=631 Here is part 2 of the Plating Sauces and Garnishes Video. If you missed part one, you can find it here. As I promised viewer SpinBlue, at the bottom of this video is a list of the garnishes used.

  
  List of Garnishes Used:

  • Truffled Tomato Confit
  • Red Beat Emulsion
  • Sriracha Sauce
  • Shiso Pesto
  • Gold Beat Vierge
  • Pickled Ginger Cream
  • Basil-Pine Nut Pesto
  • Hawaiian Black Lava Salt
  • Himalayan Pink Sea Salt
  • Togarashi
  • Sumac
  • Pickled Red Onions
  Share and Enjoy:
  
  

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