Schlep to Soho (Or Stay Right Here) and Have an Exceptional Loaf of Bread

The lovely wife had to go downtown for a work meeting yesterday. All was not lost, as she stopped at Grandaisy Bakery, which is located at 73 Sullivan Street (212-334-9435). Her purchase: the above photographed Semi di Sesamo. An exceptional loaf of bread, with an incredible crust, a great inside, and pretty tasty sesame seeds, to boot. Of course, I now know that they also have a location here on the Upper West Side as well: at 176 West 72nd Street. That far downtown even I can get to! Hopefully, the rest of their baked goods are as fantastic as that bread was. I will let you know.

Really Pretty Good Banana-Granola Muffins

You can stop smirking. I made this recipe several times, and I have to say, its really good, considering what it is. The impetus behind this was the bake sale sponsored by Boy 1's class at school. After some discussion, I decided it was better to bake ourselves rather than buy baked goods and donate them. However, our kids school is, as they say "nut free," at least as it applies to legumes and tree nuts. I wanted to make something that would last the whole day, and I didn't want to bake a chocolate based item. And thus banana-granola muffins were born. Starting with a recipe from the Joy of Cooking and significantly changing the proportion of ingredients: butter (more is better), amount of bananas (more is better) and sugar (less is better) I came up with an easy, reproducible recipe that you can feed to your health conscious friends to lure them into a false sense of security before whipping out the bacon.

INGREDIENTS

6 bananas
1 cup "breakfast" granola, chopped a bit in a food processor

1 3/4 sticks butter
1 cup and two tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 cups flower (measured a bit heavy)

2 eggs and 2 egg whites (use a third egg if the eggs are on the smaller side)

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Food processor
Muffin pan, lightly greased

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.

Add the butter and sugar to the food processor with metal blade in. Mix together until you form a well mixed paste of these items. Add the dry ingredients to this and mix together. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly. Crush three bananas a bit with your hand and mix those in thoroughly, too. Crush the other three bananas and add these and the granola and just mix to distribute these ingredients in the batter.

Pour the mixture to just below the top of the muffin tins. There will likely be a bit left over, which you can use with a second tin or make a thin "muffin top" in with a pie tin (this cooks in 15 minutes, tops).

Place in the oven. The cooking time is estimated to be about 25 to 30 minutes in my oven. In general they are ready when they look light brown in a uniform manner. Cool a bit before removing them from the tins.

No Loaf Pan White Bread

Summer comes and its time for me to bake. Nothing makes a hot kitchen hotter, but its worth it. Also, the heat helps the bread rise faster, making it quicker to cook. Although in my fantasies I make complicated sour-dough and hearty country loafs with extra large holes, in reality I do a really good job with the more simple breads. One of the easiest to make is plain old white bread. Although I often make it in a loaf pan, you can bake it really quickly if you form the bread into an baguette shape. The following dough recipe will work either way. I use olive oil instead of butter, because its easier. Having said that, either will work.

I should add that am not a purist, and believe in the power of the food processor. Food processors allow for a very quick kneading. Although this is not important if you are great at figuring out the proportions of bread and water to use every time, most of us are not. The brand of flour, humidity, how the flour is stored, and other factors really affects how much flour is really in that "cup" of flour you just added. I find that feeling the dough after kneading is the single best predictor of how the bread will ultimately taste.

This bread can be made in well under 3 hours. It lasts for several days because of the oil and milk.

INGREDIENTS:

All purpose unbleached flour: have five cups ready
Active dry yeast, one packet (you can use "rapid rise" yeast as well)
Two teaspoons salt plus a bit more
1 cup warm (100 degrees or so) water with a little sugar thrown in
extra half cup of water
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons olive oil

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Decent food processor (preferred) or Kitchen Aid (with bread hook)
Jelly roll or cookie sheet

INSTRUCTIONS

Proof the yeast in the cup of warm water and allow to bubble. This is not strictly necessary if you use "rapid rise" yeast but I do it anyway. Add 2 1/2 cups of flour and the salt to the food processor. Add the proofed yeast, oil and milk, another 1/4 cup of water and mix until you get a liquidy dough. Add flour slowly and continue to process until the dough just pulls off the sides of the food processor. Knead for about one minute. Feel the dough with your fingers. It should be tacky to the touch but not overly sticky. It should also be quite soft. Add a bit of flour and redo if it is to sticky and add a bit of water if it is to firm and hard. Remove the dough to a covered, greased bowl and let rise around one hour, until doubled in size.

Place the dough on a floured work surface. Punch down. Roll the dough like a jelly roll to form a long tube about 2.5" in diameter. Cut this tube in half so it will fit in the oven. Be very careful to pinch down the corners as much as possible so your bread doesn't unroll like a jelly roll when it cooks. If you look at the photo, you can make out the seams of this process.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Let the bread rise about 45 more minutes. Place in the oven and cook until light brown (about 30 minutes, although it depends on the diameter of the loaf, so watch the thing!! The bread should make a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom. Let rest for at least 20 minutes prior to cutting.

Green Bagel at H and H

I don't have much to say about it but here it is. The green bagel, from H and H at 80th and Broadway. Somehow green beer seems more inviting. Happy March 18th.

Focaccia: Quick, Easy and Just Plain Good

When a friend our mine gave me a cookbook recently, I made their focaccia recipe, I was mildy pleased by the results. But the bread was to dense, and the recipe called for too much salt. As we all know, yeast growth is inhibited by salt, leading to flat bread. Also, I always think of focaccia as having a dense crust and a soft inside, and this stuff was well, just sort of dense. So I experimented a little, and now have a party tested focaccia (thanks to all for your comments!) that is easy to make and extremely tasty. Although I prefer a simple topping of garlic and oil, I'm sure it would be easy enough to "fancify" with Parmesan, tomato slices, or some other such thing.

The only other thing is to use Quick Rise Yeast, which rises much faster than traditional "active-dry" yeast. I like Red Star Brand the best, although Fleischmann's has much better website for recipes, etc. Although you can hand knead this, I use a food processor and, unless you own a stand-up mixer, you should, too. Suffering only goes so far.

INGREDIENTS

Red star yeast quick rise, one packet
5 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 cups water plus a bit (should be warm, but not real hot)
tablespoon olive oil
tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoons rosemary
2 tablespoons thyme

TOPPING

5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon salt
4 tablespoons olive oil

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Jelly Roll, greased with olive oil
Bowl to hold dough, greased
Saran wrap
Food Processor with bread blade if available (regular blade works fine, too)

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix two cups flour, sugar and two cups water into food processor. Mix until you get a smooth dough. Let sit while you prepare the next step. Add the rest of the flour, thyme and rosemary together. Add the oil to the processor, and mix for a few seconds. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and knead dough in processor. Once you get what should be soft ball that pulls away from the side of the bowl (barely), let it knead for about 90 seconds. Remove dough, and form into ball. Place in bowl and cover with saran wrap. When it doubles (30 minutes or so), punch it down lightly and place in jelly roll. Gently pushing dough with your fingers, spread it evenly over jelly roll. The dough will feel like pizza dough. Then, lightly tap the dough with your fingertips so that you have a "dimpled" look to it. Cover with Saran Wrap until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

While the dough is rising, make the topping by combining the garlic, salt and olive oil. The mix should taste slightly to salty. Adjust as you please. Add more oil if you feel like it.

When the dough has risen, tap in with your fingers once more and place in oven. After about 10 minutes, open the oven and cover the focaccia with the topping. Use a spoon or brush to smooth it out. The whole thing is ready in about 25 to 30 minutes. It will be brown on the outside and have a hollow sound when thumped. Serve quickly.

Sliders at Home

I was so happy after my trip to White Manna last weekend that I decided to turn burger night in our house into slider night. I had watched the slider-meister at work while I was at White Manna and I decided to imitate his work. Its not hard, and the sliders I made have a distinctive slider taste. The only necessary piece of equipment seems to be a griddle, although I did use a food processor to cut the onions into uniformly thin pieces, which helped them cook into sweet little greasy pieces of pure joy. I could not find the small Martin Potato rolls on the Upper West Side on short notice, and used the regular Martin Sandwich rolls, which I cut into quarters.

The next time its burger night in your house, try sliders. They are scarily tasty and in some ways easier to make than regular burgers!

INGREDIENTS

1 pound or more of chopped ground beef (leaner is not necessarily better)
onion, quartered lengthwise and put through a food processor for thin strips of onion
salt
American cheese, cut into slider sized pieces (about a 1/4 of a slice)
Small Martin's potato rolls or regular sized Martin's potato rolls, cut into quarters
dill pickle slices, ketchup, mustard, etc.

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Griddle
Metal Spatula (to help smush meatballs into sliders you need the heft of metal)
Optional but nice: food processor to slice onions

INSTRUCTIONS

Place griddle on low heat. Put ground beef in bowl, and pull out meatball (about 1" in diameter) sized pieces, form into loose balls, and place on griddle. After you have done several of these, smush them down with the spatula. I did not totally squash them, just flattened them to look like little mini-thick burgers. Salt liberally. If these are onion sliders, which the lovely wife and I preferred, place a good amount of onion in and around the burgers. If they are not, don't add onions. The photo shows you how I cooked with onions and without onions together, with no complaints of onion from either Boy #1 or Boy #2 (boy #2 formed many of the sliders himself, although I did the smushing). Turn the onions a bit to avoid burning, but the beef grease prevents this. Flip sliders when the sides are brown. If you are using cheese, the sliders should be cheesed about a minute after flipping. They're done when they are somewhat firm to the finger.

Pre-open the buns so you can easily plop the sliders right on them. The onions go with the meat. Serve immediately with condiments and sliced dill pickles.

Best Baguette in Paris

Sorry not to have posted over the past few days, but there was so much to do in Paris that it was near impossible to take any time to write about any of the numerous food options to be had. One thing I will say, as this is the first time that I have traveled to Paris with Boy 1 and Boy 2, is that the types of places you would have avoided like the plague as a single traveler are rather good. This includes the cafes in the Tuileries, which have good coffee, decent wine, and acceptable food. One piece of advice is to avoid their “special” croque mousier, which was tasty but a bit goopy. The fries at the cafeteria at the Eiffel Tower are acceptable, and the sandwiches ok, except they really do use to much butter. When you are waiting hours to climb to the top of Notre Dame, the takeout sandwich place with the yellow sign across the street from the line has an excellent chicken sandwich. The crepes at the stand near the carousel in the Tulleries are freshly made and rather good after a brisk go-round.

One thing we did do was to go back to our old neighborhood in the 17th arrondissement. There, off the Place de Ternes, we went to a boulangerie/patessiere that had advertised itself as having won “the best baguette in Paris” award for 2006. The store, J.P. Cohier (270 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré), is easily reached after a quick look at the Arc De Triumph. The store is a typical bakery featuring bread, pastries and cold drinks. There are some stools and some outdoor seating. In addition to the baguette, we felt obliged to try some éclairs, a few croissants, some pain chocolate, and a maroon. All the pastries were excellent, and, true to the award, the baguette may have been the best I have ever eaten. A crunchy, yet bitable outside, an velvety, almost egg like inside, and a phenomenal bouquet. I would show you a picture, but the four of us ate the whole thing walking up Rue Wagram, so all you can see is the wrapper. I did find one English Website describing Mr. Cohier and his work. This site has some bread photos. The bread was so good that number one son asked if it could be flown in, and while I doubt it will be done, its certainly worth the brief walk from the Arc de Triumph to eat this amazing piece of bread.