The Challah Chronicles

Marcia August 19, 2011 Baking, Cooking, Recipes, Technique 0
Braided challah

The first braided challah I've ever baked, to the best of my knowledge.

Earlier this year, my sister-in-law requested a challah for her birthday, which is in late August. I have no backstory for his, she simply asked, sorta out-of-the-blue, that I bake her a challah.

As August peered over the horizon, in mid-July, I thought I’d better test a few challah recipes, as I am not a seasoned challah baker (or braider, as I would soon discover) and I would need some practice, if nothing else. (As opposed to a baker of seasoned challahs.)

I started with one recipe I received at the bread class of Techniques of Baking series at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. I should have opted to try it in class, but it called for mashed potatoes and I didn’t feel like boiling any that morning. So I finally volunteered to make jalapeno cheese (?) biscuits, depriving myself of learning how to knead dough under the guidance of a professional baker’s watchful eye. I soon found out that school staff had already boiled the potatoes for us. Oh well. I envied the two challah bakers as they kneaded their beautiful, silky, buttery dough. I tasted the fresh-from-the-oven challahs at the end of class, then a little more when I got home (having hoarded ample samples of the breads and rolls baked by the class that day). Neither time was I fully impressed. The next day, however, I found that the taste and texture of the challah had improved and I decided I should try it sometime.

July 17 was that time. Here’s the list of ingredients:

<blockquote>

CHALLAH, a la Cambridge School of Culinary Arts Basic Baking series

  • 2 scant TBLS dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup lukewarm water
  • 3 TBLS sugar
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 2 tsp. salt
  • 6 TBLS honey
  • 1 C hot potato water
  • 2 small potatoes mashed (about 1 cup)
  • 6-7 cups flour
  • Dorure – 1 egg yolk and 3 TBLS milk
  • Poppy seeds, or sesame seeds

</blockquote>

This recipe made one enormous loaf — half of which was still quite large. I wondered if the added steps of cutting, cooking, mashing, cooling, and adding potatoes was really worth it, but it’s hard for me to say what makes or breaks this recipe.

It had a nice flavor, lightly sweet, with a hint of chewiness here and there. Flavor and texture came together better the next day, as it did with the loaves made in class. But reviews from others were lukewarm, as they seemed to be expecting a buttery, more decadent loaf, even though traditional challas are not buttery nor are they necessarily decadent, which is not to say that they aren’t often delicious and a pleasure to eat. Maybe in some people’s minds “challah” means “sweet egg bread” like Portuguese sweet bread, babka, or brioche. More on that later.

In case you were wondering, this loaf also made great french toast, especially considering it was a Weight Watchers recipe I used it in.

M. F. K. Fisher’s Chopped Liver

Marcia August 14, 2011 Cookbooks, Cooking, Recipes 0
Cooking chicken liver

Cooking the chicken livers and onion in schmaltz.

Well, “Doro’s Chicken Liver Spread” to be specific. Though I instantly assumed the recipe title was chopped liver. Go figure. I’ve since learned that chopped liver can be chicken, beef, or other livers; for some reason I’ve always assumed it was chicken liver.

I’ve never made liver before — chopped or otherwise. I might have had it freshly prepared long ago, but most chopped liver I can remember consuming was commercially prepared and packaged in tubs. I haven’t seen those tubs for a long time, until just today when I saw a one-pint container in the Kosher frozen food section at the Lexington Stop & Shop.

Maybe I decided to try this recipe because I had Rosh Hashana on my mind. And maybe I had Rosh Hashana on my mind only because my sister-in-law had asked me months ago to bake her a challah for her birthday, which is this month, and now I’m wondering if I want to bake a challah for the holiday. (I will detail my challah adventures in another post later this month if I live to tell.)

. . . But for one of the nicest celebrations I ever went to, small and quiet and vitally important (it was the marriage of my younger daughter), we at perhaps the simplest pate ever cookedover several thousand year by a wandering people. It was exactly right: light and fresh. It was made with loving care by an Orthodox Jewish godmother and eaten by an ecumenical crew of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Orthodox Greeks, Catholics, atheists, and backsliders, with equal pleasure. Here is the recipe for it, and may it be savored in good health!

Doro’s Chicken Liver Spread

1 large white onion, finely diced

4 tablespoons chicken or goose fat

1 pound fresh chicken livers

4 hard-boiled eggs

Pinch of nutmeg

1/4 cup brandy or rye whiskey (“Not too much!”)

Sauté onion in fat until transparent. Add livers, salt, and pepper, and simmer until cooked through. Place in refrigerator overnight, and do same with cooked eggs. The next day chop the eggs finely, add to the livers and onion, and chop all again. Mix lightly, adjust the seasoning, and add a little nutmeg and the liquor. Blend well, but “Do not make it too firm or too loose,” and chill before serving.

-M.F.K. Fisher, With Bold Knife and Fork, Counterpoint, Washington, DC, 1969

Since cooking with liver is new to me, I didn’t even know how easy or difficult it may be for me to find the chicken livers. Lo and behold, I did find some at my local Shaw’s, though I had to look through most of the half dozen or so pint containers before finding one that wasn’t on or past the sell-by date. I now believe this was a lucky find because I haven’t found chicken livers in any likely outlets — including dedicated meat markets — since this initial discovery. *sigh* Hopefully if I want to re-make this for the holidays the more supermarkets will stock more liver. We shall see.

So, with the liver-proper hurdle behind me, I was on to wondering about the chicken fat, which was ironically elusive since, after all, it can be easily carved off a raw chicken. Gary volunteered to buy a small whole chicken and offer up its trimmed fat since, he said, he’d been meaning for some time to try a slow-cooker whole-chicken recipe anyway.

OK, so I’ve got a few hunks of chicken fat. What do I do with them. Enter Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet On Our Immigrant Ancestors (1990, William and Morrow Company Inc, New York). In his recipe for Knishes, he includes a tip on how to render chicken fat, that is, make schmaltz. His instructions (page 253):

Simply combine chopped fresh chicken fat and skin with a little water in a small frying pan over medium-low heat unti the fat is liquid and the solids have shrunk to very small, crunchy bits. This should take about 20 minutes. Strain the bits from the fat and use for other recipes. Watch carefully while rendering so the bits don’t burn. Refrigerate the fat.

OK. Chicken Livers. Chicken Fat. Good to go.

But for how long do I cook the chicken livers? How do I tell when they are done? Temperature? Appearance? Touch? Feel? Smell? Ms. Fisher’s recipe does not say. Conveniently enough, that same Frugal Gourmet book had a recipe for chopped liver (page 254), which says to cook the livers “until they are no longer pink inside, about 5 minutes.” Well, after five minutes my livers were still quite pink, and I admit I was getting a little queasy from cutting open the livers and peeking inside to see still-raw . . . interior? After 20 minutes gray started to become the main interior color, but I was still unsure whether or not to remove them from the heat, even though a quick taste revealed that everything seemed OK. As I casually started to remove liver chunks from pan to nearby bowl, I noticed that the bowled chunks were almost all gray, even though they were still pinkish when removed from the pan. I started to wonder if the stovetop light was affecting the color of the liver in the pan. Assuming that was an issue, I decided to quickly remove all the remaining liver before it got overcooked.

Then I hard-boiled the eggs, put them in the fridge along with the cooled liver and onions, and called it a day . . .

Next day, I peeled and chopped the eggs with some help from a not-so-helpful egg slicer. Then I chopped the eggs a bit more. I don’t quite get Fisher’s instructions to add eggs to liver and chop again, but I did just that and quickly tired of chopping the liver by hand. Not sure if the recipe says chop by hand because a very rustic spread is desired, or if they didn’t have food processors in 1969, or whenever the recipe was originally recorded as such. (The wikipedia entry on food processors says domestic food processors appeared in 1972.) But they did have grinders, right? I guess it would have been called “ground liver” if it was to be ground. Anywho, part of the reason the chopping got so tiring was that the chopping board I was using (Arcitech gripper thingie) was warped so, despite it’s grippy underbelly, it was moving willy-nilly around the countertop and I was too annoyed by it all to transfer my work to a straighter board that required a swatch of non-skid material underneath to keep it anchored. But I digress . . .

So far flavors and textures were coming together nicely. And tasted like the chopped livers I remember. I didn’t detect the nutmeg in the spread after I added it. Before adding the brandy, I hesitated. It tasted just fine at that point, would I ruin it all if I added brandy? I opted to add half — just 2 tablespoons — first. That amount alone I found a tad overwhelming to the taste buds (tasted more brandy than liver and onion), so I left it at that. Admittedly, the longer the spread sat (a few hours to a day, say), the flavors came together better and I could no longer detect the brandy, at least as a strong presence.

Overall a good recipe and chopped-liver experience. I didn’t expect Gary to like it much, but before I knew it he was packing some up to take to work the next day. I did the same, with some Ak-Mak crackers to go with.

My Braise Was A Bust

Marcia January 23, 2011 Banter, Cookbooks, Cooking, Learning to cook, Recipes 0

These lamb shanks look delicious! Unfortunately, they are not my shanks . . . (photo by Jennifer via Wikimedia Commons)

So, the stressful, senseless holiday season had finally given way to calm, cool, January. OK, maybe calm, cool, overabundant in its snow production January — but a good month nonetheless to tackle a braise. The day of the Pats – Jets play-off game seemed a perfect day to let something sit in the oven for hours — I could have the braise braise while I watched the late-afternoon Sunday game and then enjoy a leisurely if somewhat late dinner since neither Gary nor I had to work the following day (Martin Luther King Jr. Day).

A perfect plan, but what should I braise? Meat? Fish? Chicken? Or did I want to make a stew? Beef, lamb, or pork made the most sense at the time if I wanted to stretch the cooking time to at least three hours — the usual length of a pro football game. Short ribs were an option — the short ribs in cherry sauce we made in our Moist Heat Cooking class were great, especially the sauce. Hm. Pork was out because I made a pork roast just two weeks before and I wanted to attempt something totally different. Continue reading »

Culinary Resolutions for 2011

Marcia December 30, 2010 Baking, Banter, Cooking, Learning to cook 0

Fennel, mussels, restaurant dining room, chocolate torte

Though I thoroughly savored my culinary exploits in the year 2010, I look forward to more learning, cooking, and enjoying in 2011. Here are some of my anticipated achievements:
Continue reading »

Pumpkin Pie and the Perils of Watching Too Many Cooking Shows

Marcia December 26, 2010 Baking, Cooking, Food shows, Recipes 0

Those are pie weights, not mini marshmallows!

This year Gary and I decided to politely turn down any Thanksgiving day invites and just do our own thing. Though I had wanted to have my Thanksgiving feast at a fine but unpretentious local restaurant, I quickly warmed to Gary’s suggestion of cooking up our own festive dinner.

We discussed entrée and side-dish options, and for desserts we concluded we would each make (or at least choose) a favorite or promising dessert, and there was no question that his was going to be of the pomaceous persuasion and mine was going to be pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin. I was eager to make a perfectly pumpkin something — though something other than my usual goof-proof cookies, breads, and muffins — and do it right this time. Continue reading »

Back-to-Basics Class Five: Dry Heat Cooking

Marcia August 28, 2010 Cooking, Learning to cook, Technique 0
Honey Spiced Pork Roast

Honey Spiced Pork Roast

Whereas the moist-heat technique braising offers a slow, comforting, easygoing cooking experience for which you can judge doneness of meats by sight (meat falls off bone) or feel (skewer gets no resistance going in or out), the dry-heat methods require more speed and vigilance.

The dry-heat cooking techniques — sautéing, pan searing, pan roasting, oven roasting, grilling, broiling, and deep frying — demand higher cooking temperatures and shorter cooking times than stewing and braising, so they require more attention to avoid overcooking. Continue reading »

Back-to-Basics Class Four: Moist Heat Cooking

Marcia August 22, 2010 Cooking, Learning to cook, Technique 0
Sea bass over braised fennel

Sea bass over braised fennel

Moist heat cooking is, in a word, braising. Well, stewing, too, but this class focused on braising. (Boiling, blanching, poaching, simmering, and steaming fall under wet heat cooking, not moist heat cooking.)

(Note: Hong was absent today; the ebullient, talkative Ted substituted.)

Why braise?

Braising is a standard cooking technique in which you cook meat, poultry, fish, or vegetables “low and slow” — at a low oven or stove-top temperature for a relatively long period of time. Braising works wonders on lean or tough (read: cheap) cuts of meat because the slow cooking breaks the meat’s collagen into gelatin, which results in the mouth feel of a rich, fatty dish without adding any fat. But even items low in collagen, such as vegetables, can benefit from a braise. Braising tender cuts of meat, though, is not worth the time or effort.

Braising techniques

When braised correctly, the meat, when done, will fall right off the bone. You’re essentially cooking the meat until it falls apart; “it’s very hard to screw up a braise,” said Ted. You don’t even have dirty your instant meat thermometer. But though the cooking part of the braise is often foolproof, setting the stage for your braise takes some solid prep work. Here’s what you need to know: Continue reading »

Back-to-Basics Class Three: Stocks, Soups, and Salads

Marcia August 20, 2010 Cooking, Learning to cook 0
Chicken soup with noodles

Chicken soup with noodles (no more Parmesan croutons!)

“Start with a good stock.”

This instruction was the gist of the lesson on stocks and soups. Soups are relatively easy to make, after all — you toss a bunch of stuff such as protein, produce, and pasta in a big pot and you heat it all up. But you only get out of that pot what you put in it; if you use a good homemade stock with well-chosen quality ingredients, you’re likely to get a very good soup.

So, what is stock, anyway? It’s not broth — it’s much richer and, in the case of veal or beef stock, considerably thicker than broth — the veal stock Hong showed us was the consistency of gelatin, a natural result from the slow cooking of a lot of bones. Also, stock does not come in a packet or a cube. It may come in a can, I suppose, but I’ve never seen a can of real stock, only cans of chicken or beef broth claiming to be stock. (I’m sure “broth” isn’t the right word for what might be found in many of these cans . . .) Continue reading »