smarriveurr made Biryani burgers for supper, and I made naan bread to go with them. I didn't get any pictures of the burgers because we inhaled them way too quickly, but the bread was both fun and easy to make.

While in Rochester, my aunt served us pulled pork on kimmelweck rolls. Beef on weck is a regional specialty, and nearly unheard of by people who haven't either been there or known someone who has. I haven't eaten beef on weck too often this lifetime, but I've happy nostalgic memories of dinner out with my grandparents while I was staying with them for summer programmes at the local universities: thinly sliced beef on a caraway-salt roll that basically disintegrated as one chewed. No, really, and it's better than it might sound. I'd actually been meaning to make weck for a few weeks now, and having ascertained that smarriveurr likes it without too much effort on my part, I set around to making my own for supper today.

Kimmelweck Rolls

4.5 tsp active dry yeast
0.75 c warm water
2.5 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
0.33 c vegetable oil
0.66 c milk
5 c flour
caraway seeds
rough salt--kosher salt crystals or larger

Make a soft dough with everything except the caraway and rough salt. After the first ferment, divide into a dozen pieces and flatten into hand-sized circles. Fold the edge to the centre at each of the compass points and compress with the thumb to secure. Pat slightly flatter, and sprinkle with the caraway and rough salt. Bake at 375/180 for about 15 minutes, or until slightly golden.

These also work with poppy seeds, for those who don't like caraway.

Having archaeologically excavated a baguette pan from an undisclosed location in our kitchen, I got it into my head that I was going to attempt to use it.

Stop laughing.

In doing my pre-bake research, I found about as many recipes as authors, with wildly disparate measurements. Much debate abounds on diagonal v. lengthwise slitting. One recipe wanted me to let the dough rise no fewer than four times and keep track of the relative humidity in the room. Having no hygrometer handy, "Yea and verily," I said to myself, "Fuck that noise." Hey, I never said I was masochistic, or thoroughly modern...or rated PG for that matter.

( What I Actually Did )

One of the greatest culinary traditions among our clan is the application of a mixture of entropy and addle-pated-ness to the furthering of cuisine, a concept I've taken to referring to (in my head) as "Oh, Shit" cookery.

Probably the best-known example of this concept is Great-Grandma's "Oh My Gosh" cake. I won't give out the recipe, but imagine adding some rather important ingredients to a cake already half-baked. The chemical processes boggle the mind, but it's actually pretty tasty, for being a massive fuck-up at the time.

I tend to hide my fuck-ups pretty well, disguising non-jelled jam as preserve and stewing chicken that's cooked a little too long. Yesterday, though, I made some fantastic ( Oatmeal Batter Bread. )

It baked to a gorgeous, aromatic brown and thumped just right when I pulled it from the oven. Unfortunately, as with the rest of the bread loaves I've been baking lately, it stuck quite fiercely to the inside of the loaf pan. No amount of pre-greasing helps, and running a knife around the inside edge...well, I mangled that loaf pretty well. (IMNSHO the pan's got bad gris-gris and I won't be using it for a while.) The top came off at one go, so I served it sliced alongside last night's pease porridge, but the bottom exited the pan only reluctantly, and in chunks. Aw, shit.

So I made bread pudding. With brandy.

( Bread Pudding to Hide Mangled Bread )

If you entertain at all regularly, from time to time someone will leave a bottle of bourbon whiskey of "What on earth am I going to do with this?" volume at your gaffe. Most people are at a loss for what to do besides pass it on like last year's Yule fruitcake. I, on the other hand, happen to like bourbon on a once-every-few-years kind of basis, but there's still too much bourbon in the world for me to sip with panache. Thus, the "But Why is the Rum Gone?" test kitchen brings you something lovely to do with bourbon:

Cran-Raisin-Bourbon Tea Cakes

1 cup golden raisins
1 cup dried cranberries
bourbon (or apple cider, if you're saving your volunteer bourbon; I used a mixture of bourbon and whiskey)
cooking spray or shortening with which to lubricate your pans
1.75 cups/220 g plain flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
0.25 teaspoon salt
0.66 cup/150 g butter, softened (I nuked it twice for 10 seconds, stirring between)
cup/125 g sugar
2 eggs
0.66 cup/160 mL milk (I actually used buttermilk, as it's what was handy)

Soak the raisins and cranberries in bourbon until they've plumped a bit. Sample some of the bourbon; remember why you like it. Drain fruit, reserving liquid (though you'll need to strain out the cranberry seeds). Preheat oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Grease and flour your cooking pan(s).*

Stir together your dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a larger bowl, beat your butter until it's quite soft. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately add the dry ingredients and milk to the butter mixture, again beating well after each addition. Stir in the (mostly) drained fruit. Who minds a little extra bourbon flavour? Have a nip yourself.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pans for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.

*I used 3.25 x 2.5 x 1.5" small loaf pans, and this recipe made a dozen. The baking time for these pans in 18-20 minutes. It also makes a regular-sized loaf, which will bake in an hour.

--
You can use the soaking bourbon to make a glaze with about 25 mL maple syrup and a teaspoon of cornstarch, but this comes across like a kick in the teeth, and the cakes don't really need it. It's better to drink the bourbon as the universe intended.

I made these in order to use up some of the dried cranberries left over from Pennsic. We took some to a housewarming party yesterday afternoon. These muffins aren't terribly fluffy, but they're much nicer than a lot of bran muffins I've had.

Cranberry Wheat Muffins

1 cup whole wheat/135 g wholemeal flour
1 cup all-purpose/125 g plain flour
0.5 cup/125 g sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 large egg, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup/250 mL milk
fistful of dried cranberries
lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375ºF/190ºC/Gas Mark 5. Mix the flours, sugar, baking powder and cranberries in a large bowl. Combine egg, butter, and milk; add to dry ingredients, stirring just enough to combine. Add lemon juice to make a fully moistened, thick batter. Don't worry about lumps. Spoon into greased muffin cups, filling 0.75 full. Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick or knife inserted in centre comes out clean. Makes a dozen. Recipe can easily be doubled.

The most Irish thing on the menu today was the lamb in the goulasch.

( Hummus )


( Flatbread )


( Saffron Pudding )

I make fabulous challah bread, and gave some to rossandj at Christmas. The original recipe was filched from among the Gode Cookery medieval recipes--a good source for those of you who enjoy medieval foods.

Challah

4 teaspoons dry (as opposed to cake) yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
0.25 cup water warmed to the touch
6 cups flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups water warmed to the touch
3 eggs, slightly beaten
0.25 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons sugar
egg wash: 1 egg slightly beaten, 0.5 teaspoon water, dash salt

Combine first three ingredients. Combine flour and salt. Make a well in the flour, and add the yeast mixture. Add rest of ingredients. Beat well until ball forms. Knead on floured board, adding flour as necessary, until smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled. Punch down and divide into 2 sections; knead slightly. Preheat oven to 400ºF/200ºC. Mold and divide each dough section as needed: into sculptures, bowls, braids, etc. Place on greased baking sheets. Brush with egg wash. Let rise until doubled.* Brush with egg wash again. Bake at 400ºF/200ºC for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 375ºF/190ºC for 45 minutes. (Actual baking time may vary. My bread was done in half an hour total baking time. Keep an eye on it!)

*When making bowls or sculptures, do not let rise until doubled. Let the dough rest for about 15 minutes after shaping, then bake. Your oven time will be a lot less and will depend on the mass of the object you are baking. Keep an eye on your break and bake at 375ºF/190ºC until browned.

Some notes:
If the starter turns orange or pink, you’ve grown a bad culture. Throw it out.
If it smells v. different from a few days ago, throw it out.
If beer-smelling liquid rises to the top, it’s harmless. It’s called hooch, and you can either skim it off or stir it back in, as you prefer.
If you end up with too much starter because you’re not baking regularly enough, just throw some out.
The starter can be spiked with outside yeast to create the initial starter. You can use store-bought yeast, or do as I do, and wash some organic (NO pesticides, never never never!) apples or grapes and save the water to feed the starter with, since wild yeast grows on apple and grape skins.
Starters may not react well to a significant change in location—American starter might not work in Ireland, for example. The wild yeast varies by location, so if you move, bake your entire starter into bread and make a new starter in the location you move to.

Have been poking at a flour and water mixture since about Sunday to get a bread starter going, and last night it looked like it was finally fermented. For those of you who don’t do bread the old-fashioned way, a sourdough starter is really easy to make. (People who thought that “vapours” gave them the plague could do this, so an educated person like yourself can manage, I’m sure.)

Take equal parts flour and water, mix well in a non-metal bowl, and wait. Yeah, that’s it. Let it sit until it smells sour, almost vinegary, and the surface looks frothy. There’s your starter. You can keep it in the fridge or on the counter, so long as the temperature doesn’t get above 40ºC (100ºF). The container can be anything, except metal, because some metal utensils can be reactive and that’ll mess with your bread. Airtight Tupperware is perfectly fine, but personally I prefer a crock with a plate on top—it lets a little air circulate, and it’s what my sainted great aunts used to do, and their bread was phenomenal.

Feed and store the starter depending upon how often you intend to use it. If you’re baking bread rarely, keep it in the fridge to cut down on yeast growth and feed it only every 7-10 days, stirring every couple days. If you make bread every couple days like I do, keep it around 20-25ºC (60-70ºF) and feed it a little each day. Feed it a half-cup each of flour and warm water, give it a good stir, and you’re done. Particular bread starters have lasted for generations, so they’re pretty hard to kill. Each develops its own particular character depending upon its environment.

You make dough by going through a preliminary stage called proofing. If you’ve kept your starter in the fridge, let it come to room temperature. Add a cup each of flour and warm water, and wait until the mixture gets bubbly. The bubbly flour mash is called sponge. Keep some of the sponge as your next bit of starter. The rest you can use to make bread.

The basic recipe I found for sourdough bread is:
3 c flour (I use two, then mix in more depending upon how wet the starter is.)
2 c starter
2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp shortening or oil

Mix well, knead 10 minutes, let it rise until doubled in size, and knead another minute. Shape it into a loaf on the pan you intend to bake it on, and let it rise again until it has doubled in size. Slash the top with a knife, and bake at 180ºC (350ºF) for 45 minutes to an hour. If you tap the bottom, it should sound hollow like a watermelon.