The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Making a Rye Sour

I made corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day dinner last week.  Actually, I’d started making the corned beef the week before, making a brine and soaking the brisket in the fridge for a week before finally boiling (simmering, really) it and the requisite potatoes and cabbage and carrots.  (Turnips and other root vegetables would also be traditional, but I didn’t want a TON of leftovers. 

What I did want was the left over corned beef.  I used some of it make corned beef hash over the weekend, and used some more of it last night when I made a Reuben for my husband for dinner. 

He loves a good Reuben.

Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Sourdough Rolls

 

So, were you wondering what became of the garlic?  Here's your answer!

Sourdough Hotcakes - Plain or Blueberry

 

Hungry?

And those are turkey sausages on the plate with the hotcakes.  I handed this plate to Alex after I shot a bunch of "action shots" as I poured the syrup.  6 blueberry hotcakes (the blueberries are more visible on the undersides of the cakes) swimming in syrup.  For the record, he ate 8 blueberry hotcakes and one sausage.  Boy loves his flapjacks.

I used Ruth Allman's book, Alaska Sourdough, as a starting point and tweaked it a bit as I went along. 

First of all, I set the starter yesterday - I added equal parts flour and water to the sourdough and gave it a good stir.  This morning, it looked nice and bubbly and ready to go.

 

Here's my ingredient list:

3 cups of starter

3 T sugar

6 T vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 (scant) tsp Kosher salt

1 ^_1/2 tsp baking soda

1 _^1/2 T very warm water

1 ^_1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

 

In a large bowl, combine the starter, oil, sugar, salt, and eggs until you've got a nice, smooth batter.

Keep the baking soda and warm water handy.

Get your griddle going - you want it nice and hot before you pour any batter onto it, so the cakes don't stick.  I use a reversable griddle/grill pan that fits over two burners.  To make sure it's hot enough, I'll paint the griddle surface with some vegetable oil, give that a minute to warm up, and then flick some water onto the pan.  If it sizzles right away, it's ready to go.  You'll probably need to adjust the flame levels of your burners (if this is the method you're using, too) as you go; the pan might start to become too hot and darken your hotcakes more than you'd like.

Once the griddle is ready, combine the warm water and the baking soda and stir to combine.  You won't completely dissolve the baking soda; that's fine.  Pour the water/soda mixture into your bowl of batter and - with a rubber spatula - FOLD the water/soda mix into your batter.  Right away you'll see the texture change from a regular ol' batter to something light and kind of frothy in appearance.  It's pretty cool to watch, actually. 

Ruth Allman has this to say about the addition of baking soda to the batter:

    There are some modern cooks who say "Fold stiffly beaten egg whites into the Sourdough batter to make it light and fluffy."

    Pioneer Alaskans did not have the luxury of fresh eggs....

    Instead, the pioneer would just add a teaspoonful of good old "Arm and Hammer" baking soda to the batch of Sourdough Starter.  As it is folded in, instantly a chemical action takes place.  Remember the sour dough has acid qualities, and soda is a spontaneous neutralizer and sweetener.

     As you fold the soda in, the batter starts to raise, filling the bowl with fluffy Sourdough.  You can feel the change as you are spooning the batter over and over.  There is a hollow tone developing; deeper and deeper as the Sourdough becomes filled with millions of tiny air bubbles.

    Make certain everything is ready - the iron or griddle hot, so the Sourdough can be cooked while the air is still working in the batter.  Results:  You have "50% baked hot air" and light Sourdoughs that melt in your mouth.

    Delay in hitting the iron until after the Sourdough stops raising and you will have a flat batter.  Bake while air is in the Sourdough for buoyant delicious mouth-watering Sourdoughs!

I tried to capture this change taking place, but I don't know how well you can see what I'm talking about here.  But think of how frothy egg whites become, and how the texture is when you've got soft peaks, and that's kind of what happens here.  It goes from batter texture to soft peak texture - right before your very eyes!

But you don't have the luxury of time here, so don't just stand there gazing at the batter in fascination, even though it's tempting to do so.  Start spooning or ladling  the batter onto the griddle.  Don't go anywhere, either - it cooks up pretty quickly.

 

Because of the different preferences of my offspring, I made both plain and blueberry hotcakes.  I just sprinkle blueberries onto the raw side of the hotcakes and then flip them over when the cooked side is nicely browned. 

If you've got options, the tiny wild blueberries would probably work best, as the sourdough hotcakes in this recipe are relatively thin.  I used the larger berries because we have a huge bag of them in the freezer.  They taste great, no matter which size berries you use, but the thinner ones line up better with the surface of the hotcakes. 

You could also fold the blueberries into the batter - it's up to you.

I kept the hotcakes on a plate in the warming drawer of my oven until they were all cooked, and then I served them with turkey sausage links, and, of course, butter and maple syrup.

This recipe made about 36 or so 4" hotcakes. 

The flavor of a sourdough hotcake (or pancake) is unique - kind of tangy and sweet and addictive, at least in my case.  If you've never had them before, go on and make some.  What are you waiting for? 

And hey, even if you don't like them (which I can't imagine, but I suppose it happens), you will have performed a fun little science project with your addition of baking soda to the sour dough, and you can give yourself a little high-five for that.

Sourdough - The Second Batch of Bread

 

This is the other basic sourdough recipe in Ruth Allman's book Alaska Sourdough.  While the first recipe I used - the "Quick and Easy" one - contains additional yeast and baking soda to aid in the rise, this recipe does not.  In this batch we rely completely on the power of our starter. 

And, if you've been feeding and caring for your sourdough, you should have no problem with that.

First thing you'll need to do, if you want to make this entire (4 loaf) batch, is to build up your starter so that you'll have enough to donate 4 cups of it to the bread and have some left over to keep in your sourdough pot.  You can either build the starter up gradually over several days by adding maybe a cup of flour and a cup of water to the starter each day until you have enough, or you can do it all at once, with several cups of flour and several of water.  You can also add a pinch of sugar with the feeding, if you want to give the sourdough a slightly bigger boost.

Here's what you'll need, according to Ruth Allman (the recipe can be found on page 90 of her book):

4 cups Sourdough

2 cups potato water

1/2 cup sugar

6 tbsp cooking oil

1 tsp salt

10 cups flour - approximately

I didn't have any potatoes (forget to get them at the store), so I just used plain ol' warm water.  I would also increase the salt maybe by another teaspoon - for a bit more flavor, but that's just me.

I would also advise that if you are planning to make this whole recipe, you make sure you have several REALLY BIG bowls on hand. 

Okay, once you have all the ingredients assembled, you're ready to go.

Make soft sponge mixing the Sourdough, sugar, water and oil.  Add half the flour. 

Set in warm place to double in bulk.

Add remainder of flour (and the salt - this is left out of the book, but this is when I'd make the addition) to make dough that is easy to handle, smooth and elastic. 

(here's where extremely big bowls come in handy)

(I stirred the flour in with a wooden spoon until it became too difficult to maneuver.  Then I dumped and scraped it all out onto the counter and finished working it by hand.)

* If you would like to see a slideshow of how to knead dough, you can go here.

(The magic of breadmaking - transforming the ingredients from this shaggy, lumpy mess into this...)

Before you continue with the recipe, if you have any doubt about the life of your sourdough (which you shouldn't, but we're all human), here's how you can check on it.  Poke the dough with your finger or fingers, up to or just past the first knuckle.

When you take your hand away, the dent will remain...

but as you watch, the dough will push back...

and the dent will almost disappear.

Pretty cool, no?  You can also use this little trick to see if your dough had finished rising.  If the dent fills in, as it did above, then the dough isn't finished.  But if the dent remains a dent, then the dough has risen all it can and you're ready to go on to the next step.

Place in greased bowl.  Cover.  Let raise in warm place until double in bulk.

Knead down.  Let raise to double bulk.

Form into loaves

or roll out 1/4" thick.  Roll lengthwise and place on cookie sheet.  Slash. 

Bake 500 for 10 minutes, then 400 for 45 minutes.

Sorry about the poor picture quality on these last two.  It was getting dark and the lighting wasn't great. 

One thing to keep in mind also, if you're mentally deficient like I am, is that when you decide to separate the loaves, you should probably put the pan down on the counter, rather than leaving it on the top of your 4-layer cooling rack.  Know why?  Because when you're (foolishly) picking up the two left-hand loaves to separate them, the balance on the pan will shift to the right in dramatic fashion, and the  nice loaves on the right that you'd just separated will FLY INTO THE AIR!  One will do a few Olympic dive style flips before landing on the floor.  (Fortunately your floor will be scrupulously clean and, five-second-rule in effect, you can safely put the loaf back on the counter.)  The other loaf will drop into your sink, where there will be a couple of large bowls soaking, and the loaf will land RIGHT IN THE WATER.  With your almost-lightning reflexes, you will snatch the loaf out of the bowl before it becomes entirely soggy, and you will trim off the wet half.  And you will curse your ineptitude, and you will opt not to take pictures of this latest fiasco, because really, why torture yourself over an over with the memory?

Just like the very first sourdough batch I made, the texture is soft with a tight, firm crumb.  Perfect for sandwiches, toast, french toast, and whatever else you can think of.  The flavor is nice - it still doesn't have a really noticeable sourdough tang, but that's okay - it's still a young sourdough.

And...because it's me...here's a not-very-great-but-still-kinda-cool shot of the starter, and water and oil, before I added the sugar and mixed it all together.  See how much fun it is to make bread?  You get to see cool science-class stuff like this!

Sourdough - The First Loaf

I forgot to mention yesterday that I've settled on "Stinky" as a name for my sourdough.  After all that smelly excitement during the first days of fermentation, it seems fitting.

Anyway, after giving Stinky a good feeding Saturday afternoon, he was all set to go on Sunday.

I went with a simple recipe from Ruth Allman's Alaska Sourdough book.  Since I'd used one of her starters, I figured I'd give a few of her recipes a whirl also.  The recipe is described as "Quick and Easy" - and it was, mainly because of the addition of both yeast and baking soda, both of which gave the sourdough a boost. 

First I put 2 1/2 tsp dry yeast in a bowl and added a cup and a half of warm water. 

To that I added a cup of the sourdough starter, 2 T of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and about 4 cups of the flour. 

After that was combined well, I scraped it into a large, greased bowl,

covered it with a lightweight, no-lint towel (I love those)

and let it rise until it had doubled.

Then I whisked together another cup of flour and a half teaspoon of baking soda and started to mix that into the dough (which, at this point, was more like a thick batter than a dough).

I ended up just dumping the whole thing onto the (floured) counter and kneading it for a while. 

It was sticky and floppy and goopy at first, but as I worked in that cup of flour/baking soda, and then some of the remaining cup called for in the recipe, it began to transform into a nice, soft, elastic, workable dough.

At that point I divided the dough in half,

shaped it into two balls, and let it rest, covered, on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

My only concern about this book is that Mrs. Allman doesn't tell you to let the dough rise after you've shaped it into loaves.  In reading the directions, it seems like you just shape it and pop it right in the oven.  I was skeptical, so I compromised - I only let it rise for about fifteen minutes.  Then I slashed them across the top three times each with a very sharp knife and into the oven they went. 

The resulting loaves looked kind of like baby mushrooms

because of the rapid "oven spring" once they went from about 80 degrees (room temp in my kitchen in the afternoon) to 400 degrees.

 

The bread, however, is a dream. 

It's got a soft, tight crumb - almost like pound cake. 

And there's a very faint (desirable) sour aroma, which, as Stinky ages, will become more pronounced. 

The kids had grilled cheese and tuna sandwiches with the first slices, and Alex in particular REALLY liked the bread.  Even though I'd DOZED OFF (which I've never done before and I'm still sort of in shock about it) and slept through the timer going off, so the loaves stayed in the oven a tad longer than I would have liked.  The resulting crust is thicker than I'd planned, but that also gave it an old world kind of feel, and while Julia didn't eat her crusts, Alex crunched away with great gusto.

I'll use Ruth Allman's other basic sourdough recipe next - it's an all-sourdough/no additional leavening recipe, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how that one behaves.  I'll probably make that tomorrow or the next day, I'm thinking.  The two loaves I made yesterday will very likely be gone by then!

Sourdough Update - A Great Relief

Yesterday afternoon, after the glorious discovery that it smelled - at last - like sourdough, I thought I'd better go ahead and set it up for baking.

In sourdough parlance, I had to "set the starter," which you do by feeding it the night before you plan to bake so that it's all bubbly and activated.

So the first thing I did was to stir it down until it was a smooth, creamy consistency.  And then I scraped it out of this bowl (above) and into a tall, wide, wide-mouthed jar (below) and added two cups of flour.

Then I poured in a cup of warm water.

And then I stirred it all together until it was smooth and creamy again.

Here's a better view of the jar:

I figure it's plenty big enough no matter what size batches of bread or hotcakes I decide to make.

A few notes -

I've read that you shouldn't use metal when you're working with sourdough.  So I've been using glass vessels and a big wooden spoon.  So far. 

When you're setting the sourdough, the amount of flour and water you add will depend on what you're making.  Some recipes I've seen will tell you how much to add, others will just say to set the starter.  A good starting point is a cup of flour and a cup of water.  That way you're not really changing the consistency of the starter.  If, however, your starter is too think or too thick for your liking, then you can change the flour to water ratio to balance things out.  That's why I added two cups of flour but only one cup of water. 

So what texture starter do you want?  Thick but pourable.  Maybe like...yogurt or sour cream that you've stirred well with a spoon, but a bit thinner.  It's actually up to you (imagine that!).  You just might need to tinker with the fluids and flour when you use it in a recipe.

Okay now, so if all that setting up was done yesterday...then that should mean I used it...today, right? 

Absolutely!

And I'll tell you all about that tomorrow.  It's getting late, and the new school year gets underway early in the morning.

We Have Sourdough!

After the olefactory stress I've been experiencing for the past several days, as I described in yesterday's post (the crossed-out parts, heh heh), I am VERY happy to report that as of this morning

MY SOURDOUGH STARTER SMELLS LIKE SOURDOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!

It really, really does.  Woo hoo!!!!

And I think I know the secret now, and I'll share it with you all because I know some of you have expressed an interest in starting up your own sourdough starters, and I want you to experience this same feeling of joy and elation for yourselves.

To back up a teeny bit...

My starter is in a glass bowl covered with some of that press'n'seal covering it.  You don't want it completely airtight, but you don't want fruit flies or any other little critters getting in.  The press'n'seal stuff works nicely for this, plus it's kind of see-through, unlike aluminum foil, which works well but ISN'T so see-through.

Anyway, the bowl of starter has been sitting on a large plate (just in case it bubbles up TOO  much) on the small counter to the right of my stove.  It's away from open windows (drafts) and since the stove top or the oven or both are used pretty much daily, it's a fairly warm and cozy place to hang out. 

This morning I came downstairs, got my coffee going, and was defragmenting my laptop and talking on the phone to my sister when I noticed that something was amiss with my bowl of starter.

It looked very much like a small foot (or paw) had stepped on the press'n'seal, dead center, and then, realizing that despite its appearance it was NOT a solid flat surface, the paw was withdrawn, but the press'n'seal had kind of stuck to the surface of the starter and did not spring back up again.  Not that press'n'seal is known for springing back up.  But anyway.

That was the state of sourdough affairs this morning.  I carefully lifted the press'n'seal up from the starter and noticed two things.

Number 1:  The sourdough had separated a bit - liquid on top and thicker stuff below - it wasn't bubbling, and therefore I need to feed it today.

Number 2:  It smelled...GOOD.

I proceeded to babble on and on to my sister about this, and she tolerated it for a bit, because she knows I'm like this and because I'll listen to her babble on about HER exciting stuff when appropriate.  It's nice to have that in a sibling. 

Then for some reason, she had to - very suddenly and with no explanation - get off the phone.  I don't THINK it has anything to do with my starter smelling LIKE SOURDOUGH.  Nah.  It wouldn't be that....

So ANYWAY - there you have it. 

If you decide to make a sourdough and use this cooked potato method, don't get in a panic if it seems to be REALLY foul-smelling in the first several days of fermentation.  (I've already done the panic for you.) 

Be patient, and above all else - make sure you have a kitten in the house who will step on the press'n'seal stuff for you in the middle of the night. 

Trust me - it makes all the difference. 

And there's one more important thing which, in my panic, I had forgotten about.  Barbara asked me, in a comment to yesterday's post, if I had named the starter yet, or was I going to wait until it settled down a bit. 

Well, I hadn't named it yet, because of THE PANIC, and because, frankly, I'd forgotten all about that important element of sourdough starter custodianship.

So now I'm trying to decide on a name.  Like I told my kids when they got the kittens (sorry, no picture of them at the moment - I'm on a different computer with no access to my kitten shots), you don't HAVE to name them right away - you can wait to get to know their little personalities first.  And of course the named the kittens right away, as we all know.

My first inclination is to name the starter "Stinky."  Never mind whatever other benign and fragrant personality it takes on going forward...for several days it was, indeed, stinky, and so to me that name is perfectly appropriate.

But I'll continue to think about it a bit before I fill out all the official Sourdough Naming documents.

And in the meantime, what would YOU suggest?

Updated Sourdough Update

Just wanted to let you know (especially those of you who were planning to start up a sourdough like the one I started) that I'm not SURE if mine is good or not.  It's been fermenting like it should, however, it doesn't smell the way any sourdough I've ever made in the past has smelled.

Granted, I've never made one with potato before, so that could be what's doing it.

But still.

Just in case all is not right with this one, I wanted to let you know that I'm not really sure about the prognosis.

It doesn't smell tangy...like sour cream or sourdough.

It

I don't even want to type this so early in the day, so if you're eating breakfast or have a weak stomach, come back later.

It smells like

ugh

rotting meat.

There.  I said it.  I need to do some research to see if this is an acceptable smell.  I sort of hope it's not, because frankly I don't want to bake with something that smells like this.

And I'm not squeamish, ordinarily, about smelly food. 

But, since I'm not sure if this is a GOOD thing, I wanted to let you know.

I'll be back when I have more info.

Never mind.  I had Bill smell it.  He knows a lot more than I do about fermentation, being a kick-ass beer brewin' man as he is, and he said it didn't smell bad - it smells sour, and strong.

Forgive me.  I had a moment of panic.

Carry on.

It's ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

The sourdough starter, I mean.  Look at the bubbles!  Less than 24 hours after I set it out, there it is, starting to bubble and ferment.  This shot was taken around 3:00 this afternoon.  I'm not entirely sure why the two tones of color there - one grayish, one off-white.  Maybe some is the potato, some is the flour?  I don't know.  I stirred it all together, partly just so see what it looked like on the inside.  The starter was a creamy off-white color, speckled with little air bubble holes, kind of shaggy when I pulled the wooden spoon up and out of the batter. 

It looked lovely.

I checked on it again a few hours later, and it had risen higher in the glass bowl, and still looked nice and creamy and bubbly on top.

 

Isn't it pretty?

I could use it tomorrow, if I wanted to, and believe me, the impatient part of me WANTS to.  But I'm going to let it go a little longer, maybe a few more days, in order for the flavor to develop.

I also need to find a permanent home for my starter, rather than this bowl.  Something sturdier and taller.  Hmmm.  I'll have to look around and see what we've got tucked away in the cupboards.

And, of course, I'll keep you updated.

Sourdough - Starting a Starter

I've made sourdough starters in the past, and have kept them alive for varying lengths (and shortnesses) of time. 

With the chill of autumn in the early morning air now, I thought it was a good time to start a new starter and try to keep it going for, well, forever, if I can.

I bought a book called Alaska Sourdough by a woman named Ruth Allman.  I've had this for years, but I haven't tried any of her recipes for some reason.  So, for that reason, and because the book is handwritten throughout, which gives it some personality, I figured I'd try one of her starters.

Ruth Allman was born in Boston but raised in Alaska, and, over the years until her death in 1989, one of the foremost Alaskan sourdough historians.  Her writing is conversational and rather exuberant, with the frequent exclamation points, and fascinating.  She had never used sourdough until she married her husband, so everything she learned, she learned firsthand. 

There are two starter recipes - both use potatoes.  One uses cooked, the other uses raw.  I've made mine with the cooked potatoes.

Here's the recipe -

Sourdough Starter

Dump into the Sourdough Pot

    2 cups thick potato water

    2 tbsp sugar

    2 cups flour (more or less)

    1/2 tsp yeast (optional)*

Boil potatoes with jackets on until they fall to pieces.  Lift skins out; mash potatoes making a puree.  Cool.  Add more water to make a suffieient liquid, if necessary.  richer the potato water, richer the Starter.  Put all ingredients in Pot.  Beat until smooth creamy batter.  Cover.  Set aside in warm place to start fermentation.  * Use yeast only to speed action.

And that's exactly what I did yesterday.

I cooked my potatoes, jackets on

until they fell apart.

I removed the skins and mashed the potatoes to make a puree and let that cool.

And when it was cooled, I added the sugar and flour...

I should have thinned the puree more - it was pretty thick, so I ended up adding water to this mixture in order to end up with something creamy.  THICK and creamy.

And that, hopefully, will become my starter.

I covered the bowl lightly with foil - to allow air in and keep unwanted stuff out. 

I put the bowl up on top of the pie safe in my kitchen, which is a relatively warm place, and crossed my fingers.

This morning it looks pretty much the same, with a little bit of water separating from the rest of the mixture.

This starter - as I made it - is dependent on wild yeast to start the fermentation process, and I'm hoping that will be enough.  I'd really like to make this without adding "store-boughten" yeast to it.  So we'll see. 

I figure a baby sourdough is just what I need right now, along with my kids, a cat, two kittens, lizard, and various fish.  And husband.  Just one more thing to nurture and feed and keep warm enough so it doesn't become dormant but not so hot that I kill the yeast.  Of course, I need to actually HAVE some yeast in there, so my worries are a bit premature.  I just figured I'd add them to the queue (did I spell that right?  I could have gone on and on with the "ue" parts.  queueueueue.) so when the time was right, I'd be all set to worry about them.

Anyway, that's what's newest and excitingest in my house this morning!  What's new with you?