Showing posts with label Danish dough whisk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danish dough whisk. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
MY FIRST PIZZA FROM "ARTISAN PIZZA AND FLATBREAD IN FIVE MINUTES A DAY"
I have the first two "5 Minute" bread books ("Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" and "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day") by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois in my growing collection of no-knead bread books, but I've been looking forward to getting my hands on their newest, "Artisan Pizza and Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day". I'm always on the lookout for a new, fabulous pizza dough recipe, and I hadn't had much success so far with my own experiments in making a no-knead pizza dough.
Note: The books are not vegan, or even vegetarian, but most of the dough recipes are or can be vegan and, well, we vegans are good at adapting!
The book arrived last week and yesterday (Sunday), three of my granddaughters were coming over for lunch. Pizza seemed like the perfect thing to serve. So, on Saturday, I stirred up up a batch of "Crisp-Yet-Tender Pizza Dough Even Closer to the Style of Naples"-- literally stirred; no kneading. It probably took 5 minutes or under. After letting it rise for a few hours, I stashed it in the refrigerator in a snap-lid bowl with room to rise overnight.
That odd-looking implement is a Danish dough whisk, perfect for stirring thick batters and soft doughs.
This particular (fat-free) dough is supposed to be made with Italian "00" flour, which is lower in protein (gluten) than North American flour. "00" flour is available in North America now, at amazon.com and King Arthur Flour. Both contain about 8% protein ( as a comparison, ordinary all-purpose flour contains about 11%). I didn't have any of this, but, fortunately, the book contains a formula for making your own Italian-style flour blend using unbleached flour and pastry flour. I couldn't resist using half whole wheat pastry flour in place of some of the white pastry flour called for, and that worked well, so next time I'll take a chance and use more. I also used a bit more salt than they called for (the book contains a great section on ingredients and how to change some things to your own taste).
The dough after about 18 hours in the refrigerator.
I should have made the dough a few days earlier, I realize, because, being familiar with no-knead dough by now, I could see that another day in the fridge would have ripened the dough more thoroughly. But it was still no trouble to roll out and stretch 6 pizzas in a short amount of time. (I roll it out on baking parchment and also bake it on the parchment-- no sticking to the peel that way!)
(BTW, If you want to learn how to throw pizza dough, see the videos and instructions here: http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/2012/01/03/how-to-throw-pizza-dough-new-video )
I baked one pizza at a time in a 14" cast iron skillet (you could also use a cast iron pizza pan), which is my new favorite way to bake pizza (cast iron pans heat up twice as fast as a pizza stone, and the pizza cooks in about 7 minutes with a nice speckled crust). I was happy to see that the authors of this book gave this as an option.
I used my pizza sauce from my book World Vegan Feast and what I had around for toppings-- Daiya vegan mozzarella, green pepper, kalamata olives and Yves veggie pepperoni (thought the girls would like this) cut into slivers, pepper and a little olive oil.
I won't say that I will always use this dough, because I like to change it up, but this is certainly a great pizza dough, and very easy and convenient to make. The dough will keep refrigerated for about 2 weeks, so, if you don't have company and eat the whole thing in one sitting, you can pull out a piece of dough and whip up a pizza (no rising necessary) in no time at all.
(PS: No, we didn't eat the whole batch, but we had collectively eaten 5 of them by the time the girls left -- I managed to save one for my stepson, who came along later. Fast-growing12 year-old girls can eat alot of pizza!)
I'm anxious to try the focaccia, Cornmeal Olive Oil Dough, Chapati, Corn Masa Dough, Crisp Pita Bread Bowl, and several other goodies, but I'm only going to make them when we have company to eat most of it-- otherwise my good intentions to lose weight will fall by the wayside!
Even if you have never made any sort of bread before, fear not-- you can make some mighty good pizza with this book, pizza suited to your tastes and busy schedule. Kudos once again to authors Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois!
Enjoy!
Friday, February 26, 2010
IN WITH THE NEW-- A NEW CAT COMPANION, AND SOME NEW & USEFUL KITCHEN ITEMS...
Isis, the 5-year-old female tortoiseshell cat who adopted us recently:
Isn't she a beauty? She's a big cat, bigger than our male cat, Ringo.
Ringo (the one with his mouth open) in a typical pose, with his sister Tina, who unfortunately passed away last year.
Isis has been quite aloof, but last night she actually jumped up on our bed while DH was reading and sniffed his nose and purred! A first!
A little history: she began hanging around our place a few months ago and, eventually, when we began to see her regularly, I started feeding her outside. In time, she let me pet her while she was eating. We leave a window open for the cats all the time (we live in the country on an island, so we don't worry about locking things!), and we found out that she was coming in and sleeping in the house at night. DH saw her jump out the window one morning. Evidently, the other cats didn't chase her off. Eventually, he got her to stay and eat in the kitchen, and that was that. She was skittish and not terribly friendly, but she stayed.
Our friends Fireweed and Mike, who run the island's spay/neuter and release program for feral cats and strays, took her to the vet who does work for them at a discount. The vet discovered that she was spayed already, about 5 years old, and had an identity tattoo deep inside her ear (we'd missed it). Via the tattooed number, he ascertained that she belonged to a family who lives in Vancouver and has a summer home on our island, and they were contacted. Evidently, she had run away in August (they think because they got a new dog), and they had put up notices with her picture, but no one had reported seeing her. She had been a totally indoor cat in the city and quite overweight, we found out later. The weight was useful for her because she ended up on her own for about 4 months! Somehow, with no outdoor "smarts", she made her way clear across the island to us, and in very good shape!
We also found out that her name was "Isis", which I thought was very fitting, since she obviously thinks she's a goddess!
We wanted to keep her, especially since we knew that our lovely old girl Sinéad was probably going to leave the world sometime soon. Also, all of our cats have "found" us and we really felt that she had chosen us. However, when the family phoned us, they said they wanted her back, so we sadly but readily agreed to keep her safe until they came to the island in a couple of weeks or so. But, to make a long story short, they came, checked us out, and said that we could keep her if we wanted her, because she really disliked the dog! Of course, we said yes! So, she is slowly establishing her place in the house and getting to know us better, and we hope that she will be here for many years!
I wonder if she chose us because there were other cats here and so she figured she'd be welcome?
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MY NEW (INEXPENSIVE) AND USEFUL KITCHEN ITEMS
1st new item: My new Danish Dough Whisk
I ordered this from BreadTopia
for the very reasonable price of $8 US!! This is the large one-- they also have a smaller one
that would be useful for smaller batches of dough or batter, and, especially, sourdough starter. They were friendly and prompt, and their shipping cost, even to Canada, was very low.I purchased this dough whisk to use on my no-knead bread doughs (see the Bread category on my Recipe Pages list on the right hand side of the page), and it works really well for that, and is easy to clean. Evidently, you can use it for muffin and quick bread batters (probably good for gluten-free bread batters, too), biscuit and soda bread doughs, and even cookie dough-- anything from a thick batter to a real dough! Eric at BreadTopia says, "It's perfect for mixing heavy dough prior to kneading. Way better than a spoon and much easier to clean." It's such a nice, old-fashioned tool. I love it!
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2nd new item: a jelly bag (or jelly strainer) on a metal stand, which I bought to strain homemade soymilk!
The one thing I don't look forward to when I make my homemade soymilk is straining it. But, I like my milk smooth, so I want it strained well. I thought the gold coffee filter, which is often recommended, was very slow and tedious, so I got rid of mine. The mesh strainer that comes with the SoyQuick machine is just not quite fine enough for me and doesn't hold much, so I use it for other things. Consequently, I have been using cotton cloth, which works well, but it takes quite a while for the milk to go through and you have to squeeze and twist the soy pulp (okara) in the cloth by hand to get all the milk out. Then you have to clean the cloths.
On another post, Pat Meadows told me that she uses a "Chinois", or a conical strainer, to strain her soymilk with ease. (These are sometimes called "China caps", and what Pat actually uses is an "8-inch Extra Fine Mesh Bouillon Strainer".) She writes: "I picked this particular one because it has extra fine mesh and it is LARGE. It's made of stainless steel. This is the perfect tool for the job, in my opinion. WHOOSH and most of the soymilk has gone through; a quick press with an oversized rubber spatula or wooden paddle, and the rest goes through. Time spent standing at sink: about one minute."
I still intend to get one of those at a later date because it would be so streamlined! Pat paid $20 on sale, but the same strainer is $28.40 now and they can go up to about $35. Then you have to add shipping costs (unless I can find one here or in Vancouver). Unfortunately they don't ship to Canada, and I haven't been able to find anything in that price range in Canada (I tried ebay, but what I could find had to be shipped from the US at a rate of over $20 shipping!), so I'm going to see if I can have it shipped to a friend in the States who I am going to visit soon.
If you do buy a conical strainer, opt for extra-fine mesh, NOT perforated steel.
I couldn't fit it into my budget just now, so I thought an old-fashioned jelly bag might work similarly well for the time being. I ordered one from a Canadian (BC) company, KitchenNiche.ca, for $10 and received it very fast. (You can get one from amazon
online, but kitchen stores should have them, too.)
It works much better than a regular strainer, or a cloth-lined colander! I think that is the fastest I have ever made soymilk! The conical shape helps the milk drain out quickly and, though I tried squeezing the last bit out, it really wasn't necessary. I strained one batch (I had made 2 at once), dumped out the okara and poured in the next one. It went so fast and the clean-up is also fast and easy!
The cloth was cleaned and dried in a jiffy and I put it back on the stand. I'm just going to leave it set up, covered with a plastic bag, and stored on a shelf, so that I don't have to re-assemble it each time I use it.
online, but kitchen stores should have them, too.)It works much better than a regular strainer, or a cloth-lined colander! I think that is the fastest I have ever made soymilk! The conical shape helps the milk drain out quickly and, though I tried squeezing the last bit out, it really wasn't necessary. I strained one batch (I had made 2 at once), dumped out the okara and poured in the next one. It went so fast and the clean-up is also fast and easy!
The cloth was cleaned and dried in a jiffy and I put it back on the stand. I'm just going to leave it set up, covered with a plastic bag, and stored on a shelf, so that I don't have to re-assemble it each time I use it.
UPDATE Ap. 12, 2010: The jelly bag is started to fray and tear a bit, so I'm anxious to get the extra-fine-mesh conical strainer I ordered! (See picture above.) Otherwise, I would have to buy a few new bags to have on hand.
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The 3rd NEW item: English Muffin Rings
I wanted to make no-knead English muffins, but knew that the dough would be so slack that you would need the rings (which are probably actually crumpet rings) to hold the nice round shape. I have only tried them once and I didn't like the particular recipe that I used, so I'm going to work on one and will post it when I'm satisfied! But the rings worked just fine!
Cheers!
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The 3rd NEW item: English Muffin Rings
I wanted to make no-knead English muffins, but knew that the dough would be so slack that you would need the rings (which are probably actually crumpet rings) to hold the nice round shape. I have only tried them once and I didn't like the particular recipe that I used, so I'm going to work on one and will post it when I'm satisfied! But the rings worked just fine!
Cheers!
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