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Jul 05, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Notes
The way in which you process ingredients, especially those containing oil, has a profound effect on the flavor.
Garlic for example, if squeezed through a press rather than minced by hand will be bitter.
The oil in garlic is particularly temperamental. If garlic is heated until golden it takes on a fantastic flavor. If it becomes brown it metamorphoses into a truly nasty acrid smell and taste which is probably part of the reason it is sometimes referred to as “the stinking rose”!
I learned many years ago from the late Barbara Tropp, who sadly died far too young, that washing an orange or lemon with detergent and then rinsing thoroughly with water, would make a huge difference to the flavor of the zest.
Jul 05, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Announcements
i'll be back July 14. There will be a few postings in the interim but please, as usual, help each other by answering other's questions with your valuable baking wisdom.
Love,
Rose
Jul 06, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Announcements
I've just been given word that the new flour bag for Gold Medal Better for Bread is shipping to stores around the country.This is the same wonderful red winter wheat flour formerly known as "Harvest King." And the bag still sports my best basic hearth bread on the back. But the color of the bag is now a bright canary yellow and in a little circle under the deep gold Gold Medal medallion is a photo of me!
I couldn't be more pleased and proud. Here is a preview of what you will see when you shop for flour in the U.S.
Jul 09, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Press Mentions
Science & Technology
July 7, 2008
Volume 86, Number 27
pp. 26-30
Kitchen Chemistry
Our love of food is helping bring science to the masses
Lisa M. Jarvis
".....Philosophical discussions on the place of science in cooking aside, ECC [Experimental Cuisine
Collective] is helping to shift the conversation about chemistry and food away from merely an exercise in the esoteric—how to use sodium alginate to make faux caviar or how to use liquid nitrogen to make ice cream—toward one that is accessible to a wider audience.
For example, Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of "The Cake Bible" and "The Bread Bible," presented an amazingly comprehensive explanation of flour during the group's January meeting. Bread is about as basic as it gets in terms of its ingredients, but the baking process itself is quite complex. She went through the wide varieties of flour, how they differ in terms of protein content, which can range from 8 to 14%, and what that means in terms of texture, flavor, and lift. She threw out phrases and words like "phenolic acid," which is responsible for the bitterness of whole wheat flour, and "glutenin" and "gliadin," the two proteins in flour that form gluten. She went on to explain how the ratio of those proteins influences the density of bread because gluten can absorb three times its weight in water. In the end, she made the perfect sponge cake, weighing and timing the addition of ingredients with the precision of an analytical chemist.
The roughly 80 audience members—some chefs, but many simply fans of baking and of Levy Beranbaum's cookbooks—were surprisingly well versed in the science of their craft. They also appeared genuinely interested in thinking about the chemistry of the baking process and how to apply science to get better results in the kitchen.
That kind of discussion—troubleshooting in the kitchen, defining the chemical makeup of ingredients, considering how those ingredients interact, and introducing concepts like reproducibility and hypothesis testing—is what Kirshenbaum hopes ECC can encourage. Although others involved in the group may have different goals, his primary objective is to engage a wider audience in chemistry."
Jul 12, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Bread
The Perfect Two by Fours
When I wrote The Bread Bible, I didn’t include burger buns thinking no one would go to the effort of making them. Well I was wrong—I do! I’ve tried many versions, including the Sweet Heart of Wheat, Basic Hearth Bread, and even Ten Grain. They were all wonderful but what I really wanted was a softer bread so I switched to sweet potato dough. My first trials were with added old starter and though good, they kept the dough from being as soft as I had hoped for.
Here, just in time for the rest of the grilling season (which for me is all year!) are is my top favorite bun. The sweet potato adds a beautiful golden color, moistness and softness. I always toast them lightly—if the grill is on I do it on the grill but watching carefully as they toast within seconds.
These are great for lots more than burgers for example crab cakes, or even fried eggs, chicken, tuna, or egg salad.
When I use them for hamburgers I get 4 inch half pound ground aged beef patties from my favorite butcher Pino, on Sullivan Street. It was his son Sal's idea and the flavor and juiciness of the beef makes these the best hamburgers I've ever had. My preference is to sprinkle them with salt before grilling and then pepper afterwards and to serve them with a thick slice of Vidalia onion and ketchup but not too much as I don't want to mask the flavor of the beef.
Continue reading "Golden Burger Buns" »
Jul 15, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Press Mentions
I went down to Washington D.C. two weeks ago to give a pie baking lesson for The Washington Post and it now can be found on:
http://washingtonpost.com
Put chef on call in the search box. If you do this a week from now you'll need to navigate to july 16, 2008 posting. It's a really fun piece--do check it out!
If you'd like to read the story here see below but you'll need to go to the above link for the recipes and photos:
Continue reading "Chef on Call" »
Jul 17, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Announcements
I'll be in Hope for the week, cooking and baking for my Dad's 94th birthday July 23. I'll check in to the blog and try to catch up with some of the questions from vacation three weeks ago but please don't count on me for immediate responses!
Bake fruit pies!
Jul 19, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Special Stories
Well actually it's called Cape Cod but I'd much rather be eating fried clams than cod! In fact, I'd much rather be eating fried clams in a shack by the ocean than a 4 course dinner in any of the Cape's fanciest restaurants.
Always in pursuit of the perfect fried clams I think I arrived during our too short visit to the Cape for Elliott's conference in Chatham. When I discovered Nickerson's Fish and Lobster shack
I returned every morning for a late breakfast/early brunch of fried clam bellies (hold the roll and the fries).
In NY it's near impossible to find anything but the strips which are more batter than clam. I adore the taste of clam probably because it reminds me of the ocean. I was born in Far Rockaway, close enough to the Atlantic Ocean to smell the salt air. My first sandbox in our small yard was filled with the golden sand from the nearby beach and my first toy was a large clam shell great for scooping up the sand. I used to collect the ruby red 'stone' that attached the two halves of the shell, thinking they were gems but they disappointingly darkened to dark brown.
Sitting by the dock at Nickerson's, eating the clams and watching the boats take off and return with the fresh catch brought back many of these memories.
Continue reading "Cape Clams" »
Jul 22, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Special Stories
A Special Posting from Hector!
A year ago, my cousin Elaine booked me for her wedding cake for September 13th, 2008. A month ago, she booked me for her entire wedding catering... I accepted with the only condition that her wedding will be called The 7-Cake Wedding. I designed a dessert party filled with small side savory dishes, and she is thrilled.
Here are the first photos. A semi finished, 3-tier Triple Chocolate Cake, started last month and desperately waiting to come out of the bag on the wedding day. The chocolate praline sheets will be applied on location since it would be non-respectful to freeze Piedmontese hazelnuts. The second photo is some prep work for Rose's extraordinary White Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream. You can see the menu (and the cakes) on www.hectorwong.com/elaineandmatt
Please don't just say wow, instead lets discuss some issues I may encounter. You, bloggers, are my rock.
Jul 26, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Special Stories
This is my happiest time of the year. Everything has come alive and is an affirmation of the goodness of life. Our 10 day vacation in Hope, post Elliott’s conference in Cape Cod, happily coincided with the advent of fresh berries, baby robins, Elliott’s birthday, and our 32 anniversary!
My friends the Meneguses, who have a fantastic farm down the road, shared some just picked raspberries, currants, and black raspberries which, together with newly ripened N.J. blueberries from Silver Lake Farm made a blissful lunch.
I also made a large batch of lemon curd from some of those yolks frozen with sugar from the angel food cakes for the NYU Molecular Gastronomy demo. I also was able to use up all the lemons leftover from a test for the upcoming book. A spoonful of lemon curd mixed into 0 fat Greek yogurt, together with some blueberries, is shear heaven.
Continue reading "The Birds & the Berries" »
Jul 29, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Bread
Sunday, on my return from Hope, NJ, I ran right to the local supermarket to check if the new packaging for Gold Medal Better for Bread had arrived and there it was--the beautiful bright yellow package with my picture on the lower right hand bottom. And I lost no time in making a bread on Monday. This is the bread recipe previously posted--just put the words oat bread in the search box.
I was never happy with the photo of the finished loaf with the barley bran so here is a photo of my new version and a cut slice. I used the variation of part oat flakes and part cracked flax and added my old starter. i think i'll cut back on the salt by 1/ 8 teaspoon next time. Though it's the same 2.2% salt i usually use I think the oat flakes and flax somehow accentuate the saltiness.
Any way, I encourage you to try the recipe if you haven't already. It's a delicious and healthful loaf with great texture, and makes a great sandwich bread. The drawer in the freezer for Elliott's snacks was getting very low so I thought I'd better fill it with bread for when I'll be away. I told him the bread was for him and his response was: "No! It's for you!" When I asked him why his explanation was :"You just love baking bread!" Can't deny it!!!
Jul 30, 2008 | From the kitchen of Rose
in Pie
When this blog was in its infancy, one of my first postings titled “Surrogate Baker” reported the story of a dinner invitation from our then new friend Leon Axel who lives across the street and featured a fruit galette that required emergency shuttling back and forth to our oven. We have since gotten together for dinner many times but this week, when we carried this peach galette across the street to Leon’s, I was reminded of the first visit just short of three years ago.
Late in the evening there was an unexpected visit from Leon’s son Nathanial and his lovely girl friend who were returning from a concert nearby on Bleecker Street and hadn’t yet had dinner. So we started all over again with Leon’s fabulous ballontine of duck with cherry ginger chutney, a mixed greens salad from the local farmer’s market with herbs just snipped from his terrace garden, and then the galette.
As this is the height of an exceptionally fine peach season, and the galette turned out to be so special, I want to share this with you immediately. Luckily I had the foresight to take several step by step photos of the process which I think will be helpful and maybe even inspirational!
Perfectly Ripe Peaches
Continue reading "Heavenly Peach Galette" »
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