Piadina - Italian Flat Bread - A Hot Trend.

Want to know what the hottest trend in cafe eats is these days? Piadina!


Years ago, it was focaccia. Then came Turkish bread. Somehow, panini slipped its end in and then the cafe sandwich press made all of these bready dishes common and horrid. And let's not forget wraps and lavash and other abominations that happened after the ingredients became available commercially.


Face it: a real focaccia, lovingly grilled or at least toasted under the broiler and then filled with fresh ingredients was a very tasty thing. Ditto the other formats. Now? They're all as cheap as chips and really not tasty at all.


I'm not a food snob at all. I used to be! However, food is all about practical, economical and sensible ways to deliver a top grade and healthy feed every day for yourself and your household, with the occasional frippery and fun, just to keep everyones' mouth happy, isn't it?


Enter the piadina! It's just an unleavened flatbread, which in itself is unexciting. How it can be loaded with all kinds of exciting and tasty  fresh and seasonal ingredients is another dimension in flavour and texture that really needs to be explored. Trendy, tasty and about three minutes of actual cooking time. Fast food that's actually healthy!


This is where you do some Google-fu. There are some places around Sydney, and certainly many other cities, who have cafes who charge ridiculous amounts for a piadina. So, if you want part with at least ten bucks for some meat, cheese, snow pea sprouts and trendy ingredient du jour, then you go ahead, you fashionable fool. For everyone else who has a brain, loves to cook and loves to entertain with something new, I'll show you how to make them for only $0.30 each - plus fillings! You can even make only one for yourself to try out at if you like. It's a top way to use up cold cuts from Christmas roasts. Check out the trendy places online so that you can get some hot ideas for tasty ingredients.


Traditionally, piadina are made with lard. Purists will say that only lard can be used. In these health conscious days, I'll base the recipe on olive oil. It's almost as tasty, and you'll live longer and not be quite so lardy (pun intended). You can cook them on the flat part of your bbq, if you can make it hot enough, or you can cook them in a non-stick frypan. The results will be quite similar.


Here's the insanely simple recipe for 2011's trendiest bread item:

• 100 grams plain flour
  
• 20 mls olive oil
  
• 35 mls warm water (hotter than you would use for yeast dishes, say 45C-60C)
  
• 1 gram salt - very optional
  
• The above makes one only. You can scale it up to make more. Adjust water to match your chosen flour.

Making the dough:

• Put the flour in a pile, make a hole in the middle, pour in the water and the oil (and salt if that's your thing), combine and knead until smooth.
  
• You do not need to flour the bench as the oil will make the dough slippery enough.
  
• Wrap the smooth and well kneaded dough in cling film, let it rest for about thirty minutes. Kneading is done in about one to two minutes.
  
• After resting, press the dough out into something like a circle and finish rolling it out nice and thin and as close to a circle as you can manage. Perfection isn't a requirement here - rustic is cool.
  
• Get your bbq hotplate or frying pan nice and hot and prep your fillings because, ladies and gentlemen, this is going to happen quickly!

Here's some hints for using festive roast leftovers:

• Ham, cheese, snow pea sprouts, apple sauce
  
• Roast beef, hot English mustard, lettuce, sliced Roma tomato, cheese
  
• Turkey breast, cranberry sauce, Camembert or Brie, snow pea sprouts, cheese
  
• Chicken, salami, dried pressed tofu - not in the same dish - and more
  
• And just about anything else you can dream up!

Cooking time:

• Drop your thinly rolled dough onto the cooking surface and let it get a few good dark brown spots from cooking on one side. Don't try to brown the whole thing else it will turn into parchment and be inedible.
  
• Flip it over, and start adding ingredients on one half. You can keep the greens and crispy ingredients out until after it's off the heat, unless you like soggy greens.
  
• After adding fillings, fold one half up and over, to make a 'sandwich'.
  
• Give it about thirty seconds to one minute or so and then flip the whole arrangement over so that the top of the sandwich is cooked a little too.
  
• Serve and enjoy.

Usually, your meat fillings should be precooked. There is not enough time during this process to cook meat adequately. It's better to prepare fillings after making the dough, during the dough resting time. It will make a much better result and be far less harrowing for you, especially if you're trying to make six lunches on one frypan.


If you're into stone-ground flour, macro-organic, wholemeal, and other exciting and purportedly karma-improving flours, then you go right ahead and use those. I'm sure that they will be extra tasty and will give a whole new and exciting mouthfeel to this traditional and simple flatbread. Tell me how you go with those - and tell me how you had to adjust the cooking process. I would love to share your success with other readers!


Best of luck, and if you have any questions, please post those in the comments section and I'll be ever so happy to help!


Cheers!!

Play with your food.

For a long time now, the majority of the posts I've made about bread have been pretty straight forward and plain.

Simple recipes, simple techniques which are all part of the learning curve to making bread. Experimenting with ingredients, experimenting with techniques and combinations of both.

There have been some highlights and some less palatable results. No disasters thankfully.

Furthering the progression of simple bread making I thought to talk a little bit about shaping bread.

In short, play with your dough.

In earlier articles, I've mentioned a pretty straightforward recipe that just plain works, is low in sugar and salt and that can last up to a week just sealed in an air-tight container without refrigeration. Here's a quick version of that so that we're both on the same page:

• 500 g plain flour
• 20 g sugar
• 5 g salt
• 2 level tablespoons yeast
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 310 ml water
• Combine in your dough-capable food processor or bench mixer
• rise 30 minutes
• bake 24 minutes @ 180C fan forced
• cool on a rack for 30 - 45 minutes
• enjoy guilt free low cost bread.

See? It's an obscenely simple recipe which doesn't need a second rising so it's much faster to make and less troublesome than other methods. The artisan breadmakers and other hardcore bakers will be laughing themselves silly at this point, decrying it as an impure and imperfect recipe. It is. It's about convenience, better quality than can be had from the supermarket and a fraction of the cost.

So - on to the playing part!

A regular loaf of bread is a thing of simple beauty. A well formed dinner roll is rather appealing. A hand formed Kaiserbrot is a moment of joy, but once you step into the dark side of plaiting and more, you will not only feel a greater sense of satisfaction but will certainly get a lot more adulation, oohs and aaahs from those who are lucky enough to see and eat your bread.

Here's a quick list of some of the different loaf shapes that you can possibly try and I will show you a basic plait example at the end:

• Baguette - The famous and familiar French stick
• Baton - Like a short baguette
• Ficelle - Similar length to a baguette, but only half as thick (diameter)
• Bloomer - Diagonally slash-cut UK style loaf with an eccentric oval cross section
• Vienna - Much like a Bloomer but with less defined slash cuts or none at all
• Pullman - Pretty much what you get at the supermarket before it is cut - a rectangular, squared off loaf
• Cob - More or less a rounded, blobby shape but quite traditional and very popular for certain artisanal breads
• Boule - While it's the French word for "ball", it has a similar shape to the Cob
• Fougasse - Flat bread with deep slashes and analogous to the Foccacia
• Braided / Plaited - Think of a plait of hair and you've got in a yeasty, bready form. A personal favourite.
• Ring - Yep, just like the name implies: it's a ring.

You can make the dough into whatever shape you like.

All of the unusual shaped loaves you see at your local baker come down to one thing in common: reshaping the dough by various techniques before baking. It can be as simple as rolling the dough flat and then rolling it back up again to achieve the famous baguettes and batons or hand-forming a big ball to achieve a boule.

Have fun with it. After all, it is your daily bread.

Cheers!!

Deep fried beer!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7973944/Deep-fried-beer-invented-in-Texas.html

Deep fried beer!

Seems that nothing is impossible in a Texas kitchen - and it's patent pending too!

Apologies!

'Evening all!

I've been busy with work lately so haven't had a chance to carry out any yeasty goodness adventures of late.

I should be back into it shortly with stories, pics and recipes.

Cheers!!

Spammers

OK you spam guys. Enough is enough.

Yes, natto pizza is tasty.

However, it doesn't go better with viagra, cialis or any other kind of pharmaceutical. Chances are, the combination of those substances and natto will make you very ill or maybe dead. Talk to your doctor about it.

However, please stop spamming me you piss-weak sub-alpha males.


Mmmmm-kay?


And a big "fuck you" to the impolite responder. Fuck you!


Cheers - YeastyGoodness.

Natto Pizza. Original - different - tasty!

Natto pizza? Yes. Quite true.


Yes - natto.


Natto? It has been described in very negative terms by quite a range of people. "Satan's toe jam", "Godzilla jizz", "rotting squirrel testes" and some other more negative comments have been shared with me in person by some friends who don't fancy natto. What guys like Anthony Bourdain say about it is worse. Far worse. The negative comments are personal opinions and in my opinion, they're quite over-exaggerated.


What's natto? Fermented soy beans. It looks like miniature baked beans covered in stringy mucous-like cum and has a smell and taste that takes a little getting used to. In Japan, it's a popular breakfast food. I've spent my time rocking around Asia and my wife is Chinese. However, what is marked as "one serve" is really quite plenty for both of us. Rather quite more than plenty. It may be healthy food, but it's a little bit disgusting.

Pizza is yeasty goodness. New York style pizza is yeasty goodness with uber-overload of toppings, but it includes some other ingredients that are needed in commercial pizza. Pizza from the franchise delivery guys, well, you can eat it but it helps if you have been drinking or otherwise indulging in past-times that make one rather hungry. Commercial pizza isn't so healthy and it's barely natural.


When I was in Japan on business a long, long time ago (albeit not in a galaxy far away), I was presented some natto for breakfast by friends. I ate it. Those dear friends, made me eat it with a spoon without dressing of any kind and that's it. It is more usually consumed with a bowl of rice, some mustard and soy and whatever other condiments you desire.


Plain natto is not pleasant. Acquired taste? It's quite special. And this comment comes from a guy who loves to eat durian (in the mouth it feels like custard, but somehow it's as if the custard was made with onions... an incongruous flavour combination at best and quite unpalatable to most... at best).


tl;dr? It's a strong ingredient. Stinky, sticky. The kind of thing for which only a Japanese porn actress could confess an undying enjoyment and desire.


So you ask the obvious question "What the f#%k is this stuff doing on a pizza?".


I'm going to be honest. Frank. Brutal.


My wife went away for three weeks to China... business trip and visiting with family. I like natto for breakfast - to share with her. One pod, two people each day, plus nuked fresh greens, mini-Jap-omelette and rice. I bought natto. The usual amount. However, staying home alone...

Other more conventional western breakfasts sought my attention. Think of my breakfasts as my "sly affair" in the absence of my wife. Waffles. Pancakes. Bacon and eggs. Eggs Benedict. You feel me?


Therefore, I have leftover natto. Four pods.


Tonight, I want pizza.


I'm not usually afraid of an ingredient but this is one that I have some caution about. Good grief - even the mighty Iron Chefs have some caution about this one.


So here, dear friends, is how to dispose of the evidence - natto in this case - on a pizza.


Start off with a basic dough mix:

* 150 g plain flour
* 15 gluten flour
* 5 g salt
* 10 g sugar
* 15 g yeast
* 120 mls warm water.

Make a nice firm dough, knead it until your arms ache (about 15 minutes) then oil it, place it in a bowl in a warm place, cover it in cling wrap and let it rise for about 30 - 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 22C fan-forced (240C+ for conventional).

Throw the risen dough-ball onto a well-oiled tray on which you wish to bake the pizza. Stretch the dough by hand until it matches the baking surface or the shape you want the pizza to be.

Add your sauce, cheese and other preferred ingredients and then - the natto.

Bake.

Eight minutes on the pan.

Eight minutes on the rack.

Done.

Tasty pizza and healthy natto.


Best thing? The natto stink is lost in the cooking. There is still some flavour from it, but the healthy aspects of it are still mostly present.


Enjoy!!!


Cheers - Fermented.

Non-stick pans for baking

The one thing we all desire as bakers of cakes, breads and anything else we shove into the oven is that it won't stick.

Our forebears managed to use some really strange enclosures and not have the baked goods stick to that enclosure.

Somehow, in these recent times with greater cooking power (hotter ovens and all)  we suffer our baked goods sticking to the pans.


There are two main ways to side-step this problem.

[1] Quality baking paper.
The low-cost and discount stores sell 'baking paper' and 'grease proof paper'. It sort of kind of works. With a heap of oil it still only sort of kind of works. Forget it. Spend the other two dollars and buy a roll of paper that works and is kinder to your health.

[2] Oil and lots of it.
Use the cheap baking paper. See [1]. Expect at least 30 grams more fat per dish baked in this manner.


Do you want to know the biggest objection?

Here it is - for free - anyway. The biggest fail of low cost commercial non-stick cookware. Read it and weep.

Low-cost non-stick pans work for one or two uses only. The first time or two you use them they seem to be utterly awesome - nothing sticks! Perfect results. Cook again, once or twice and it's quite possible that you will experience some rather less pleasant results.

Use it more? The only thing more sticky than those cheap cooking pans is dog poo. Dog poo on a baby blanket. Cheap non-stick is not worth it.

Go buy some quality non-stick pans from a commercial store for chefs, cooks and other kitchen bitches paid by the hour. It will cost more initially, but you can be quite sure that you will deliver the top-grade result which you had in mind when you commenced that recipe for that special occasion.


Best of Luck!!


Cheers !!!

Tasty PIzza and Bread - from one batch!

Sorry for not having posted for so long.

Business has been busy and I've had a reasonably lengthy sickness, There's a nasty respiratory bug doing the rounds and I had the misfortune to catch it. I can only guess that I got it owing to advancing years and being in my office more often than not rather than around people.


Want a fast recipe for a pizza and a loaf of bread for the next morning? Here's how!


Make a standard bread dough (500 g cheap plain flour, 30 g gluten flour, 15 g sugar, 15 g salt (if you're sensitive to salt or prefer lower salt foods, use only 5 g - the high dose in this case is for flavour rather than as a preservative), two level tablespoons of yeast, two tablespoons of olive oil) but add two teaspoons of dried mixed Italian herbs (or similar) and three very finely minced or crushed cloves of garlic. Combine the dry ingredients and those listed above. Hydrate at around 60% (i.e. 300 mls) with 25 - 30C water. Knead manually or mechanically and move on...

After you've made the dough above, give it thirty minutes or so to rise. Pinch off one third and flatten and shape it onto a well oiled pizza tray.

Finely spread a tablespoon of herbed tomato paste and a tablespoon of bbq sauce (or HP sauce if you like). Top with cheese, salami, olives, anchovies and thinly sliced onion (white or red is best, but use what you have). Add whatever you like - it's pizza and there are no rules.

Preheat the oven to 220C fan forced, cook for eight minutes on the tray, pull it off the tray and give it eight minutes more just on the oven rack. Tasty, healthy pizza goodness. Enjoy!


And for the bread stage...

By now, your pizza is cooked and there's 2/3 of a bread batch of dough. Gently roll it into a shape you like, slash it with a pattern you like, throw it onto the oiled pizza tray and cook at 180C fan forced for eighteen minutes.


Result?


You get a lovely Mediterranean style pizza for dinner and now you have a small loaf of bread for breakfast, brunch or lunch. Sure, it will be strongly herb and garlic flavoured, and maybe a touch salty, but with some cheese and meat it will make an awesome and flavoursome meal for cheap.


Enjoy!