Simplifying Things

Reducing something to its simplest form is not always an easy task. For a class once, I had to draw a vegetable of my choice, in this case a mushroom, and make a detailed drawing of it.

Then, step by step, make that drawing into a pictogram. This was when we were doing everything by hand, computers came in a few years later. I sort of liked the process of it all, with the tracing paper and the pencils and then the markers. Man, when 20 of us were using those markers in a closed room, we left with quite a buzz!

Anyways, the whole thing reminds me a lot of cooking, the idea of using a vegetable or any other food and bringing out it’s essence. You don’t need a pinch of this or a pinch of that to make mushrooms tasty. All you need is a hot pan, a pat of butter and thinly sliced mushrooms sautéed until golden brown and delicious. Same goes for onions. Simple things that don’t need much to get even better.

Add a batch of pizza dough, a little goat cheese and it becomes Caramelized Onion and Mushroom Pizza with Goat Cheese. Sounds elegant but really, it’s a simple dish, with simple ingredients. Just add a glass of wine for the buzz…

CLICK!: The photo at the top will be my entry for this month’s CLICK! Event : Au Naturel. Visit jugalbandi for the details.

Pizza Dough
I use Ricardo’s pizza dough, which I love because it’s so soft and easy to work with. It’s enough for 2 pizzas so I keep the rest in the fridge and usually make foccacia or whatever the next day. Or you can make 2 pizzas, it’s up to you!

Caramelized Onion and Mushroom Pizza with Goat Cheese
2-3 yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 package of button mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper, to taste
about 100g firm goat cheese (I used La Patte Blanche from Fromagerie Bergeron)

Place your pizza stone in the oven and preheat it to 500F.

In a skillet heat 1 tbsp butter with 1 tbsp olive oil. Add onion slices and let cook over medium heat until nicely caramelized. Give it a good 45 to 50 minutes, it’ll be worth it, I promise. Salt and pepper to taste. Set aside to cool.

In the same skillet, heat the remaining butter and olive oil. Add the mushroom slices and sauté until nicely browned. The time this takes depends on how high a heat you’ve got your skillet on, so watch carefully. Once they’re done, let the mushrooms cool a few minutes.

Divide your pizza dough in two and roll one piece to your desired thickness. Place the rest in the fridge for later use. Spread caramelized onions onto the dough, followed by the mushrooms and goat cheese. Bake until the cheese is melted and the crust is golden, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven, let it rest a few minutes then dig in!

Au Naturel

What kind of food blogger would I be if I didn’t at least once talk about the wonder that is THE No-Knead Bread?

More than a year and a half ago, the NY Times published an article about a “truly minimalist breadmaking technique” thought up by Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhattan. I wonder if Mr. Lahey ever imagined that his recipe (and baking process) would create such a buzz around bread baking? Did he ever think that people would buy Dutch ovens for the sole purpose of baking his no-knead bread? Could he have known that countless blog posts would be flooded with comments and questions about this “revolutionary process” and turn non-bakers into bread baking gods? I’m exaggerating, ever so slightly, here but you all know what I’m talking about.

The first no-knead bread I baked was a year ago, in January 2007, after seeing Deb’s post about the bread at Smitten Kitchen. As many a person had done before me, I hesitated to make the bread because of the “put room temperature dough in a really hot pot” direction; I was afraid my pot would crack because of the temperature variation. But then I decided to try it anyway since the only Dutch oven I have is an old 4-quart oval Vision Ware my mom gave me. You know, those brown Pyrex dishes that were all the rage in the 90’s, well, my Mom got a whole set. If it did break during the cooking process, that could be my excuse to get a new Dutch oven (woohoo!). But, it didn’t break and what I got, instead of a brand new Dutch oven, was the most incredible loaf of bread I had ever baked in my life. I couldn’t believe the crust was so crunchy, it actually crackled while cooling (I am aware a number of other bloggers have noted this but I don’t care, I’m late with this post anyway)! The crumb’s texture was incredible, it was moist and flavorful.

After that first loaf, I went a little nuts and tried “a few” variations: Cranberry-Orange, Chocolate-Raisin, Multi-Grain, different types of flour… I’m telling you, this recipe is so adaptable, you could do pretty much anything you want with it except mess it up! I have to admit though, my favorite “variation” is closest to the original as possible, “au naturel” you might say, strait out of the oven, with steam coming out of the moist, warm bread. I still use the no-knead recipe regularly, especially when I need something to bring to a dinner party. I always get the same reaction: “You MADE that bread yourself!?”. So, if you’ve been on another planet for the last year and a half, or just afraid to ruin your only Dutch oven, here’s your chance to try this recipe! Better late than never…

And since this month's CLICK event theme is flour, the photo at the top of this post is my entry! Head on over to jugalbandi to see the other entries.

No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Flour, wheat bran or cornmeal for dusting, as needed

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a sheet of parchment paper with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on parchment paper and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 4- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under parchment paper and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Bubbles and Sunshine

Again with something warm and soothing to inspire a little sunshine into the cold of Winter. It seems to me all the snow outside will never melt, there is so much snow this year! One of the only things I truly love about winter is hot chocolate. Up until this year though, I had never made my own. Store-bought packets of “just add water” hot chocolate is all I’d ever used at home. Until yesterday…

I really needed a pick me up as I had just taken down my Christmas decorations (yes, January 28^th and my Christmas Tree was still up, I am not a organized person if you must know!) and I remembered a recipe I saw a few weeks back on Orangette. A wonderful, cappuccino-like hot chocolate, that really was as incredible as she described it. I mixed things up a little though by using milk chocolate instead of bittersweet, decreasing the sugar and adding a heaping ½ teaspoon of instant espresso powder. It was incredible. All the wonderful bubbles... I will never, ever drink packets of instant hot chocolate ever again. I can’t wait to try it again with bittersweet chocolate or even white chocolate! Oh! the possibilities!

And so, since this hot chocolate is both liquid and comforting, the photo at the top is my entry for this month’s CLICK event hosted by jugalbandi.

Hot Chocolate
Adapted from Orangette

1 ½ cups whole milk
2 ½ tbsp. water
½ tbsp. granulated sugar
3 oz. milk chocolate, finely chopped
½ to 1 tsp instant espresso powder

In a medium saucepan, combine the milk, water, and sugar. Place over medium heat and whisk occasionally until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture just to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the chocolate and the espresso powder. At this point, blend the mixture. If you have an immersion blender, you can do this directly in the saucepan; if not, you’ll need to transfer it to a traditional blender. Either way, blend for 1 minute (on high speed, if using a traditional blender - and take care(!), as hot liquids expand when blended). The finished mixture should be very smooth and frothy.

Serve immediately.

Note: Should you have any leftover hot chocolate, you can store in the refrigerator for 2 days. Reheat it gently over low heat, stirring occasionally, until hot. Blend for 1 minute; then serve immediately.

Yield: 2 servings