Wholemeal Crank

I learned to love Swedish fish when I was working in an ice cream and candy shop, and had just become allergic to chocolate. They were my favorite of the permissible chocolate-free candies. One fish could be savored in small nibbles, and the different colors had distinct and pleasing flavors. Yes, they're not flavored much like actual fruit, but they were and remain a tasty treat. Sadly, though, with the popularity of the small boxes or bags of just mini red fish, it's gotten a little harder to find the full color spectrum without buying a very large bag--and because they are just flavored sugar and starch, I really don't like bringing home such a big bag. Here's hoping that the other sea creatures will be more available in different colors than the fish...

Today, not a lot of tea. Drank some cold-brewed sencha (an inexpensive sencha I tossed in cold water, purchased from my chinatown tea shop), and then some Yin Zhen Silver Needle from jingteashop. Reminds me of how much I like silver needle. So enjoying the plain teas that I have very little interest in flavored teas--gave away an overly strong milk oolong recently, because there are so many unflavored fantastic oolongs out there.

That may be the key point--combining flour that is 'green', from sprouted wheat, AND the long fermentation may be the perfect storm here. I have the same problem, generally to a lesser degree, with my usual bread made from fresh milled flour with long retardation. It's time to do some experiments--I won't be doing the sprouted wheat again for a while, as it was very time and energy intensive, but perhaps one dough prepped from fresh milled flour and retarded a few hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, etc, to see if gumminess develops differently in them.

Depends on the tea, not the teabag: I've gotten several resteepings from a nice oolong tea that happened to be bagged, and some really nice sencha, but wouldn't push a cheap black tea....wouldn't steep a cheap black tea even once, actually.

Excellent! Do you know what kind of teas you'll be tasting, so you can read up on the relevant chapters?

Happy camper with my Nordic Ware poppers--have one for home and one for the office. Inexpensive, highly functional, and portion enforcing: when using an air popper, it's easier to double up on the popcorn (and thus the amount of highly calorific toppings). With this one, if I season it in the bowl after popping (with real butter, or with butter plus popcorn sauce), I have to clean the bowl before I make more. So I eat it more sensibly than voraciously. So far, I ignore the discoloration, use with any popcorn, and keep a measuring scoop in the jar of popcorn so I know one scoop per batch, and set the timing based on the sound of the kernels, just like with the commercially bagged product (for one slightly heaping 1/3 cup measure of generic yellow popcorn, 3:15 for my home microwave, and 2:20 for the more powerful machine at work). Set aside hot popcorn, melt butter, toss, and eat.

This weekend I've been 'breaking in' the mini yixing pot I wrote about in the teaware topic with a very fine aged puerh, 60s Guang Yun Gong from Essence of Tea. Although the little pot only holds about one ounce, really less since it's so stuffed with tea that the leaf takes up a significant portion of the tea, and some water is getting poured over the pot at times, the need to refill the kettle tells me that I've cycled at least a liter of water through this stuff, and it's still tasty. Wow. There's a particularly nice silky mouthfeel coming out in these later infusions. Also have been enjoying Den's Shin-ryoku sencha, and between this and another packet of some of Norbu's Zairai sencha, I have some time to contemplate where to place my next sencha order. I really enjoyed my Yuuki-cha teas last year, but I'm quite tempted to explore a little further with other suppliers along with restocking that brilliant Sayamakaori. Another minor sencha breakthrough was realizing recently that I can often get another nice infusion out of my morning sencha by filling the kyusu with cold water and refrigerating it to drink later. I suspect I'll be trying a lot more cool-brewed teas when the hot weather comes to stay.

Huang Shen Mao Feng from Jing Tea Shop I was very curious about this tea in particular because I've very much enjoyed Norbu's large-leaf green tea from Yunnan also called "Mao Feng", but I suspected it was quite different from the 'real thing', and wanted to see what the original was like. Medium green, thin twisty leaves on Flickr 5 grams in a 200mL pot with about 150mL of water, 150 degrees First infusion 30 seconds, warm, sweet, a certain smoky/toasted/grilled vegetable background….. 2nd infusion 20 seconds, pale green liquor, the sweet warm flavor is still there, but the toasted vegetable flavor--not a bitterness, perhaps a touch of astringency in it--is dominant now. Ran out of time, so I added cold water and set the leaves to the refrigerator to try to get one more steeping out of them. But the resulting infusion, a day later, has a strong bitterness underlying a delicious fresh sweet vegetal flavor; I did not finish it. I also forgot to shoot the leaves after infusion, but they were pale minty green, long, thin, rolled almost into little cylinders. I used a quite moderate tea-to-water ratio, and very cool water with short brewing times, all designed to moderate and minimize any bitterness. This is a tea that sat, sealed from the shop, for some months before I opened it, so it might have lost something re: freshness. Before assuming this just isn't my cup of green tea, I'll try it again--it took me nearly a year to 'get' Dragon Well, after all.

Some recent teaware acquisitions starting with the tiniest yixing ever.... The newest, tiniest member of the household....first, trying to give a sense of scale--how tiny it is: It matched sizes beautifully with the tiny green cup from a scent cup set. Tiny teapot by debunix, on Flickr I admit I bought it mostly as a novelty, but while it is so tiny that it's a bit awkward, the tea brewed in it (an aged puerh sample from Essence of Tea) was delicious. It's from Dragon Tea House on Ebay. While I was there, I also bought a very small gaiwan: This is about the same size as some that I got as part of 'travel' sets, but more practical for routine use because it has a saucer that fits it snugly and helps me avoid burnt fingers.

My stock cupboard is nearly bare, and it's time to can more vegetable stock. The discussion about stocks in the Modernist Cuisine Q&A was something I was really looking forward to, and I'm definitely going to be trying some new things with this batch, but I also still have a lot of questions. (1) Is there any reason, apart from the appearance of the final dish, why clarity matters for a vegetable stock, or, for that matter, any stock? Does it signify some muddying of flavors to have some little bits of stuff flaking off the stock ingredients? If so, the traditional clarification steps at the end with eggs or gelatin or skimming make sense. If the issue to that cloudy bits mean the stuff was poorly handled in ways that degrade the flavor--e.g., potatoes or celery cooked to the point of dissolving are also releasing some unpleasant element into the stock--then clarifying at the end makes no sense and working to prevent it from the start is the only way to go. But if the key point is simply appearance, then it's not important for me cooking for my own enjoyment. (2) Why is the vegetable stock cooked sous vide and not pressure cooked? (3) The rationale given for why vegetables should not be grated or ground for stock--taking the fick's law argument one step beyond small dice--is that it changes the rate of flavor extraction 'and the traditional 2:1:1 ratio of vegetables no longer applies'. Keeping consistent with a traditional formula hardly seems sufficient reason to not take the next step; I'm wondering if some other elements are released that are less favorable, and how the specific vegetables in question affect the results (my favorite recipe, the Summer Vegetable Stock, includes not only carrots, celery, onion, but also eggplant, tomatoes, summer squash, greens, green beans, mushrooms and herbs). I may have to do some experimenting now, unless someone else has already done this for me.

I adored my stainless sinks. Stuff bounced rather than broke. Yes, scale could buildup and scratches happen, but it doesn't chip like porcelain or stain like it either. Can't wait to own one again. After a while the scratches fade into a relatively uniform used look that is fine with me. Don't want a stainless fridge if it's not good with magnets. I like magnets.

A tea-poor weekend, with a non-tea-drinking houseguest, but getting back on track today with a long session of Spring Alishan oolong from Norbu for the afternoon clinic; then Bi Luo green tea from Wing Hop Fung for an interlude; and now Ya shi dan cong oolong from Tea Habitat for the end of the day. The Ya Shi is performing especially nicely in this miniscule yixing pot, infusion after infusion with finally diminished flavor after more than a dozen infusions, but even the 'sweet water' finish is neatly fruity. Good stuff.

In this case, I waited about an hour. But the problem is chronic and seen in loaves that go several days before use. Do you think this would counteract the effect of the very fresh flour? I do have ascorbic acid on hand in the pantry, but do not often remember to use it.

This seems like an excellent first step that could cut down the possible culprits to qualities of my flour vs qualities of my dough preparation & baking. I'll start here! I'm wondering if internal temps need to vary between different types of flours as well as between different types of loaves. It makes sense that different flour would hold onto water differently at different temperatures, and that it might not be as simple as x degrees means y amount of moisture left in the crumb. I should be able to test this fairly readily with my thermometer, some small loaves, and a little patience. The gummy loaves were not simply a problem with sprouted flour, although it was more dramatic than I'm used to seeing. In this case, my first try with sprouting wheat before milling, I did not let the sprouts go quite as far as I usually do when I prepare the sprouted wheat apricot bread from Flatbreads and Flavors. Here they are just before I started to dry them and after drying, before milling Does that seem like I sprouted them too far? I remember reading someplace that very fresh flour started to undergo changes that rendered its baking properties worse for a time, but that if used immediately, those changes had not yet taken place, and it would actually make excellent dough. It's one of those things that I remember reading with great relief because it applied to my very specific situation--having perfectly fresh flour--but is also the sort of detail that is so rarely relevant to home bakers that few authors address it in home cookbooks. I should start with a review of my McGee, and a batch of commercial flour, that will certainly have aged a bit before it gets to me.

White tea, green tea, and white puerh today: some of Dens Shin-ryoku sencha to start, then on to a thermos of 2007 white bud sheng puerh from Norbu, followed by some Tai Ping Hou Kui from Wing Hop Fung, and then the unique Forbidden Fruit Orchards white tea. Very nice, but tomorrow I may rebound with nothing but oolong!

I recently read about sprouted wheat flour in Peter Reinhart's Pizza Quest blog. That discussion led me to try making some sprouted wheat flour bread, after I sprouted some wheat, dried it, and milled it. Then I made a simple flour/water/yeast/salt loaf with 90% hydration--as Peter suggested, the flour easily accepted this extreme hydration and remained intact and elastic. The dough was prepared in the food processor, with several breaks for the flour to hydrate before the final kneading; left to rise about an hour before retarding in the refrigerator for 3 days (unexpected work problems interfered with the original plan of holding the dough overnight only before rising/proofing/baking); then the dough was turned out, lightly kneaded and shaped into small round loaves, proofed in a 100° oven, and then baked. I am still lousy with a lame so it was essentially unslashed. The problem? Despite cooking the bread to an internal temperature of 205 degrees, the crumb was damp, sticky, and gummy (though still quite tasty): and I recognize this is a common fault in my breads that long predates the experiment with the sprouted wheat flour. I usually am working with fresh non-sprouted whole wheat flour, prepared in my impact mill a few minutes before I make the dough, prepare the dough in the food processor per the directions from Van Over's Best Bread Ever and many of them experience extended refrigeration between the first kneading and before shaping/proofing (not always intentionally). I'm not sure where to look for the source of the faulty crumb: if the loaves are simply underbaked, does that suggest that these high-hydration whole wheat breads need to be brought to a higher internal temperature than white flour breads? Is the long-rise a likelier suspect? A problem common to freshly milled flour? Or is there some other systematic fault I should be investigating?

The biggest obstacle I had to overcome to consistently enjoy good tea was the confidence to try something more than the two teas I was first introduced to: once I realized that I liked tea, I tried occasional bagged teas here and there when dining out, and generally was so disappointed that I gave up and stuck to the ones I knew well. Eventually I started to buy a little here and a little there of some different teas, found forums like this one, read a couple of books about tea, and then the tea mania took over. I'm not sure if you're stuck at quite the same point, but you clearly like tea, know that there are some better teas out there than what you're routinely drinking, but are puzzled at how to consistently buy & brew better tea. One excellent program that's easily available is outlined in the "Harney & Sons Guide to Teas". They walk you through a series of tastings comparing various teas in different styles, and while it may be impossible to procure exactly the teas they discuss, I found it a very useful thing to read and reread as I was exploring teas. And one of the most useful things I got out of it was the idea of comparative tastings, setting about it like wine. That, plus a good digital thermometer and a scale, were what I needed to gain the confidence to shop for and brew better teas. Are you looking for a more specific program, or is that a good start?

Have had a couple of very nice tea days this weekend. Today, started with more sencha, then on to a very good session with a sometimes problematic tea, Silver Dragon, a white tea from Wing Hop Fung, but brewing it very cool really cut down on the sometimes bitter taste that can be offputting. Brewed at 150, it was surprisingly Dragon Well like. It also seems more green than white tea. Now working with a little Menghai tuo "2005 Early spring' that I got from Yunnan Sourcing. It is still a bit aggressive in the early infusions--not really smoky, but with a strong inclination to a bitterness and astringency that is not as easy to overcome as that in the very young loose shengs I've been drinking lately. It's now very mellow at the end of the infusions--still gets a little more flavor than simple sweet water, but not much more.

That looks beautiful. When you're trying to achieve that effect--watching the leaves 'dance' in the cup like that--how do you set up? I presume you start out with adding leaves to water in the cup at first, but how do you handle the very slow-to-wet pileup of fuzzy floaty silverneedle leaves? Drink around them for the first few infusions, until they start to drop to the bottom of their own accord? Pour water gently over them for the next infusion? Yesterday, I started with a lovely bulk brewing of Ti Guan Yin from Jing Tea Shop, and then had a fabulous long session with Ya Shi dan cong from Tea Habitat. Two different sides of oolong tea, both so marvelous and distinct. Today, opened a fresh pouch of Den's Shin-ryoku sencha, and it's very nice to come back to it and find it still as delicious as I remembered. Mmmm.

Yesterday was a nice variety tea day--started with Tai Ping Hou Kui from Jing Tea Shop, light and sweet for a change from sencha; then shared some Dragon Well with colleagues, including a new hire who says she drinks green tea at home ("this boxed stuff that my husband buys"); enjoyed a thermos full of Da Hong Pao (no idea what generation from the original trees, but quite a nice version from Norbu) during a long but surprisingly efficient meeting; moved on to some Wuliang Shan loose sheng mao cha; and ended the day with a bit of Ya Bao wild tea buds and camellia flowers. Today, so far, some Yin Zhen silver needles from Jing Tea Shop; and another wonderful batch of the Dong Xing deep roast oolong from Taiwan via Norbu. A nice tea for a stressful day at work.

Tai ping hou kui is definitely a favorite since I first tried some, whether the lower grade version I first encountered at my local market, or the fancy version I have since enjoyed from Jing Tea Shop. The delightful spiciness is quite unexpected in a delicate sweet green tea. Today, some nice Da Hong Pao from Norbu, and I'm now enjoying a good session with Honey Orchid Dan Cong from Tea Habitat. Both teas with a pleasant spiciness.

Home cook & wholemeal crank in Los Angeles.

Had some lovely local asparagus this evening--just steamed, and it needed nothing else. Perfect, sweet, plump, tender, probably the best asparagus experience I have ever had. My favorite way to prepare my favorite spring vegetable.

ok. Will do a recount and check back in soon. Modernist = 6.

Today has been a quiet teaDay, some Ya Shi Dan Cong, and now another endless session with Hankook's Hwang Cha 'oolong' tea. I am consistently amazed by how long the sweet flavor can continue to infuse gaiwan after gaiwan of tea. So good!