Heartsurgeon

i have a all clad slow cooker, and have confit'd both duck and turkey legs in it. i used the warm setting (closest to 180 degrees) for 12 hours on the turkey legs, 8 hours on the duck legs. the low setting is still to hot. the warm setting worked great!

your bread looks fantastic. i agree you slashing technique is not optimal. if this advice sounds pedantic, i apologize. it reflects my own experience (mostly errors). your bread should "open up" more with proper slashes. this will make your crumb (which looks pretty darn good already) even better. I prefer deep slashes. Slashing high hydration dough is tricky however. The dough sticks to your knife, and the wet dough tends to seal back up after its slashed. To counter these problems... I use a teflon coated knife (Kuhn Rikon Paring Knife Nonstick, abpout $10.00), that i hide from the family, so it only gets used to slash dough. Slash the bread JUST before you pop it in the oven, not a moment sooner!!!!! I place a line of flour on the dough, just before slashing, where i plan to make the cut. As i make the cut (usually 2-3 cuts per slash), i knock lots of the flour INTO the slash, after the first cut. This is critical, as it keeps the slash open. The 2nd and 3rd cuts are then being made through a valley filled with flour, to end up with a flour coated slash of the desired depth. Then pop the bread into the oven, then add the water to the pan. If you slash to soon, the slash will seal up, if you don't push flour into the slash, the slash will seal up. it appears to me, that your slashes may have sealed back up before the bread had a chance to really rise up. if you do it right, the bread will have tremendous loft, and the bread will open up like a flower. also, try some malt power, it makes your bread taste more "bready"

Oh well, Ombu appears to have gone out of business (at least they don't answer the phone, and the place appears to be cleaned out of furniture wit the doors locked... appears a new eatery may be appearring in the same spot in August called The Kitchen Table...i will report back Had brunch at Meridian...maybe not the best time to go...i was not inspired to return (perhaps my expectations were to high, like the price)... had a pretty nice meal (casual dining, sometimes with live music, lively atmosphere of Friday/Sat evening crown) Full Moon Oyster Bar. They have successfully recreated a Florida Keys/Oyster Bar in Winston-Salem. Food is good, nice vibe. It's definitely NOT fine dining, but you'll get a tasty meal for a reasonable price.

had a nice meal at FIG (in charleston). had a nice meal at Wild Olives (Johns Island), near Kiawah island. on Kiawah island, had a average meal (nothing special) at the Club House of the Ocean Course (Golf), HOWEVER, sitting on a huge veranda, in the shade, with cool oceans breezes, overlooking the 18th green, the ocean, uncrowded....magically serene and restful experience. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. It's like eating in heaven.

i have a "house rub" which is FABULOUS on salmon. created it by accident, trying not to waste any spices..what i made by accident, i now make on purpose. i know that most of you will not take to over-the-counter spice mixtures, and mix and use them (i know i probably wouldn't), but i implore you to give it a try. i can't make a seasoning rub more compelling than this. 50% Emeril's Original seasoning by volume 50% Jamacian Jerk seasoning Spice Islands the combination is spread generously (like you would apply a rub) on both sides of the salmon filet and rubbed/patted in. the salmon is then seared in canola oil on the cooktop (about 2 minutes/side). the surface of the salmon will take on deep red/brown crust, and the interior will be raw to barely cooked. unbelievable good. if you want, throw a fist full of fresh dill (stems and all), juice of half a lemon, teaspoon of chopped shallot, pinch of salt, black pepper, and 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream into a container (i use a deep large cup), and blitz it with a stick blender, to make a dill cream sauce... finally, i have started experimenting with Miso marinate/glaze. So far, its darn good with cod, and with tuna..haven't tried salmon yet, but i don't know why it should be great...

tasty looking! you have 2 options to improve crumb. increasing hydration ( which you've done). the second is rise time. how long are you letting your dough rise after you've shaped the boule? i gradually increased the rise time to 2 hours, and found that it improved the crumb significantly. i tried making bread years ago, and was not very successful (super dense and bland). gave up. this technique (props to Zoe), makes bread baking easy, reproducible, and fun. It does require tweaking however, as every little thing has some effect on the final outcome. However, by harnessing your OCD, fabulous bread can be result. Your greatest threat will become other family members..they will EAT your bread up and demand more......

enjoyed this greatly, had a great miso glazed cod there. Lantern 423 West Franklin Street Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2314 (919) 969-8846 i would happily eat there again

you need to mail me some of the bread for a taste test!

i use Fleischman's Instant Dry Yeast. i buy it at Sam's Club, about $5.00 for 2 pounds of yeast! it comes 1 pound foil packets. I keep it all refrigerated, and store the yeast in a Foodsaver jar under vacumn (came with the Foodsaver Sealer Kit). two pounds of yeast lasts me about a year! very reproducible results, NO flavor difference compared to many other yeasts including fresh. i went through a phase of trying all the different types of yeast i could find, to see if i could make my bread taste better (including the fresh yeast). frankly, the only difference i could identify was the price. the fresh yeast is crazy expensive compared to the Sam's Club/Fleischman's dry yeast. my flavor breakthrough (breadier tasting bread) was the addition of malt. the malt idea i got from reading the ingredients list of La Brea Bread, which i happen to like a great deal. actually, the whole reason i got into bread making was the La Brea bread went up in price significantly several years ago, and it irritated me to pay that much for bread, so i decided to make my own! i also trued numerous different flours, and ended up really liking King Arthur. there is a local grain miller about 30 miles away that will mill me winter wheat (high protein) 50 pound bags very inexpensively. I haven't done it to date, but you never know. if anyone out there is making large amounts of this bread, you may want to investigate local millers that will do this for you. google maps searching for grain millers will help you find them near you.

with the foccacia bread, the rosemary/garlic/salt combo is so flavorful, that the malt and semolina are probably not really contributing in a perceptable manner. you really have to try the rosemary/garlic infused oil. take your extra virgin olive oil, add lots of fresh rosemary (without stems)and several cloves of garlic and use a stick blender on it. strain the oil (it will have a gorgeous bright green color and an intense rosemary/garlic aroma) and use 50 gm/ml in the dough mix. Add 1 heaping tablespoon of the strained solids (rosemary and garlic) as well. Mix up your dough. reserve the remaining oil. just before baking, dimple the dough, and liberally brush the surface with the infused oil. lightly sprinkle the oiled dough with kosher salt. I no longer spinkle rosemary on the surface of the foccacia, as it tends to burn when baking.. this bread is simply amazing...you don't need any "dipping" oil with herbs or seasonings, as it is already incorporated into the dough. try it. you'll need looser fitting jeans once you do!

you need to break down the collage in the shanks, that requires higher temp than what you've listed (at least 160F i believe) i have done shanks at 180F for 8 hours (used a stick of butter as the fat). I approached it like a duck confit..you want all that collagen to break down. Be sure to rest the meat in the bag to allow the meat to retain/absorb fluid, prior to serving. the meat fill fall off the bone when you try to pick it up.

Everything is mixed together within a few minutes. I can't imagine how adding the salt to the water first, or the flour first, is going to make any measurable difference in the performance of the yeast. I put all the minor dry components (everything but the the flour) into a container first, add water and whisk until all the solids have dissolved. Then i add the flour and mix it in. If you don't get the minor dry components (particularly the malt) dissolved first, and evenly distributed in the final dough mix, you end up with little pockets of clumped up malt in your bread.

what sort of equipment do you already have? (Hobart mixer? capacity?) ovens? capacity? trays? workspace? refrigeration/cold room? you can probably source high protein unbleached flour from a local mill for pretty cheap (50 pound bags). bulk yeast from Sam's club is dirt cheap. If your really a tightwad, you can go sourdough and maintain your own starter or poolish for nothing. The King Arthur Flour web site has a professional section that lists recipes. You will have to tweak the bread recipe to accomodate your flour/ovens/etc. you have to think about labor, and when you want the bread available. You can pre-mix dough and keep in the cooler for up to a week, using as needed. With this approach (no knead bread, see the "Artisan bread in 5 minutes" thread, look on page 17-18 for the pictorial) you can make buns 1-2 hours ahead, then bake. hey, don't diss focciacia bread. it can be astonishing good, and FYI, it's ridiculously easy to make. with a fresh rosemary infused olive oil. you can store the mixed doug in the fridge, take out a lump, roll it out in a silpat lined baking sheet, let it rise for 1-2 hours, then cook it off. timing, labor and storage are the key. the ingredients are not where your costs are going to be.

i recommend watching this video for a demonstration of the technique i've seen.. just goes to show you lots of different ways to get the desired result. try lots of different approaches, and figure out what produces the kind of bread you yearn for.

i think the reason your seeing a turbocharged rise in your dough is the addition of the Organic Barley Malt. this is going to change the dynamics of the rise. typically, in the formula i've posted, using cold water, the dough will double to triple in volume over 3-4 hours if left out at room temp. it will stay at that volume in the fridge for 1-2 days, then slowly reduce in volume by about 25 percent. When formed into mini-buns, and left out at room temp for 2 hours, the formed dough doubles in volume. many times, i mix the dough and stick it straight into the fridge without any rise time at room temp. the dough still doubles/triple in volume, but it takes 3-4 days to happen in the fridge. this is what i do when i don't plan to use the dough until the following weekend. Works great. when you move to higher percent hydration, handling the dough becomes problematic, and getting the dough to keep its shape, and slide off a peel into the oven becomes a nightmare (at least it did for me) placing (dropping a big blob) of high hydration dough into a pre-heated, heavy dutch oven and covering it with a lid for about half the cook time is a very successful way to make large boules using the high hydration technique. I think Bittman (the culinary equivalent to Chuck Shumer) has written an NYT's article (and a youtube video) on this technique. I've never done it, but the previous post appears to be demonstration of how nicely it works. That's one FINE looking piece of bread....

i have used several different types of wash to hold the seeds (dilute egg wash, pekmez wash, molasses wash), they all tend to burn unless i turn the temp down. The main drawback with the seeds is the extra effort, and the mess (seeds end up all over the house when the kids eat the bread). It's important to put down the exact weights of all the ingredients used for any discussion of results. by weighing everything, you can intelligently tweak any recipe to the desired result. I cannot tell if everything will be alright with the recipe listed above, because i can't tell what your hydration percent is. Typically, over 82% hydration (weight of water = 82% weight of flour) and your dough will be overly wet. i prefer about 75% hydration so i can handle the dough and form the shape of bread i like, that's just my personal preference. it's very instructive to try several different types of flour (all-purpose, bread, different manufacturers) to see just how different the bread will end up, in terms of taste, texture and crust. i would say that you should just started with 75% hydration (middle of the road) with any new flour, and adjust the hydration up or down, depending on the results. Increasing hydration and the second rise time after forming, will tend to improve the crumb (bigger holes in the bread), but make it harder to handle the dough. i suspect your dough may be excessively wet. let us know how it turns out.

I have used sesame seeds, nigella seeds (black sesame), a mixture of black and white sesame seeds, and blue poppy seeds, and black poppy seeds. overall, the nigella seeds were he best in my opinion. Blue poppy seeds...meh. Black poppy seeds and regular sesame seeds are good as well. couple of drawbacks to seeds..makes sc

a tip with surface washes and seeds in my experience, when surface washes and seeds are used, you have to reduce the oven temperature (from 450 to 400 degrees) and increase the baking time (25% or so) so that the bread cooks (no gummy interior), but the seeds/surface wash doesn't burn. your sesame seeds and crust look a tad "toasted". if you like sesame...you should try nigella seeds (aka black sesame seeds)..sesame on steroids! if you take a systematic approach, and work on perfecting one element of your bread at a time, you should able to produce bread that is exactly what you want. if your not weighing your ingredients and using a oven thermometer, start doing it, it will allow you to reproduce your results from batch to batch. you should also try a few different flours to see what you like. Many people end up using king arthur all purpose. i ended up there. it's worthwhile to try different flours to see just how different they can be! final tips. bread freezes great! if you make more than you can eat, let it cool off and put it in a heavy duty zip bag and freeze it! you can microwave it later (the crust will become soft). a few minutes in the oven will firm up the crust. one more final tip. My Walmart sells King Arthur Flour for way less than anyone else.

here is a power-tool driven version of aioli that I made yesterday..(it's gone now!) 2 garlic cloves 1 large egg yolk 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon Stone Ground Mustard (you can sub Dijon mustard) 10 peppercorns pinch of salt 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 3 tablespoons vegetable oil stick it in a deep container blitz it with a electric stick blender - voilal! instant aioli. refrigerate overnite and the garlic mellows out, and the aioli becomes fabulous. we're in the new millenium! forget about a mortar and pestle....

"I wonder if I made a mistake ? The dough almost tripled, 3 hrs, before putting in fridge 14 hours ago, just checked and its now only doubled, the original volume." I think your going to be fine. I start with cold water and stick the dough in the fridge imediately. The dough will about triple in 24-48 hours, then it will come down in size to about double or less, as time goes on. If you used warm water, or left the dough out at room temp for several hours, it will rise right to the top of the container i use (see the pictorial). It then will settle in the fridge.

must have sides with steak? good wine good bread and Bearnaise sauce... if you insist on a true "side dish", it could be anything with Bearnaise sauce on top, to wit asparagus with Bearnaise sauce french fries with Bearnaise sauce it doesn't matter figure out how to make your own Bearnaise sauce, and smother the steak and anything else that is edible with it, and chow down.

looks good. what is the exact formula?

Thomas Keller lists a sous vide technique for rendering duck fat that i have used for duck, turkey and chicken fat - works great. run the skin/fat/bits through a meat grinder, bag it and place in a 198 degree bath for 1.5-2.0 hours. strain the solids out cool the liquids scoop the fat off the water/gelatin base! this gets every last molecule of fat rendered. If you don't have a sous vide set up, here is a quick and easy method which requires NO special equipment: grind/chop/process the skin/fat/bits anyway you can (finer the better). place the goop in a heavy ziploc freezer bag (exclude as much air as you can) place the bag in a pan of barely simmering water, put a small plate over the bag to submerge it. barely simmer the water for about 2 hours. strain the solids out cool the liquids scoop the fat off the water/gelatin base!

I learned how important "minor" details are in the final outcome of your bread. I baked bread at my Dad's house (different oven than mine). I baked the bread on a silpat (not the usual pizza stone). My Dad's oven is non-convection, and i had 2 trays of bread separated vertically by 3-4 inches, in the middle of his oven. The upper tray cooked significantly faster. The tops of the buns cooked (browned) significantly faster than the bases of the buns. The buns came out with a thinner crust overall, and the entire bun was less crunchy and softer. Exact same recipe, exact same technique (other than differences noted above), ENTIRELY DIFFERENT bun came out texturally. I was amazed how different the final product was. I guess i learned that you can't assume that any one recipe/technique will work the identically in a different kitchen. For those who are having a hard time getting fabulous bread, keep experimenting and figure out what works best with your setup. Making great bread can be remarkably gratifying, is generally appreciated by all, and can be a profound pleasure to eat.

basic recipe 750 gms water 12 gms salt 20 gms yeast 1000gms flour for additional flavor, i add 20 gms malt powder 20 gms semolina flour 2-4 hour room temp rise into the fridge, use for up to 2 weeks. i allow 2 hour rise time when using refrigerated dough bake at 450 degrees add 1 cup of water to a broiler pan in the bottom of the pre-heated oven just when you place the bread in the oven see my pictoral tutorial on page 17? or therabouts.