jackal10

What a day! THe hordes descended and ate and drank...nothing left...I guess we picked and processed a metric tonne of apples and made something like 500 litres of juice Completely knackered...I'll post pix in the morning. My collegue Jamie made this excellent panoramic view from fairly early in the proceedings. Its very wide, so you may need to scroll sideways. It covers more than 360 degrees - there is only one table! http://67.18.205.234/~jack/applepick04_medium.jpg The pizza dough takes about 4 hours to prove - its sourdough remember. I guess its useable for another 4-6 hours, although you could retard it in the fridge for up to 24 hours or so. When we ran out of dough, Dan Lepard kindly made some up with conventional instant yeast, but flavoured with sourdough starter that was ready in half an hour...

Good Morning! Its bright and suuny, with only a gentle breeze. I've adsorbed two mugs of coffee, and it looks like it will be a good day... The pheasants and the squirrels have come and had their breakfast at the kitchen door. They will make themselves scarce for the day I've set up a webcam on . http://67.18.205.234/~jack/ccam.jpg. It will reload every 30 seconds.It might even reload here if you refresh the page! Unfortunately the view includes some of the scaffolding. The oven is under the trees mid right in the distance. The pork had cooked overnight to falling off the bone perfection. The oven was at 125C this morning. Took the pork oput, and light a small fire on one side to heat for the pizza later. Got out the beef - the supermarket had kindly hung it for me for a fornight - amazing what they will do if asked nicely. I'll long time low temperature cook this, and then flash it in the super hot wood fired oven. The beef is Scottish wing rib on the bone, but nicely butchered. Mde the pizza dough. 4.5Kg/10lbs flour, 90g sea salt, 3 litre water, and the rest of the starter.. time to get my hands stuck in and messy.. Next up, the salmon en croute, and the tourte. Will report when I can...

I think Pizza crust should be thin and crisp. Basically it will be a version of the standard white sourdough, bulk fermented for four hours or so.

Thanks! I've ordered it!

Last years apple pressing day is on Dan's website at http://www.danlepard.com/applejack.htm. There is a chance Dan may come today. I guess you've seen his eGCI Baking Day

I hope we won't have any left over, or that people will take whatever is left away with them... It was about 6 large onions and 500g/1lb raisins to 2Kg/5lbs flour. The onions were softened and slightly caramelised in some butter, the allowed to cool first.

Its past midnight, and its been a busy day, including the couple who turned up a day early for the party! Where were we... Second batch baking (red onion and rasin, and the chocolate challa) Cross sections above. The chocolate challa stuck to the peel a bit, so ended up a bit squished. I wonder if the acid in the sourdough made the chocolate go very dark reddish, like devils cake. Some bread: The oven was still over 200C, so put the pate in for a couple of hours, in a bain marie. This is it uncooked. After that the oven was still over 150C, so I put in the BBQ pork ribs (with my own secret spice rub) to cook overnight.. Made some Pimento Cheese. It was that or Lipatauer, and Pimento won, since everything was on hand After all that supper needed to be something simple and quick: Pasta carbonara Enough already! Until the morning... List for tomorrow: Light oven Make Pizza dough Put on beef Make salads (green, cucumber I guess) Pick more tomatoes Set up car park Make Tourte Blette etc Make salmon en croute Bake off chicken, sausages etc Set up for Pizza making, Lay out breads, cheeses, pate etc Put out beer etc Set up apple press Await the throng... Looking over the blog I see the promised potato kugel never happened, since the tzimmes had potatoes in it. Maybe next week...

It wasn't the high sugar content that made if difficult to shape, but the big lumps of solid chocolate! Tzimmes, like lobscouse, can come with or without meat...I think it was poor mans food, and they cooked what they could.

As I said above, the internal brickwork is a shell bought from Four Grandmere. The external brickwork was built on site by a local bricklayer.

That sounds like a book I'd like to read! Can you find a reference? Thanks!

Yes its all from the supermarket or the garden. The only veg (so far) from the market are the onions, which I find are just as good if not better than the ones I grow. I try an buy veg with the least food miles. We do have farmers markets, but they are of variable quality. The sweetcorn for the pizza is a tin of Jolly Green Giant kernals. Some like it, I don't myself, but it is a common pizza ingredient here. I'm growing some, not very sucessfully, as the mice, squirrels, pigeons, munjac etc eat it before I do. Also the main block of it this year turned out to be (by a mix up) strawberry corn, whicj is mostly ornamental but cab be used for popcorn. I'll try and get a snap tomorrow. Other years I've had success with bi-colour super-sweet, like Thompson and Morgan's Honey and Cream and also with Indian Summer. Tomatoes This year I am mostly growing Gardeners Delight (small red) and the ever wonderful Sungold (yellow sweet cherry). For bulk I grow Fireworks (bush, Flame deriviative), but its not doe well. I have a few plants of other that people give me or swap like Apricot Brandywine, Hector, Maryanna's seedling (disapointing). This is more arable than cattle country, so there are no small butter producers or dairy farmers. The regulatory regime also make it difficult - you may remember the foot and mouth, and the mad cow epidemics recently. I could get Neals Yard unpastuarised cream from a farm sjop locally, but they have stopped shipping it. I'm using mostly President, an unsalted french butter, and also unsalted English Country Life. Generic, but OK.

Here you are: Wholemeal Red onion and raisin Note the thin but crisp crusts...

I only really fire the oven for entertaining, and also occaisonally baking a batch of bread to sell at a charity event, maybe half a dozen times a year. It would be a lot easier and cheaper to give them the money! It took maybe 6 months to build, but we had builders in anyway, building the new garage, so bricklayers and other trades were on site. Its bult around a shell made by Four Grandmere. The circle is the pipe for the embedded thermometer. I've done some hot-smoking in it with a small fire, but you can't really smoke in it - it gets too hot. I should have built a smoke-box in the chimney, but its really better seperate, as smoking needs a different sort of fire, and a long pipe to cool the smoke. Another project...

Its about 33% starter, which is about 2 of water:flour by weight, so about 10% white flour, an 90% wholemeal

Not a silly question at all. I think what happens is as follows: The heat has two functions: to activate the expansion, and to then set the matrix. Bread the expansion is mostly by heating the gas; the gluten/starch matrix sets at quite a high temperature, so to get bread to rise you need a hot oven, Pizza is thin, so conduction is not an issue, but for larger loaves you need lower temperatures. Cake sets differently, mostly by denaturing the egg protein. It also expands differently, from chemical action of the baking powder, both of which only need lower temperatures. Highre temperatures would cause the high sugar content to burn, before the inside gets up to temperature.

First batch of bread out; next batch in. Makes me respect artisan bakers - its a hard way to make aliving... J for Jack!

I seem to be talking to myself here a bit... First batch in. The sourdough has risen nicely overnight in the fridge Tools of the trade: On the right is a lame a curved razor blade on a stick, used to slash the tops of the loaves. The slashing provides an expansion point othewise the crust would inhibit the rise (oven spring). In the old days the different patterns of slashing would distinguish people's loaves in the communal oven. It is very sharp! On the left is my shiny new peel, used for putting loaves in and out of the oven. The loaf is turned out onto the floured peel (floured so it does not stick), slashed and put in the oven. Note how the pattern of the basket has been imprinted in the dough Loaves in the oven. The rear ones have already begun to rise. At the front are some cut into bun size triangles

Its now 16.30, the fire has burned down to embers, and the oven is up to temperature. The dome has gone from sooty to clear. The embers are raked out into the ash bin - that is the metal box hanging on the front. It has a lid which closes it tightly to extinguish the charcoal, that cen be used to light the next fire The oven fllor is then swabbed out. Traditionally thsi was done with a baker's scurfle, a rag on the end of a stick (and hence the expression for a dirty person), but I use an ordinary floor mop. My radiant themometer says the dome surface temperature is 350C/660F, and the floor about 300C/575F. I'll leave it with the door closed dor about half an hour to even out in temperature. Besides its raining again, and I want to let the rain shower go through. In case you are wondering about health and safety, the temperature is well above sterilisation, and the wood is untreated, so there are unlikley to be noxious chemicals. The base of the loaves might get a slight disting of wood ash, but that adds tpo the flavour. Mankind has baked this way for hundreds of year without too much harm..

Cladia Roden mentions Salmon poached in white wine, as a Russian dish. Not sweet and sour, however. I've also found recipes for pickled salmon, made form cooked salmon steeped in vinager. I wonder if its a version of that?

Its now raining ,which was not forecast, although the forecast http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/24hr.shtml?id=1417 remains fine for tomorrow. Some of the fish cakes evaporated from the fridge. Call it lunch. Here is the bread oven It stands outside the kitchen, under some apple trees. I built it instead of a barbeque. (Do you prefer the bigger or smaller pix?) The house stands on the edge of an ancient wood, so we use our own firewood. That dip is said by one of the local historians to be the ditch at the edge of a medieval road, but the evidence is poor. They have, however, found the remains of bronze age metalworking in the next field. It mostly elm scrub and coppiced hazel (the squirrels get the nuts before we do, with a few oak trees. In spring it is carpeted with bluebells, and wild garlic grows there. We mostly use the fallen timber. Wood waiting to be chopped up, and stacked Today we will also be using some cherry wood, from a tree that fell down some years ago. Lit the oven. It takes about four hours to heat. This is a "black" or retained heat oven. Black beacuse soot coats the surface of the vault until it gets hot enough to burn off. The fire is in the same chamber as the food, and relies on the massive thermal capacity (and insulation) of the brickwork. The fire heats the brick, and is then removed, the oven swabbed out, and the bread cooks in the residual heat stored in the bricks. Its well insulated, so only loses about 7C per hour, and is fairly fuel efficient - one barrow of wood will be more than enough to cook for 100 people. For maximum efficiency you take advantage of the falling temperatures 500F Pizza. with the fire in the oven 400F Breads, roasts 300F Tarts, cakes 200F Long cooked stews 100F Neringues, dry herbs etc " Fire in the hole"

Thanks. I always knew I was a figment of the imagination, but whose? The Ashkenazi cuisine was in remembrance of Rosh Hashonna...normal goyische regime will resume. However I don't know the sweet and sour salmon recipe - it sounds delicous - could you post it please? Especially as the supermarket had run out of whole salmon (see below), so I have two salmon sides. I was going to do salmon en croute, but sweet and sour sounds better... This morning started badly - the scaffolders came to change the scaffolding for the building work, and what with one thing and another I'm now running about 4 hours late. That meant I hit the supermarket later than I meant to, so it was more crowded, and the traffic was worse. The supermarket is the local branch of Tesco, about 5 miles from here. Apparently it is one of the larest in the country. Anyway is is a very large, soulless tin shed, although the staff really do try to be helpful, and they have a good organic range. They are open 24/7. I guess supermarket shopping is the same all over the world. Two hours and two hundred quid later..actually that is quite cheap, considering the number we are feeding. Cell phone camera are great, but I can see they could intrude.. The fish counter had whole salmon on special, but has sold out...

7.30 AM Saturday Coffee... First thing this morning is a trip to the supermarket (Tesco) before the crowds get there. Although they have an excellent Internet ordering and delivery, I still prefer to go myself - maybe because I prefer to pick the fresh produce myself, and can make instant decisions and substitutions... Shopping list so far PIzza components: Onions Mushrooms Peppers Anchovy Olivs Pineapple Corn Salami (home grown tomatoes and tomato sauce, herbs. I already have the Mozarella) Protein: Beef, ribs, chicken bits, sausages Salmon, Mayo Cheeses Eggs Dustbin bags, Cleaner, dishcloths, kitchen roll Cream/ceme fraiche/Yogurt Butter Olive Oil Avocado After that we'll fire the oven make the tourtes etc... Thanks for all the compliments, but I was hoping for more criitique, culinary discussion and suggestions...

I meant to add i was thinking of setting up a webcam, maybe pointed at the oven in the interests of exploring the medium. a) Would anyone be interested in watching it? b) Three ways to do it: - Set up a private Yahoo IM room. Hs the limit of 30 people at any time, and you would need a Yahoo id., but it does support streaming video. - Similar but using MSN and Windos messenger. - Upload an image to a web page, refreshing say every 30 seconds. I can set this up fairly easily, but it s not streaming video. Any interest, or would it be a waste of time? Any preferences as to method?

I've made far too much bread. 7 large wholemeal loaves (although some of those may be divided and reshaped for rolls) 3 Onion and Raisin 1 Chocolate challa. We will have to have five fishes...Not quite the feeding of the five thousand, and no Messiah, but close.. Might give the bagettes I'd planned a miss, unless there is an outcry from my readers.. Wholemeal sourdough: dividing and then shaping into boules. You do this by sort of rolling the dough along the pastry board with one hand on the side, so the friction of the board tightens the dough. We are working with very wet doughs, and you are trying to eliminate large internal air pockets ("the house where the baker sleeps") to give a uniform texture, and to stretch the surface gluten to get a tension to help hold the shape. They then go upside down into bannetons, which as Carrot Top remarked are cloth, usually linen, lined wicker baskets, although you can get all sorts and I've improvised some. The basket supports the now fragile and wet dough during proof. The dough is an increasingly delicate sponge, and needs careful handling from here until baking. The banneton, like the cane basket here, can have a pattern, which imprints itself on the bread. The inside is lightly floured. The bread will about double in the oven. They are now all in the fridge, retarding (slowing the ferment) overnight. This allows me to bake at my leasure, and I think the stiffer cold dough is easier to handle and rises better. Of course, wholemeal, and bread with fruit or other bits in it never rise as well as plain white, since the bran or the additions puncture some of the gas cells The red onion and raisin bread is also divided and shaped, and put into long bannetons. The chocolate challa doesn't seem to have risen as much as I expected. I wonder if the high sugar content is inhibiting the sourdough. Turned out easier to shape than I feared. The only difficulty is that clearing up us a major hassle. Anyone know any good ways? Dough is tenacious stuff and sticks to anything, and doesn't come off easily. It doesn't soak off. Best implement I've found is to scrape it off with a rubber spatula. If you get it on the dishcloth, it will never come out. Nightcap and then bed..shooping and then baking tomorrow.

I had in mind a compilation of culinary sins, tabulated along the lines of the Al Chait prayer, wherein observant jews confess their sins over the past year, sung to a jolly tune. I;m noit sure if these should be (as the original) formulaic general sins, or sins that one has personally comittted during the year. For the sin wherein we have sinned of using pre-processed foods For the sin wherein we have sinned of burning the food, and scraping off the burnt bits For the sin wherein we have sinned of over-salting For the sin wherein we have sinned of using non-organic or GM food For the sin wherein we have sinned of using chicken stock in vegetarian dishes For all these forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement..