jackal10

Please just use flour and water. That is what the culture needs, since that is what it feeds on in the bread. Ideally use the same flour as you will use in the bread, so use wholemeal if you make wholemeal bread. Anything else added competes for nutrients, and has to work its way out of the culture, taking longer to get to a stable culture. You can add some rye flour or diastic malt which have more amylases to help break down the starch to simple sugars, but ordinary flour, unless chemically treated, bleached or otherwise sterilised will carry enough yeast and lactobacillus load to start fermenting. Teperature (85F) is also fairly critical to select the right bugs. Recipes with grapes and the like bubble quickly and start to ferment beacuse of all the sugar in the grapes, but it is the wrong yeast doing the fermenting. When the grape sugar runs out, they die, or compete with the right yeasts. Other things like milk, I guess are added in the mistaken belief that Lactobacillus in sourdough comes from or eats milk, which it doesn't - it converts lactose to lactic acid. They are just contaminats in the starter, and eventually drop out from the dilution of regular feeding.

Wow! bet they taste as good as they look! Be warned, they don't last. They are so light and moreish they somehow evaporate from the plate if left accessible... I think there is a whole unexplored world here, with similar foods like the South Indian Vadams and appalams, different flavourings and starches..

Personally I would use the one you captured ....if its active you can start to bake with it. Personally I don't like the Goldrush starter. I think its mainly for asale to the tourists, although they did do pioneering eductional work. After a while whatever starter you begin with will evolve to your own, adapting to your flour and your feeding regime. If you are in SF why not beg some starter or a piece of dough from one of the bakeries, like Acme, or visit SFBI http://www.sfbi.com/

Its Hal McGee on Mayonnaise in "Curious Cook", but the same principle applies

The proportion I give in the lesson is the classical ratio, and the Escoffier method. McGee has a long discussion in "The Curious Cook", and a discusion of the methods in "Food and Cooking". Since butter is already an emulsion, the sauce practically makes itself, so long as you don't get it too warm. There is a version of hollandise where you make a sabayon, a heat stabilised egg yolk foam that is then flavoured with butter. Its proponents claim it makes a lower fat version. Personally I find it too eggy, and more like a sauce mousseline. The egg foam needs to be heated to about 120F/50C to stabilise, but not a lot more or it will curdle. The margin of error is small. Traditionally this is done by beating in a double boiler. The melted butter is then folded in gently, so as not to lose all the air. The cooking.com recipe is curious, and seems to have omitted a step. I wonder if they originally made it in a Thermomix or equivalent, where the blender is also heated. Their recipe does this by using hot butter, but the butter will need to be close to boiling. Since there are roughly equal amounts of butter and egg mixture, to raise the temperature by about 40C, you will need butter at 90C. That temperature will change the taste of the butter, and the process leaves little margin for error. Sauce Divine (hollandaise with sherry, and if you like with truffle, cream and chicken stock) has lots of uses for warm dishes that go well with sherry, such as poached chicken breasts or fancier with a chicken ballotine. Might be interesting with kidneys. Also with Lobster or langoustines or the like, or with hot poached salmon. You can serve it with asparagus or artichoke hearts, although I prefer plain lemon, or with broccoli or even just with plain boiled potatoes

Aspic that melts when steamed. There have been several threads here on the subject

cocktail mini-bagels?

Wow thanks! I notice that some, like the rice, are cooked for 30 mins, but others the starch is not cooked, just stirred into hot water. My prawn recipe steams the dough for an hour before drying and slicing. What makes the difference?

Went to dinner with some South Indian friends, who made a feast. Things for which there are really no equivalents in Western cooking, but where the principles could be extended. For example Western cooking uses lentils and other dhals like chickpeas, but almost never grinds them. Here they were ground to produce interesting batters and textures. Our garcious hostess explained the secret to Vadais is their freshness and ground to "fluffyness" with very little water - she imported from Inda a wonderful electric stone edge roller mill. I want one - I could see it being a must have for molecular kitchens... She also served Vadums - crispy snacks. Since I had just done the prawn crackers ( http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=63405 ) I was very interested, since these are almost the same process. Again I feel they could be adapted to new and interesting things, although I expect there are already many varieties. I particularly liked the ones with onion in them. Anyone make their own? Recipies? Recollections? Secret tips?

Chicken stock improving vegetarian dishes

Don't think thay would be that sucessful. Raw leeks are quite tough and fibrous. However cooked a la grecque or in wine and oil I imagine they could be preserved.

Mice or other rodent. Happened to me a while ago

Don't forget the glass for the chef...

Looks like the loaf is under fermented. Maybe it was a bit cold where you fermented it.. Try doubling the time you bulk ferment...if you make a cut in the dough before shaping you should be able to see lots of small bubbles. It looks like the gas cells never developed, except in spots, rather than developing and then collapsing. That says to me its more like underfermentation, rather than underproofing, althoug overferementing can also lead to a grey crumb. I guess you will just have to experiment. Incidently I now think you don't have to knead for as long, expecially for first mixing. Its OK so long as the dough is uniform and well mixed. Its time, rather than mechanical work that hydrates and develops the gluten.

Would you drink it for pleasure? If not don't cook with it.

That looks great. Just like it should look. Mine is thick cream consistency. You clearly have activity there, and if it smalls OK, then go for it - take some out, refresh it and try baking a loaf.

I'm in Cambridge UK. Yes it was a Tesco bag! Do you want some? Traditionally you feed 2/3rds, that is 1/3rd of the previous starter to 1/3rd water and 1/3rd flour, throwing the surplus starter away, if you are up to volume. Often these recipes were for commercial bakeries needing to generate large amounts of sponge starter. For normal baking I now take 1 tbs of starter and use it to innoculate a cup of water and a cup of flour, and incubate for 4 hours, then its ready. I know Sam (slkinsey) has views and has posted here about refreshing from very small amounts of mother culture. I wouldn't go on volume increase, since that depends on many things. If the starter is a wet batter like poolish it won't rise much, but will show more bubbles on the surface. If its a more dough-like, then cutting it should show small bubbles on the cut surface.

You are doing fine. The bugs take a while or the optimum ones to establish, although the fast growing sugar eaters will zoom ahead and then drop out. The temperature is a bit cold - 85F is optimum. Move it closer to a radiator, or over a pilot light, or over a pan of warm water? I think you are not feeding it often enough. I would add more flour and water (I use equal amounts by volume, to give a thick batter consistency) twice a day. If your water has a high chlorine content you might consider using bottled water.

I guess you've seen Leon W Kania "The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible" ISBN 0-967452406, which is a book much like yoiu describe with good illustrations for the beginner. I've made in the past (for my own interest and use) apple jack with some of my own hard cider. Its easy to do - just leave a plastic keg in the deep freeze, and drain off the liquor. Depending on the cider you start with, its pretty rough stuff, as the process does not seperate out any of the congeners or fusel oils. I can't imagine drinking it for pleasure without further conditioning and aging.

Common as a snack food in the UK. Think of them as a vegetarian (or prawn) porky scratchings. Often come dyed garish colours. You can buy them either pre cooked or as chips in any supermarket or asian shop. For example http://www.sharwoods.com/range/product_det...roductTypeId=16 Note only 3% prawn in this commercial version, vs 50% in mine! As I said, they are representative of many similar foamed snack foods and papads - air is cheaper than ingredients.

After drying overnight in the warming oven. These will keep a long time in a jar To cook, either drop into hot oil, or microwave (2 mins). You can also grill - they need to get above 175C/350F to puff and gelatanise. The chips expand several times - uncooked on the left. Very moreish - some disappeared before they were photographed! Thanks for the feedback. I think they are basically the same as Cropeck/Krupuk/Keropok, except I have the impression that the Malay versions are larger, more plate size. Indian papads and papadums are similar, but with different starch. The industrial version of this process is used widely for snack foods - think of all those foamy fried snacks, as well as formed snacks like Pringles. The texture can be controlled by choice of starch mixture. I guess you can use any flavours you like. The starch matrix is just a carrier. The flavour needs to be fairly strong, as the starch expansion dilutes it a lot in the mouth. The raw dough is almost inedibly salty and spicy. I would think any flavour that works with flavoured potato crisps/chips wold work: black pepper, curry, Thai, herbs, worcester sauce etc. Also include things that can stand the processing, like the Nori. Sesame sounds good. You can use different fish (smoked fish is good), and although I've not tried I guess bacon might work. Other experiments would be with different starches, preferably high amylose, not waxy. Potato starch, or 50/50 semolina and rice flour might work, but give somewhat different structures. origamicrane questions: 1. how long do you need to knead the dough? Not long. Its just mixing, not developing the gluten. I just whizzed until a well developed even stiffish ball formed. You may need to adjust the water or add more starch, as different starches (or even batches) adsorb more or less water. 2. why use cooked prawns? why not raw ? I had cooked prawns to hand. I guess it would work with raw prawns, but they will exude water during cooking, which might not be a good thing. They are just flavouring, not structural. 3. after the dough is made couldn't you cut it into pieces and use a rolling pin to make small flat disks? then you could steam the disks it would probably take less time and dry them off in a slow oven? I guess you could, but I'm not sure you could get them as thin as the method shown here, especially as they expand during steaming. Steaming the disks without them sticking together or to whatever you were steaming them on would also be difficult.

Three days later the logs have lost their stickyness. Sliced and laid out to dry Colour is not good. The prawn only ones really are prawn pink, although they will lose most of their colour when eventually cooked.

Score the fat. in diamonds Rub with demerara sugar. Much easier to do this before you stud with cloves Stick cloves either in the center of each diamond or the intersections Pour cider over Bake half an hour in a hot oven 400F/200C, basting with the pan juices every ten minutes Eat hot ot cold

Yes, they were cooked peeled organic prawns Part two at the weekend when they have dried

In the Prawns thread I offered to demonstrate making Prawn Crackers (US Shrimp chips?) at home. The recipe is Home made prawn crackers These are amazing, and a good demonstration of the properties of starch. Unlike commercial shrimp (US) crackers you can put a decent amount of prawn in them. You can make nice variations, for example by including shredded Nori. Its a lot of work, but the chips keep for a long time. and make a novel nibble. Some chefs use them as a solid foam basis for additional flavourings... 1 lb shelled and minced prawns (or any fish etc) 1lb Tapioca flour (often available in Asian grocers) 1 oz salt 1 tsp ground white pepper 1 cup water. Bring salt, water, pepper to the boil. Pour the boiling water onto the tapioca flour and stir quickly. Add the minced prawns and knead as you would dough. If its too stiff add more boiling water, but it should be on the stiff side. Roll into a cylinder about an inch in diameter. Wrap in cheesecloth, if you have it, or put a cloth under and over the cylinders. Space them at last an inch apart to stop them sticking together. Steam in a bamboo steamer, or on a cake rack over a pan of plenty of boiling water at high for 45 minutes. After steaming, unwrap and cool the dough on a rack. Re-wrap and keep in a cool place or the fridge to dry - maybe 3 days, untl you can cut very thin slices with a sharp knife. Don't hurry the drying process before you cut the chips. Lay the slices on a piece of cardboard and dry in the sun or a low oven until brittle. You can store for a long ime in a n airtight container. To use deep fry in hot oil at 360F. They will puff in seconds. Ingredients. This is quarter recipe quantity, and whizzed together with the water, salt, pepper to make a stiffish dough Roll into cylinders anout an inch across, I put some crumbled toasted Nori in half Put intoi a steamer Steam for 45 mins These are very sticky until they dry! Cover with a cloth and leave in the fridge to dry for 3 days or so. End of part one - part two when they are dry