Ricotta Chive Sourdough Rolls

     I love baking bread with my sourdough starter, especially when I come across a recipe like Chive Ricotta Sourdough Rolls.  I found the recipe at  The Fresh Loaf.  If you are a beginner like me, you'll find lots of great websites for bread, but I think the two most useful have been  King Arthur Flour  and The Fresh Loaf.  Both have an abundance of tips, recipes, and help.  The hardest part of making these rolls was finding fresh chives (it only took three groceries, I know, I need to grow my own herbs).  This was one of those long process, slow fermentation breads.  It’s easy, it just takes a three days to get there.  Day one was making the levain and letting it ferment for 12 hours.  Day two, the final dough was mixed and kneaded, allowed to rise for 2 hours. After the rise it was punched down and refrigerated over night.  On day three, today, it was shaped, and allowed to rise for five hours before being brushed with an olive oil mixture and baked.  Wayne went into the kitchen as it was baking and said, “That sure smells good.”  He was right, and as it turns out the rolls sure taste good as well.  The ricotta helps to keep the bread light and delicate.  The chives add a subtle onion flavor.  Since the rolls are made into a knot, they make a beautiful presentation.  Wayne said they looked like folds of fabric.
     I must confess that I did not make my own ricotta; maybe some day.  My favorite use of ricotta is in manicotti.  I love the combination of ricotta, freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago, mozzarella, and spinach.  I always put a little nutmeg in as well.  Baked with a light red sauce, and served with a crisp tossed salad and Italian bread, it makes just a great meatless meal.  When my little cousin Debbie was not married long, Wayne and I had her and her husband, Steve, over for dinner.  I made manicotti.  Steve had one serving, and asked for seconds.  (Being my mother’s daughter I learned to cook enough to feed a small army no matter how many people you are feeding.)  Steve seemed to really enjoy it.  After he finished his meal, he then asked what was the green stuff in the manicotti.  I told him it was spinach.  He said that he didn’t like spinach, but it was actually good in the manicotti.  Just proves, you don’t know if you like something unless you try it.

No Knead Olive Rosemary Bread

    

     This no knead bread was loaded with coarsely chopped kalamata olives and fresh rosemary.  As is the case with other no knead breads, it was easy to make, and required a long fermentation.  The dough was very wet and required a good bit of flour to be incorporated into the dough during the stretch and fold.  I am glad I did not start my exploration with this bread; I think the super wet dough would have freaked me out. I  find the more I bake, the better my feel for dough becomes.  The bread was baked in my enamel dutch oven.  The steam builds in the pot as the bread bakes, making a great crunchy crust.  The inside of the bread was extremely moist and tender.  The combined aroma of the rosemary, kalamata olives, and bread dough wafted through the entire house.  I had to keep busy to make the hour pass as quickly as possible until I could cut the loaf. I called upon ms1 (man-servant 1, Wayne, my brother is ms2) to take pics of the bread for me.  The loaf was whole when he took his first pic.  I then cut into to it so he could get a pic of the interior.  When he finished his job he asked if the cut end was his payment.  When he bit into it you could hear the crunch of the crust.  I knew it was a winner when he said, "Mmmmmmmm."  Once I tasted it, I concurred with him, "Mmmmmmmmmm."  The flavor of the dough and rosemary was enhanced by the flavorful, salty olives.  Regular ripe olives would not give this bread the same flavor as the kalamatas.  If you're going to make this bread, you have to use the kalamatas.  The recipe came from macheesmo.com , It did not call for the rosemary, but I love the flavor of fresh rosemary in bread.  Things that I find that made this a little easier: instead of using a floured towel as suggested, I used my silicone mat from King Arthur.  I also place the dough on a lightly oiled parchment sheet for the final rise.  When it's time to place the dough into the dutch oven for baking, I just lift the parchment and put the dough (parchment included) in the pot.  By using the parchment, I am able to treat the dough a little more gently and don't have to worry about deflating the dough.
     Anytime I use black olives I think back to when our nephews were little guys.  Wayne and I had not been married long when we asked Carol, my sister-in-law, to come to dinner with her husband and boys.  What do you feed kids?  I figured you can't go wrong with spaghetti and meat sauce.  I didn't add any red pepper flakes because I didn't want it to be too spicy.  I minced the onions, garlic, and bell pepper so it would cook down to the point of being invisible in the sauce.  I added a can of sliced black olives, and cooked the spaghetti a little softer than I like.   Once the kids started eating, I anxiously awaited the verdict. Little Carl looked down at his plate, and said to his mother, "Mama, Aunt Teresa burned the olives."  All I could do was laugh.
     Oh, the bread made a great panini sandwich.  We went to the big city of Alexandria and was able to find the exotic and elusive pastrami and baby swiss.  We put a little creole mustard on the sandwiches and grilled them to deliciousness.  We had a Caprese Salad on the side made with wonderful Creole tomatoes that I bought on my jaunt to "da Parish"  (St. Bernard).  I don't know what was better, the bread or the tomatoes.

Noon Rogani

     Since my blog is about exploring bread, I need to explore bread from other countries.  Sure, I’ve made breads from France, Italy, and Mexico.  The closest I came to the Middle East was pita.  So when I was perusing the King Arthur site I came across a recipe for  Noon Rogani from Azerbaijan*, I had to try it.  As you can see from the photo, the bread is turban shaped.  It is a fairly straight-forward dough that is rolled out to a large square, brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.  As the dough was rising, I went to mix my cinnamon sugar, and I was out of cinnamon.  I ran to the “Libuse Wal-Mart,” aka Dollar General, knowing they have limited groceries, but cinnamon is such a basic spice I was sure they would have it, and they did.  (There I go with one of those marathon sentences.)  Once it had risen, it was time for the fun to begin.  I floured my counter top since it needed to be a 23" square.  Once the square was brushed with the melted butter and sprinkled with the cinnamon sugar, the dough was rolled jelly roll style.  Next, the log had to be rolled into a 5 foot rope.  Heck, I’m only 5'3".   I had a blast making this bread.  I had flour everywhere!  (Have you ever seen Always with Holly Hunter?  You know the scene where she fake makes dinner and throws flour all over the place to make it look like she’s been cooking - okay, it was not quite that bad.)  Once I had my rope I need to twist it “similar to wringing out a towel.”  This was going okay, but then I ran out of arm.  The end I started on wanted to “unwring” itself.  Wayne to the rescue.  I had him hold one end while I continued wringing the dough.  It was then wrapped into the turban, allowed to rise, and baked.  It was a really neat experience, and it turned out rather good.  It has a wonderful bite to the crust with a moist and lightly sweet interior.  I’m sure I will make this again.
     I guess my American palate for sweet would have liked it a little more sugar.  I can see all kinds of options for this.  A little grated citrus rind, mini chips, or some finely chopped pistachios would be a great addition.  I know it will be great with a cup of coffee and chicory.  The Noon Rogani sort of has the flavor of a Prussian.  Okay, so you’re thinking, “Is she talking about eating a German?”  To non-New Orleanians I’m talking about a palmier.  The crust of the bread is crunchy, and it has the same buttery flavor.  It’s not crunchy all the way through like a palmier;  the interior is what you expect from bread.  It’s the perfect bread for a slightly sweet treat.
     Oh, by the way, thanks to my husband for not only playing photographer for me, but for also vacuuming up all the flour.


*This is a link to information about Azerbaijan just in case anyone is curious about the country and it's people.

Portuguese Sweet Bread

   

     The Portuguese Sweet Bread was truly the most aromatic bread I have baked.  The recipe I used from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice called for orange, lemon, and vanilla extracts.  I used Fiori di Sicilia in place of the orange and lemon extracts.   The bread bakes to a beautiful deep mahogany color.  This has also been the darkest bread I’ve baked so far.  The taste is very similar to Kings Hawaiian Sweet Bread.  It has a slightly sweet taste to it, and a very soft tender interior.  It made great French toast (Wayne was amused by the idea of Portuguese French toast).  It also was really good toasted with a little butter.  It was just wonderful to nosh on.
     I couldn’t help but thinking this sweet bread would make a really good ham sandwich.  I could almost taste it - a sandwich loaded with thinly sliced Chisesi’s ham, creamy havarti, a little mayo, a dab of creole mustard, some shredded lettuce, and sliced creole tomatoes.  Heck, it would be good with just mayo and creole tomatoes.  Just two little problems - no Chisesi’s ham and no creole tomatoes.  And no, there just are no substitutes that even comes close to either.  Before my mother had sold her house and moved in with Wayne and me, she would always have a little vegetable garden.  I don’t think that any New Orleanian with a vegetable garden does not have creole tomatoes in it.  My mother had cucumber, yellow squash, eggplant, and creole tomato plants in her garden.  One year she planted 8 tomato plants.  I felt like I spent the whole summer canning tomatoes and figs.  (She had a huge fig tree and two pecan trees in the back yard.)  It was amazing to see how many tomatoes she got from those plants. 
     Talk of tomatoes always brings me to my wonderful and loving husband, Wayne.  I know he loves me because he puts up with all my shenanigans.  We were not long married and living in the condo from hell when my brother insisted we take home a cherry tomato plant in a pot.  I knew the plant would not get enough sunlight to produce tomatoes, but Wayne was ever the optimist.  He watered, fed, and nurtured that plant.  It grew and looked quite healthy, but no tomatoes.  Since I have an “impish” control disorder (okay, I’m just plain bad), I went to my mother’s house, cut some fully ripened cherry tomatoes from her plant, and wired them onto our plant.  When Wayne got home, and went to water his plant, he was thrilled to see tomatoes.  He came in so excited, and then he thought, “Wait.  That plant never flowered.  There were never any green tomatoes on it.”  He went back to examine the plant, by this time I could not control my laughter.  Wayne hates it when I tell this story, but I think it shows how wonderful he is, and how mischievous I am.  I am one lucky woman to have a man who loves despite my impishness.

Pugliese

     My Pugliese was almost the bread that wasn't.  The recipe came from my favorite bread book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice."   It was a two day rustic Italian bread that starts with a biga.  In the grace notes in the margin Peter Reinhart said you can use your sourdough starter to make a firm starter in place of the biga.  That worked out well since I had just fed my starter the day before.  I read over the recipe a couple of times because it is a wet dough, and I have not had much experience with really wet doughs.  I  had to re-familiarized myself with stretch and fold.  I was once again looking forward to using that beautiful golden fancy durum from King Arthur Flour (you think it's hard finding rye flour in the middle of no where, try finding durum).  On baking day I was off to a great start.  I pulled my firm starter out of the fridge before our 6:00 a.m. walk to get the chill off the "dough."  I wanted to get an early start because of the many steps and the times for the rises.  I mixed the dough, stretched and folded and let the dough rest, stretched and folded again and let the dough rest, did my final stretch and fold, and put it in the bowl to rise.  Set my timer and set about doing other things.  Well, the weather alarm went off, and the wind started blowing - there was lightning - there was thunder - there were flying branches and pine cones - there was no rain.  All of this and no much needed rain.  Harumph! Well, about 20 minutes later the electricity went out.  My timer went out.  Oh no, my dough!  What should I do?  Okay, don't get thrown off, just put it in the fridge, and finish it tomorrow.  About an hour later the power came back on.  About an hour later it was still on.  Good deal, I can finish my bread today.  Of course, the power goes out again.  UGH!!!  Luckily it came back on in just a couple of minutes and remained on.  I  was able to shape my boules and complete the final rise, pop them in the oven, and ta-da - pugliese.
     I would have liked some larger holes, but I was delighted that the bread was not a disaster.  It was filled with lots of small holes.  The pugliese is a very tender bread, and again it has that beautiful golden color from the durum.  The bread had a good stretch to it before it would tear.  The crust had a perfect chew; it was just crunchy enough.  I read that it is a great dipping bread, so I made a little dipping oil with some extra virgin olive oil, some fresh garlic, and some dried Italian herbs.  And yes, it is a wonderful bread for dipping.
     If I had this experience early on, I would not have known how to handle it.  Refrigerating the dough was easy enough.  It was the timing of the dough that would have been hard.  I would have been totally dependent on timers.  The more bread I make, the more I learn about how the dough should look and feel at different stages.  I guess the three best experiences I've had so far in my bread exploration have been: baking my first loaf, making my wild yeast sour dough starter, and baking a successful pugliese despite the power outages.