No-knead bread: Personalized and updated.

Mark Bittman's no-knead bread, famous since its debut in the NYT, is the best. If you haven't made it yet, you're about to find that you love making bread more often. If you really love kneading (like I do), you're about to find out that you can (sometimes) get better results without your favourite part (sigh).

Every time I decide to make it, though, I end up scouring around the Internet looking for these updates, which adjust for those of us who have no luck using volume measures for bread (weights ftw) and who agree with Bittman that the original recipe needs a lot more salt.

Here are the two combined, plus any of my own changes and hacks for my own reference in the future. Here's something I always forget: this dough needs to rest three times, not just twice.

You've also gotta bake it early enough so that it can cool before you need it. I realize that's obvious to lots of people. But from experience, I know that it is not obvious to me.

No-knead bread

430 g flour
345 g warm water
1 g yeast
just under 1 tbsp salt
24 hours of time

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. It should be almost too wet to handle.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest 18 to 24 hours at warm room temperature (about 70 degrees). You can cheat and do 12 hours if you're stuck for time.

When the dough is dotted with bubbles and has well-developed gluten (long strands that stick to the sides of the bowl when it's tilted), it's ready.

Get your hands good and floury. Gather the dough in the bowl and fold it over itself once or twice. You want to handle it as little as possible. Cover the bowl again with plastic wrap (not as tightly) and let it rest again for 15 minutes.

For heaven's sake don't use a terry cloth or even a plain cotton cloth. Disaster. I'm not convinced there's enough flour in the world. Instead, flour the hell out of your hands (can also add cornmeal) and use enough flour to be able to handle the dough to form it into a ball. Put parchment paper into the bottom of the bowl, flour that, and put the ball of dough onto the paper. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rest another two hours.

Make sure a dutch oven with lid is in a 500F oven for at least half an hour before you want to cook the bread. Take out the dutch oven and put it on a wire rack when you're ready to bake the bread. Reduce the oven temperature to 425.

If you're gonna score the thing, now's the time. 

Pick up the parchment paper and put the dough, still in the paper, into the dutch oven. Cover with (also hot) lid.

Cook with lid on for 30 minutes.

Remove lid and cook for another 15-30 minutes, or until the dough is at least 200F on the inside and it looks cooked. 

Chicken salad on watercress

It was leftovers night tonight. This turned out much better than expected. We had two courses: wontons in duck broth and this salad.

Here is my tale.

Leftover, I had:

- Most of a roast chicken breast. A big one, from a 5.35lb heritage breed chicken. It was a fancy poultry part.
- A big pile of watercress I cleaned for a salad then forgot about and made another salad a few nights ago so now I have all of this watercress.
- An avocado I sliced open two days ago then changed my mind about and put it back together and wrapped some plastic wrap around and put it back in the fridge. But you know it can never really be whole again and you have to use it up now.
- Some apples I bought to have fruit in the house before deciding I'm finally sick of apples. It happens. Winter is almost over. Persevere.

The first step was to sit on the couch and wonder what the heck to do with all of this. And to feel guilty about the last cooked chicken breast that I forgot about. It sat in my fridge until it went bad. I thought about the fact that I need to remember to throw that away tonight.

But then I came up with this idea. A then my friend Sarah recommended that I add honey. And she was right.

And we ate it. And it was good.

Chicken salad on watercress


made three servings

- 1.5 cups chopped cooked chicken
- 1 ripe avocado, diced
- 1 apple, cored and diced
- 2 green onions, white parts only, thinly sliced
- two big handfuls of watercress, cleaned with thick stems removed

Dressing:
- juice of half a lemon
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 1 tbsp mayo
- 1 tsp honey
- A small clove of garlic, minced
- salt and fresh cracked pepper

Dice all the things that need dicing and slice the onion. Put them in a bowl.

In another small bowl, whisk together the ingredients for the dressing and taste to season.

Scrape the little bowl into the big bowl and mix it all together until it's chicken salady. Taste a bit with a sprig of watercress to check seasoning. Add more lemon, tahini, honey, salt, or pepper if you think it needs it. I'm guessing at the amount of all these things that I added.

Serve the chicken salad on watercress. You should eat it with chopsticks because all salad should be eaten with chopsticks. It might be a thing you never knew, but it's true. You're welcome.

Aromatic duck broth

I have an Instant Pot. Yes, I love it. 

The most recent thing to come out of it was a really great duck broth. I turned this into two soups.

Aromatic Instant Pot Duck Broth

- Stripped carcass from a crispy roast duck plus one extra duck neck plus maybe some odds and ends. Enough scraps to fill a 1L bag, at any rate.
- Ginger, thumb-sized nub. Slightly crushed.
- 1 dried shiitake cap
- 2 whole star anise
- 3 Chinese dates/jujubes
- 1 tsp green sichuan peppercorns
- 1/2 tsp white peppercorns
- 2 medium shallots, peeled and halved
- Pinch MSG
- Water to cover

I threw all this in the Instant Pot for 90 minutes, which is a freaking long time. The gelatin extraction was glorious. If you want, you can watch the cooled broth jiggle while someone talks about the legal environment for establishing medical uses for psychedelic drugs in the background for eight seconds.

A tale of two soups. So far.

With mung bean noodles, bok choy, and seared duck breast.

The first night, we sliced up a salt-and-five-spice-rubbed duck breast on top of the broth over mung bean noodles and baby bok choy and seasoned with Xinjiang spice mix. Garnished the bowl with shallots and cilantro. Cooking the duck and seasoning the broth were both done to taste. I cannot guide you further.

With Hong Kong wontons and king oyster mushrooms.

Tonight was less pretty but at least as tasty. I sliced and seared four king oyster mushrooms in a tablespoon of sesame oil and cooked them until they were starting to brown, then added the broth (which got more delicious after a few days in the fridge). To this, I added a package of 100% Dim Sum Canton Shrimp & Pork Wontons, green onions, and roasted chili oil. 

I still have some more of this broth. I'm thinking it's destined for a re-do of night one, but with duck hearts.

Slurp.

Scotch eggs

Normally I make buffalo wings on Super Bowl Sunday, but this year we were party-bound and the wings were covered. So I received a request for Scotch eggs. 

We've become sausage snobs since the last time I made scotch eggs because we discovered that making sausage is not that hard and they just taste a lot better than the ones from the store, which aren't bound properly, so they're much less forgiving if overcooked. They're also just less tasty. So this recipe starts with a hunk of pork shoulder. 

At any rate, we use the Serious Eats guide to make sausage and we're not going back.

This year's Super Bowl party host doesn't eat gluten, so I'm also including a gluten-free breading option. She said the coconut flour worked great (tapioca starch would be fine, too), and Matt actually preferred the potato sticks to the corn flakes, even though he was all about the corn flakes ahead of time.

Scotch Eggs

Makes 12, plus more than a pound of extra sausage

English banger sausage: 
3 lb boneless pork shoulder (should be about 20-25% fat)
kosher salt: 1-2% of the exact weight (in grams) of pork
8-10 cloves garlic, minced 

1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (grated)
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried summer savory
3 teaspoons dried sage

Scotch eggs:

About half the sausage from the recipe above

12 eggs to boil, plus three for breading

Potato sticks (certified gluten-free if you need) or corn flakes

Flour (coconut flour if you need gluten-free)

Oil to deep fry. 

1. Make sausage

Cut the pork shoulder into about 5-cm chunks. Weigh (use metric), then weigh out 1-2% of the pork weight in salt. I normally round down from the 2% weight. Mix salt into pork so that it's all coated, then cover and wait at least eight hours. This makes science do things to the meat proteins so your sausage will bind better. 

After at least eight hours, pop the sausage in the freezer so that the meat becomes partially frozen. This helps it grind. Chill your grinder while you're at it. 

When meat is cold, mix in all remaining seasoning and grind coarsely. I use my KitchenAid attachment to grind and grind it right into the mixer bowl. 

When meat and seasonings are ground, remove grinder attachment and add paddle attachment. Beat the meat mixture with the paddle attachment, redistributing once, until it binds together like a dough instead of crumbling apart like ground meat. This means it's sausage now. 

2. Eggs

Bring a big pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Use a push pin to put a hole through the bottom of 12 eggs. Working four at a time, lower the eggs gently into the boiling water and cook for seven minutes, then transfer to ice water. When all eggs are boiled and as soon as they're cool enough, peel them. Putting the pushpin hole will make this easier, which is good because the yolks will be medium cooked so they're a little more delicate.

3. Assembly

Using wet hands so the sausage won't stick, grab about a 3 tbsp ball of sausage meat and flatten in your hand. Put a peeled egg in the middle and then gently work the sausage until it totally coats the egg, then sort of continue smooshing it around until no more little spots open up to expose the egg. If you rush this part, when the sausage cooks and it shrinks a bit it won't keep the egg totally covered.

Once all eggs are coated in sausage, reserve extra sausage for another use. You can stuff into casings for links. It also makes great biscuit gravy.  

Heat oil in a deep frier to 350F. 

Buzz corn flakes or potato sticks in a food processor until they're crumbs. Season crumbs with salt and pepper. 

Beat three eggs together in a bowl. 

Spread flour on a plate and crumbs on another plate. 

Roll each egg in flour, then coat with beaten egg, then roll in crumb mixture to coat. 

4. Fry

In batches (so the oil stays hot) fry eggs for five minutes, until golden brown.

Drain on paper towels. 

You can cut these into quarters to serve hot or let them cool and serve cold or at room temperature. They're good on their own or with some nice mustard!

Sauté pan pot roast

Winter is for braising and so are sauté pans. I have a six-quart All-Clad pan that I love and have been wanting to cook one of the roasts we've got in the freezer and pulled a chuck roast on Friday night for supper today. Perfect for winter Sunday supper!

Then it was unseasonably warm today but whatever.

Anyway, this turned out well and I was sort of winging it based loosely on The Food Lab's All-American beef stew but didn't have an actual recipe—so am preserving this for posterity.

Yes, I add MSG. If you do eat foods like miso, Parmesan, dashi, Marmite, soy sauce, Worcestershire, anchovies, but never use MSG, you should reconsider—here's David Chang on the science behind MSG.

Served this with Yorkshire pudding and that turned out great. Could be really good with mashed potatoes, too, but then I'd leave out the potatoes in the liquid, maybe substituting rutabaga or parsnips instead.

Stovetop Pot Roast
Serves 6-8
3 lb chuck roast, quartered
beef drippings, duck fat, or neutral oil (high smoke point)
1 medium carrot, peeled and quartered lengthwise
3 whole stalks celery
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and quartered
4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved lengthwise
4 large anchovies, coarsely chopped

2 cups beef stock (from bouillon is fine), hot
1 tbsp gelatin
3-4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
Big pinch MSG

1 cup full-bodied red wine

small bunch fresh thyme (or two big pinches dried thyme)

2-3 bay leaves
3 dried shiitake mushrooms
4 small Yukon gold potatoes, large chopped

4 medium carrots, peeled and cut in a (as a?) faux tourné

4 medium shallots, peeled and quartered
200g mushrooms, quartered

salt and fresh ground pepper
chopped fresh parsley

Pat meat dry and season on all sides. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil over medium heat until hot enough that the meat sizzles enthusiastically when added to the pan. Brown on all sides, then move to one side of saute pan off direct heat. Over direct heat, add yellow onion, celery stalks, and long quarters of carrots. Turn once as they start to brown and then add garlic and anchovies.

While meat and vegetables are browning, sprinkle gelatin over beef stock and whisk to dissolve. Shake in a few dashes of Worcestershire, add a big pinch of MSG, and give another quick whisk.

When vegetables are browned, deglaze the pan with red wine. When all brown bits are scraped up, redistribute the meat to the centre of the pan in a single layer. Turn the heat down low. Add broth mixture, thyme, bay leaves, shiitake mushrooms, and potatoes. Nuzzle the herbs and veggies around the meat, then cover and braise over low heat for an hour.

Remove whole celery sticks, long pieces of carrots, onion quarters, and thyme stems. Garlic and anchovies will have melted into the liquid. Taste braising liquid and season. Now add faux tourné carrots, mushroom quarters, and shallots. Cover again and simmer for another 45 minutes.

When meat is pull-apart tender and vegetables are cooked, the meal is ready. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley to taste. Serve meat and veggies with fresh bread or Yorkshire pudding and braising liquid served as gravy.

Fried onion and carrot soup (with bonus shallot oil!)

I made this soup as a vaguely-North Indian spiced vegetable dish to go with a lamb rogan josh Australian pie that we had in the freezer from TA Pies in Montreal. It would stand up just fine as an entree soup and seems like it would be especially good with warm naan.

Serves four as a side dish or two as an entree.

Materials:

3 Tbsp ghee or clarified butter
3 thinly sliced, medium yellow onions
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp whole cumin, ground
2 tsp whole coriander, ground
2 pinches ground turmeric
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1 cm slices
2 bouillon cubes (my favourite are Maggi)
Water
Salt

1/4 cup ghee
1/4 cup neutral high-smoke point oil (or more ghee)
4 small shallots, sliced as thinly as you can
Green parts of 2 large scallions, thinly sliced

Large saucepan.
Small saucepan (2 cups is perfect).
Wooden spoon or stiff, heatproof spatula.
Small strainer.
Paper towels,
Hand blender.

Method:

Heat the ghee in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until very soft. Add the garlic.

Continue stirring almost constantly as onions and garlic begin to brown. We're aiming for dark brown, but not burned, and very aromatic. You don't want super-soft, sweet, caramelized onions, you want the taste of browned onions that are so great with flat-top homefries. But you *don't* want them to burn, so if you're going to err, err on the side of caution.

When the onions and garlic are brown, add the spices and stir for another minute.

Add the carrots and bouillon cubes and stir to combine. As the carrots cook they will release liquid that will keep the onions from overcooking. Once the onions are out of the woods and you're not going to burn them by stepping away, put on a kettle of water to boil.

Continue cooking, stirring frequently but no longer constantly, until the carrots begin to become tender. Pour enough water to cover and cook until the carrots are very tender.

Put ghee and oil over medium-high heat and heat until a drop of water fizzles in the oil immediately. Fry the shallots in batches, fishing them out with a small strainer when they are crispy. Drain on paper towels and season with salt immediately after they're retrieved from the oil.

(I strained and saved the oil, which is now deliciously shallotty. It will be great for eggs, sauteed cabbage, or Burmese cooking.)

When carrots are tender, blend the soup using a hand blender until completely smooth. Season to taste. Serve with scallions and shallots to garnish on the table and let people customize how much shallot vs. scallion they want in their soup.

Impromptu al pastor

Tacos al pastor are delicious. But unless you have a vertical roasting spit in your home, you probably have a hard time doing it justice. (If you have a vertical roasting spit in your home, I am jealous.)

Serious Eats is typically serious about faithfully reproducing the flavour and texture in this in-depth recipe development. But I wanted al pastor on a weeknight. And even with what I came up with we were eating late - but only because I did it all at once. This recipe can be broken down, so I did.

The results are not totally authentic, but pretty good, without so large a time commitment.

al pastor progression

The three stages to this recipe can be broken down to make it doable on a weeknight, as long as you have a bit of time in the morning. Recipe after the break.