Japanese Style White Bread

After seeing how much my wife was spending on  "premium white" bread from Anderson Bakery ($7/loaf), I decided it was time to start making it at home. After all, my wife was the one who insisted we get a bread machine years ago because we were spending so much at the bakery.  As I predicted, after a couple of tries, she eventually found it too much work and never quite made the same type of bread she was used to, never using the machine again. I figured, that I had to put our bread machine investment to work and come up with an easy "premium white" recipe that we can make in the machine.

Here is a recipe I found
https://cornercafe.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/japanese-style-white-bread-loaf/

The secret here is the water-roux paste which supposedly gelatinizes the starch in the flour allowing more liquid to be absorbed into the bread.

This is my adaptation for use in a bread machine. The first step is creating the roux paste since you'll want that to cool down while prepping the other ingredients.

Water-Roux Paste:
20g bread flour 100ml water	Mix flour and water in a small saucepan. Cook over low to medium heat, stirring continuously until it reaches 65ºC. It should have thickened to a paste at this stage, that is when you stir you can see the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat, place a cling wrap over the paste and leave until lukewarm, or room temperature, before using. (Alternatively if you don’t have a thermometer, cook as before until it just starts to thicken, then continue to cook for about 1 more minute before removing from heat.) This water roux can be kept in an airtight container after cooling in the refrigerator for 1 day if not used immediately. However DO NOT USE if it turns grey in colour, that means it has gone bad.
For the Bread Dough:
150ml lukewarm water 30g butter, cubed Water-Roux Paste (see above) 1 Tbsp milk powder 350g bread flour 30g sugar 5g (1 tsp) salt 7g (2.5 tsp) instant dry yeast	Add all the ingredients to your bread machine in the order provided. As always, its best to make a little crater in the mound of flour and drop your yeast in there. Then set your machine to the white bread setting and start it.

Results?
I have to say that my 1+ yr old yeast isn't good anymore, so the first loaf turned out pretty dense. I'll have to try this again with some fresh yeast.

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My attempt at Fried Okra

Growing up in the south, I developed a taste for southern foods. After I moved out west, I didn't realize how such insignificant dishes could be so nostalgic for me. Fried okra is one of those dishes. Crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside. And since its a vegetable, you feel like its almost healthy for you. Add a dash of hot sauce and you're good to go.

For this recipe I ran out of flour so I used a pure corn meal coating. This tasted a little too dry and gritty for me. I  think if you deep fried this, it would be okay as the oil would soak into the batter more. Next time I'll try a 50/50 blend with flour. I also used buttermilk plus one beaten egg to wet the okra for the cornmeal dredge. I also seasoned the cornmeal with salt and pepper. Anyhow, this photo looks much better than it tastes.

Homemade Hashbrowns

There's nothing more comforting than the crunch of a perfectly cooked hashbrown. Most diners only brown one side of your hash leaving the other half greasy and soggy. Luckily, making your own hashbrowns is a very easy and rewarding task. The secret is wringing out the water in the shredded potatos. This allows the potatos to fry rather that steam when they hit the hot oil.

Ingredients:
2 Medium Russet Potatos
Vegetable Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Start by peeling the potatos. Next, use a box grater to shred the potatos. Place the shredded potatos in a collander over the sink and with your hands, grab a handful of potatos and squeeze out the liquid. Repeat until you've put the squeeze on all of the shredded potato. Then, wrap the potatos in a paper towel and give it one more squeeze. This should remove any liquid on the surface of the potatos. Preheat your cast iron skillet over medium heat (you can use a regular fry pan, but cast iron's the best). Add vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Dump the potatos into the skillet and spread them out to form an even layer and give it a shake to make sure nothing sticks. Add salt and pepper. Then don't mess with it for the next 2 minutes, otherwise the crust wont form. After two minutes, lift the edge to see how your crust if forming. Wait until you get a nice crunch, then start flipping. You don't need to flip the whole thing at once, just do what you can. Now you'll have to add some more oil (almost as much as what you started with) and give it another shake to prevent sticking. I try to keep the oil addition to a minimum. I'll add a little oil to any place that looks dry and likely to burn. Once this side is browned, you can plate and serve.

I personally like to eat mine with ketchup and Cholula hot sauce. To lighten it up, you can add some chopped green onions or chives at the end and serve it with some sauteed tomatoes. To make corned beef hash, just add the corned beef and chopped onions with the potatos and everything should come out fine.

French Chicken in a Pot

This is a great simple recipe that I saw on America's Test Kitchen.

I simplified their version even more and the taste is still unbelievable.
I only have a 3.5 qt Le Crueset dutch oven but I still wanted to do this recipe

Serves 4
1 whole roasting chicken (4 1/2 to 5 pounds), giblets removed and discarded
1 tablespoon table salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 small onion , chopped medium (about 1/2 cup)
6 medium garlic cloves , peeled and crushed
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dryed rosemary

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
Combine salt and pepper in a small bowl (this will be the dry rub).
Rinse the chicken and pat as dry as possible with paper towels.
Sprinkle the salt and pepper mixture all over the chicken making sure to add some to the cavity.
Heat oil in the dutch oven over medium heat. Brown the breast side of the chicken for about 5-8 minutes. Meanwhile dice the onion and add it to the dutch oven. Add garlic, rosemary, and the bay leaf. After the breast side has browned nicely, flip the bird and brown the bottom side for another 5-8 minutes. Finally, cover the dutch oven with aluminum foil and place the lid on that to ensure a good seal. Place in the oven for approx 1-1.5 hrs until desired tenderness.
Once cooked, you will see lots of liquid released by the cooking process. Remove dutch oven from oven, remove the chicken, set it aside, and cover loosely with foil. Strain the liquid from the dutch oven through a strainer and skip off the fat. Add any drippings that have come off the resting chicken to the strained liquid or jus. At this point you can season the jus to taste and serve with the chicken.

Update: If you have a convection oven with some sort of "speed bake" technology, then its better to set the temp to 225F and use that feature. I also increased the salt content to a full tablespoon. I found that a bit extra salt helped to bring out the flavors even more.

I finished the Habenaro burger...Again!

and I got to show for it was this lousy bumper sticker.



Man, that was crazy hot.


As part of my company's ritual for welcoming new hires we all go out to a local British pub that serves these ridiculously hot burgers. They gave us a choice between the 'X' and the triple 'X' burger. Being a relative veteran there, I had to go for the XXX.

The burgers came looking innocently enough. Just an open face burger with a little red sauce on the patty and a side of fries. Looks couldn't be more deceiving.

The general suggestion for downing one of these pieces of lava on a bun is to get it down as quickly as possible. However, as soon as I swallow the first bite, my stomach starts flipping out and now I'm fighting an upchuck reflex whilst trying to cram more magma down my throat. 10 seconds in, I've only now started to get into the real saucy parts of the burger. I'm sweating like mad, my throat's starting to constrict, but I'm still trying to swallow big bites. 30 seconds in, I manage to get down half the burger until my pace really slows down. I have to chew each bite a lot more before I can swallow and now the burn is really kicking in. Drinking beer gives only momentary relief otherwise its making me feel a bit fuller with every gulp making it that much harder to force the next bite down. 2 minutes in, i've only managed to get another quarter down. I'm feeling a bit delirious now as the pain is somewhere between unbearable and numb. Its like my tongue has started to give up on telling me this is HOT! The rest of my mouth is still burning and my guts are at a constant state of upset. 5 minutes in and two more bites left. Seeing the end in sight, I shove the remaining bites down as I whip my head left and right to help it go down... Ahhhh, the burn, still intense, but at least I can concentrate on drinking beer from now on.

All in all, it was an entertaining experience. The next day wasn't so bad for me, but one of our newbies had to come in late due to having something diabolical in his gut.