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Black Bread Rolls and Food for Traveling

29 Mar

When you have to travel in a car for a very long distance, and, thus, a very long period of time, it’s a challenge to try and figure out what you can do to make your time trapped in a car a little less unpleasant.  Last summer, while undertaking a nearly 700 mile drive south, we prepared the car for the needs of a child: toys, books, and a makeshift desk top crafted out of a strategically-cut piece of plywood.  A couple of weeks ago, preparing for a drive that would be half as long with a turnaround time twice as fast (last summer’s trip netted roughly 1400 miles in 8 days, but our most recent trip spanned 900 miles in only 4 days), we planned not for maximum entertainment while in the car, but rather for maximum efficiency.

Maximum efficiency in this case relegated lunch and snacks to the car, allowing for the most efficient use of driving time with the least amount of stops (or so we thought, until a certain preschool-aged child decided that it was of utmost importance to announce his desire to visit a restroom every 20 minutes, but that’s another story).  It also meant that I was going to be able to plan a small menu of picnic-type items, which gave me a certain amount of pleasure.  I am a big fan of meals that consist of many small bites of many different things, so this was right up my alley.

The first order of business, as it is in life, was snacks.  I roasted some nuts, sprinkled them lightly with sea salt, then combined them with some dried cherries and dried cranberries.  To excite our child, I also threw in some chocolate chips (be sure to combine these items AFTER the roasted nuts have cooled off, lest you inadvertently end up creating some sort of chocolate/nut blob that will cool into the world’s lumpiest candy bar.  Which, come to think of it, actually sounds sort of appealing…).  Baby carrots are always welcome, so I added those to the snack pile.  Strawberries and blueberries were fortuitously on sale at the market, so they came along, too.  I sliced up a pear and an apple, packed them into a tightly sealed container, and moved on to lunch items.

In the interest of keeping things simple, I planned to pack what amounted to tiny little sandwich fixings, only without the messiness of spreads and condiments.  The best way to accomplish this, obviously, is with cheese.  You slap some cheese on slices of bread and you’ve got the beginning of many a delicious sandwich.  You can pack cucumber slices and slices of red pepper, and those apple and pears I mentioned earlier are absolutely wonderful when tucked in between slices of sharp cheddar cheese and spicy black bread.

And now, having listed all the foods we managed to pack into one canvas bag for one very long drive, I have to admit something.  The most absolutely essential element to everything we ate?  The bread.  We ate it slathered with almond butter, we ate it enveloping vegetables, cheese and fruit, and we ate it plain, as a snack, managing to totally obliterate the entire supply within the first day of our trip.

Dense, satisfying, and packed with flavor (including hits of fennel, chocolate, espresso, and rye), it’s almost tough to imagine getting into a car now without a little disc of this bread to keep me company.  Luckily, car travel is not required of anyone in order to enjoy this bread, so you can bake it and enjoy it in preparation of another event.  Like, for instance, the fact that it is Tuesday.  Or Wednesday.  Or Thursday.  You get the idea.

Black Bread Rolls

Adapted slightly from Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Bible

2 1/4 cups warm water (105-115 degrees F)

2 tablespoons active dry yeast

pinch sugar

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

3 tablespoons molasses

1 tablespoon instant espresso powder

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon caraway seends

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/3 cup wheat bran

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 cups medium rye flour

3 to 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

cornmeal, for sprinkling (optional)

1) Pour the warm water into a small bowl.  Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the surface of the water.  Stir to dissolve and let stand at room temperature until foamy, about 10 minutes.

2) Combine caraway seeds and fennel seeds in a spice grinder and coarsely grind until no longer whole, but still slightly chunky (you can use a mortar and pestle for this, but I use an old coffee grinder).  In a large bowl using a whisk or in the work bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, molasses, instant espresso powder, salt, caraway seeds, fennel seeds, bran, cocoa powder, and rye flour.  Mix until smooth and add yeast mixture.  Beat for about 3 minutes.  Add the unbleached flour, 1/2 cup at a time, and continue to beat (with paddle attachment if using a machine, or with a wooden spoon if mixing by hand) until too stiff to stir.

3) Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth, elastic, and no longer sticky, about 5 minutes, dusting with flour only 1 tablespoon at a time as needed to prevent sticking.

If kneading by machine, switch from the paddle to the dough hook and knead for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and springy and springs back when pressed.  If desired, transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead briefly by hand.

4) Place the dough in a greased bowl.  Turn once to grease the top and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

5) Gently deflate the dough.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.  Grease or parchment-line a baking sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal, if desired.  Divide the dough into 12 equal portions.  Shape each dough portion into a round ball and place seam side down on the baking sheet.  Flatted each ball with your palm.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in bulk and puffy, about 25 minutes.

6) Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Place the baking sheet on the center lower rack in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until slightly browned and firm to the touch.  Transfer to a rack to cool.

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Samosas in Phyllo

9 Mar

There are few words that exist on a sliding scale as slippery as that of the word “difficult.”  Some things are deemed difficult because they require a certain familiarity of skills before one is able to instinctively tackle them.  Other things can be referred to as difficult because they are time consuming and they ask a person to dedicate a great deal of effort and focus.  To me, something that is difficult is most often not really difficult at all (in terms of skill or effort), but rather simply unpleasant.  I may have no problem at all producing a trifecta of desserts for someone’s birthday, but I will not, under any circumstances I can currently think of, deep fry anything.

It’s not like I haven’t deep fried things before.  I’ve made fried poppadums, homemade sweet onion rings, and wonderfully crispy pakoras, but the problem was, I did not enjoy making any of those foods once I completed the preparation stage and was then forced to move on to the actual cooking stage.  Deep frying things makes your house smell like a soggy old french fry depository.  It is hot, messy, and, obviously, greasy, and I am always at a loss over what to do with all that spent oil.  Fortunately, my deep dislike of submerging things in hot oil never seemed to hold back my progress in the kitchen, so all was well.

Until, that is, I got it into my head that I was going to make samosas for a small event I had agreed to cater.

Though I knew I hated to fry things, I was convinced that I would be able to come up with a simple way to wrap and cook samosas that would not only avoid the step of having to deep fry anything, but also guarantee me a generous amount of wrapped samosas that were amenable to being frozen until the time arrived when I needed to bake them.

Taking inspiration from a wonderful tapas cookbook I often look to for ideas, I decided to wrap each samosa in a dual layer of phyllo dough.  It was my hope that brushing butter in between each layer of dough would make for a crisp finished product, and making sure to securely wrap each little package of spiced potatoes would ensure an end result that would both freeze well and take to baking straight from the freezer.

To make this long story short, I don’t know why I didn’t try this sooner.  The samosas, both baked after being frozen and baked immediately after being wrapped (for purposes of, ahem, quality control), were crisp, light, and lacking in any sort of heaviness or greasiness.  As an added bonus, the delicate nature of phyllo really allows the flavor of the perfectly spiced potato filling to take center stage, completely convincing me that, at least until I break down and decide to tackle a Spanish tortilla de patatas, my deep frying days have come to an end.

Samosas in Phyllo

Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking

4-5 medium potatoes, boiled in their jackets and allowed to cool

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 medium sized onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 cup shelled peas, fresh or frozen (if frozen, defrost them first)

1 tablespoon peeled, finely grated fresh ginger

1/2 to 1 fresh, hot green chili, finely chopped

3 tablespoons very finely chopped cilantro

About 3 tablespoons water

1 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon ground, roasted cumin seeds (if you only have regular ground cumin, you can toast the teaspoon of cumin in a dry pan set over high heat.  The cumin will take only seconds to toast, so watch it carefully for browning and then immediately take it off of the heat and place it in a room temperature bowl or dish)

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons lemon juice

20 phyllo sheets, thawed if frozen (my sheets were 8.5″ x 13.5″ and, layered and cut into fifths, yielded 50 samosas)

4 tablespoons butter, melted then cooled

To make the filling, peel the potatoes and cut them into 1/4 inch dice.  Put 4 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan and place over medium heat.  When hot, put in the onions.  Stir and fry them until they begin to turn brown at the edges.  Add the peas, ginger, green chili (1/2 or the whole thing, depending on how spicy you prefer things), cilantro, and 3 tablespoons water.  Cover, lower heat, and simmer until the peas are cooked.  Stir every now and then and add a little more water if the frying pan seems to dry out.

Add the diced potatoes, salt, ground coriander, garam masala, cumin, cayenne, and lemon juice.  Stir to mix.  Cook on low heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring gently as you do so.  Check balance of salt and lemon juice.  You may want more of both (I added more lemon juice, but felt the salt content was just fine).  Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool.

To fill and wrap the samosas, preheat oven to 375 degrees F (if you are wrapping and freezing the samosas, you can obviously skip this step).  Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.  Cover phyllo stack with a sheet of plastic wrap and then a dampened kitchen towel (this will keep the phyllo from drying out as you work).  Take one phyllo sheet from stack and lay it down on your work surface with a long side nearest you (keeping remaining sheets covered as you work) and brush lightly with butter. Top with another phyllo sheet and brush with more butter. Cut buttered phyllo stack crosswise into 5 strips (my sheets were 13.5 inches long, yielding 5 strips that were not quite 2.75 inches wide).

Place a tablespoon of filling near one corner of a strip (on the end that is nearest to you), then fold corner of phyllo over to enclose filling and form a triangle. Continue folding the strip (as one would fold a flag), maintaining a triangle shape. Put fully wrapped samosa triangle, seam side down, on a parchment-lined large baking sheet. Repeat process, making more triangles in the same manner, until you’ve used all the phyllo.

The samosas can be baked in a 375 degree oven, one sheet at a time, for 20-25 minutes, or until they are golden brown.  Cool them slightly on a wire rack before serving

If you plan to freeze the samosas, place them in the freezer on their parchment-lined baking sheets, and freeze for one hour.  Remove the samosas from the freezer, and stack them in an airtight container, separating each stack with a layer of parchment or wax paper.  The samosas will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.  When you are ready to bake the frozen samosas, follow the baking directions for fresh samosas.  There is no need to adjust the baking time.

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Lemon Bergamot Bars

7 Mar

I will never claim to be a fan of big surprises or intense fanfare.  Preferring to live a life that is relatively free of drama or explosive displays of showiness (all I have to do is hear of people getting engaged via a line of skywriting or announcing their pregnancy by hiding a positive pregnancy test in someone’s birthday present and I start to feel all sweaty and embarrassed) might explain why I am so fond of foods that contain a bit of the unexpected.  A rich brownie with a subtle undercurrent of cardamom and chipotle.  A complicated Thai curry with a kick of lime that comes in at the end and smoothes out its blend of coconut and spice.  And now, what currently stands as my favorite example of a sneaky flavor, a hint of bergamot concealed within a batch of brightly tart lemon bars.

Hailing from Tartine, the inaugural cookbook from the incredible San Francisco bakery of the same name, this is a lemon bar that pulls no punches when it comes to flavors.  The meltingly delicious shortbread base is baked to a deep golden brown, giving it the taste of mellow, nutty brown butter.

The thick lemon custard that rests on top is fresh and tart, and does not make the mistake of masking its lemony sourness under a cloying sweetness.  The bergamot (an addition made optional in the cookbook, but now considered by me to be an utter necessity) cuts through the clean taste of the lemon, dotting each bite with the pleasant sensation of subtly bitter orange.  (Bergamot oranges, a hybrid citrus fruit that contain elements of both Mediterranean lemons and Seville oranges, provide the distinctive citrus undertone found in Earl Grey tea, and it creates a similarly aromatic and companionable effect here.)

I may not be one for surprises, but I can’t say I have ever shied away from the pleasures of variety.  Eating one square of this lovely pastry is like taking a taste tour of a pastry case (brown butter shortbread cookies!  Lemon custard!  Candied orange!), providing your taste buds with thrills aplenty, minus even the slightest possibility of social discomfort.

Lemon Bergamot Bars

From Tartine

Crust

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

Filling

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons lemon juice

zest from 1 small bergamot orange, grated or finely chopped

6 large whole eggs

1 large egg yolk

pinch of salt

confectioners’ sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter a 9×13 inch baking pan.

To make the crust, sift the confectioners’ sugar into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Add the flour and stir to mix.  Add the butter and beat on low speed just until a smooth dough forms.  Transfer dough to the prepared pan and press evenly into the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of the pan.  It should be about 1/4 inch thick.  To help even out the crust, use the flat bottom of any type of cup, pressing down firmly.  Line the crust with parchment paper and fill with pie weights (dry beans or about a cup’s worth of pennies will provide the same effect as pie weights).  Bake the crust until it colors evenly to a deep golden brown, 25-35 minutes.  Rotate the pan 180 degrees is the crust appears to be baking unevenly.

While the crust is baking, make the filling: Sift the flour into a mixing bowl.  Add the sugar and whisk until blended.  Add the lemon juice and bergamot orange zest and stir to dissolve the sugar.  In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the whole eggs and egg yolk with the salt.  Add the eggs to the lemon juice mixture and whisk until well mixed.

When the crust is ready, pull out the oven rack holding the crust, remove the parchment paper and pie weights, and pour the filling directly into the hot pan.  (It is easiest to pour the custard into the pan if the pan is in the oven.)  If the crust has come out of the oven and cooled before you have finished making the filling, put it back in for a few minutes so that it is hot when the custard is poured into it.  Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F and bake just until the center of the custard is no longer wobbly, 30-40 minutes.

Let cool completely on a wire rack, then cover and chill well before cutting.  If you like, dust the tops of the squares with confectioners’ sugar.  They will keep well in an airtight container or well covered in the baking dish in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.


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