(This week Michelle completes her sourdough adventure. (Shhhhhh……. but it ends with tasty perfection.) I loved reading this Post, the last paragraph is filled with Morgando-wisdom. Thank you, Michelle, for helping me the past two weeks. When MIchelle gets her own Blog up and running, I will share that address with you. Mary)
by Michelle Morgando
These baguettes look good enough to eat. And, they didn’t disappoint.
Sourdough starters require time and commitment to keep them alive. Each week or so, they must be split and then “fed”, usually equal parts of spring water and all purpose flour. After one day, one half is ready to be used for baking; the other half is kept as the “mother” starter. As long as you have one of the mother starters in reserve, you are in business. I have also learned how to rev them up if they are a little lazy (potato flakes or apple cider vinegar) and I can now recognize the health of my starters just by smell and consistency. I also began experimenting with different flours, which I would add to the “baking” portion of the split starter. For these starters, I just followed my instincts. I now have an intense rye starter and a sour and pungent whole wheat starter, all ready to go.
Whole Wheat Starter
Rye Starter
This past weekend, I used the whole wheat starter to make whole wheat sourdough English Muffins. They are griddled in a little butter to cook instead of baked. They are soft on the inside, crispy on the outside and after toasting, a little sweet butter and homemade berry jam was all I needed. Grocery store muffins will never grace my pantry again. I also made some fig jam and an apricot and peach jam in anticipation of my next baguette foray.
Fig Jam
Peach & Apricot Jam
I then experimented with making homemade hot dog buns and they were delicious. They were not done with the starters but with a simple yeasted dough to get me back in the groove. After my small successes with the English Muffins and the hot dog buns, I was ready to tackle the baguettes.
Nancy had been playing with the recipe and sent me her revisions. I started with making a biga which is composed of the sourdough starter, water and flour. It is allowed to rise for a couple of hours and then has an overnight rest in the fridge. The next day I made the dough using the starter, let it rise and then back in the fridge overnight. On the third day, I let the dough rise a little and then formed the loaves, this time using baguette molds from my friend Scott. This eliminates the danger of deflating the dough after it is formed because it rises and bakes in the mold. To my delight, they rose beautifully, baked without deflating and had the characteristics of a good baguette, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. While these loaves do not have as many holes in the dough as some standard baguettes, I was happy, happy, happy.
Baguette Dough
Over the past few weeks of my baking journey I have been reading a wonderful book entitled “How to Bake a Perfect Life” by Barbara O’Neal. While it probably falls within the “check lit” fiction genre, don’t let that deter you from picking up a copy. It is a wonderful story about a woman who believes her sanity was saved by bread, particularly by her many times over great grandmother’s starter that was brought from Ireland and kept alive by the female bakers in the family. I believe, as the author does, that your starters, and ultimately your breads, take on the character of your mood. Whether you are happy, mad, sad or frustrated, it will show in the final product. I now know that my starters and breads will no longer sense my fear. If a recipe works, that is satisfying, if it does not; I know I am not a failure. It is just another opportunity to learn. I can’t wait to learn more!
(My friend and neighbor, Michelle Morgando, who is a professionally-trained chef, is my guest contributor today. Although Michelle, who is also a judge and lawyer, is about to launch her own food blog, she has generously agreed to help me and share her expertise with my readers during this time. Thank you, Michelle, and, to all you American readers, Happy 4th of July.)
by Michelle Morgando
Pane-Siciliano and my sourdough story
I must make a confession, my name is Michelle and I am afraid of bread. Well, I am not afraid of reading about it, drooling over pictures of it, shopping for it or most importantly, eating it. Last year in Italy I think I ate half of my body weight in bread in one week. No, I am afraid of making breads, particularly those that involve yeast. I must also disclose that I am a professionally trained cook. I went to culinary school at the very young age of 42 and loved every minute of the two years I spent in school, with the exception of the bread and pastry classes. I had wonderful instructors but I was so intimidated by the process. I often wondered why I was so afraid of bread, it has so few ingredients. All you need are measuring cups and spoons, or a reliable scale, and infinite amounts of patience. Actually, what you truly need is an ability to give up control. Once bread is mixed, scaled and formed, all you do is put it in the oven and wait. Maybe that is my problem. I can fix a broken Hollandaise, shuck bushels of clams and oysters without losing an important body part or calling 911 and I can grill you the perfect steak. Those things I have control over from start to finish. Bread, on the other hand, can’t be remedied once it goes in the oven. I have learned in the past several years that bread is like a horse or a dog; it can smell your fear.
For the past year or so, I have contributed to a forum that has many wonderful cooks as members. One of the members, Nancy, started a thread on bread baking. She is not professionally trained but is as fearless as anyone I know in the culinary industry. We have never met in person but e-mail almost daily and have spoken on the phone one time. Nancy decided that it was time to experiment with sourdough starters. She tried to make her own with no success and then found a wonderful website that will send you, at no cost, an 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter. It comes to you in a little envelope and is dehydrated so you must bring it back to life. After reading her posts, I decided to face my fears and begin my own sourdough trail.
I patiently waited for a couple of weeks for my starter to arrive as I kept track of Nancy’s efforts. Her breads were so beautiful and she posted step-by-step instructions along with great photographs. My starter finally arrived so I set about rehydrating it with water, flour and some dried potato flakes. It sounded simple until I was reminded that I have to give my starter a name. All of Nancy’s were called “Bob” and a one point she likened them to Tribbles (all you Star Trek fans will get this reference). I decide to name mine “Bettie”, after my mother who passed away last year. I was hoping she would bring me good bread karma.
So, as you see in my opening picture, my starter is all fed and ready to go. You can tell it is doing well by the amount of “action” it has. It should be very bubbly and alive. Lo and behold, here is “Bettie” after two days:
“I often wondered why I was so afraid of bread, it has so few ingredients. Actually, what you truly need is an ability to give up control. Once bread is mixed, scaled and formed, all you do is put it in the oven and wait. Maybe that is my problem.”
MY PREMIER SOURDOUGH EXPERIENCE
I decide to start with the most basic of breads, the sourdough baguette. I found a recipe from a site that I have trusted in the past and followed the recipe as written. I was a little suspicious because not only did it call for the starter to make the initial “sponge”, which is later mixed with flour and water to make the final dough, but it also called for additional yeast and vital wheat gluten. Yeast I have, vital wheat gluten entailed a trip to Whole Foods. I was tempted to leave out the additional yeast and/or wheat gluten but given my past disasters, I figured the experts knew what they were doing so I ignored my suspicions. The sponge rose beautifully, as did the final dough. Encouraged, I deflated the dough to form the baguettes and all I can say is the consistency was like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. It was sticky, runny and downright impossible to work with. Disappointed, but determined not to waste two days of work, I dumped it on the counter, added a lot of flour, kneaded it and put it in an oiled sheet pan. I brushed the top with olive oil, added some coarse salt and dried herbs and baked a focaccia. My lovely Italian neighbor, Adriana, took it to her parents’ house that night and they had it with antipasti. They said it was delicious, maybe they were being nice.
I began to suspect that I just did not have what it takes to be a bread baker. I still had more of the Bettie starter so I then attempted sourdough biscuits. These are the same as a good old Southern biscuit but are made with a sourdough starter and no butter. To my complete surprise, not only did they turn out but they tasted terrific:
No sourgrapes needed…… my first attempt at sourdough biscuits worked.
Meanwhile, Nancy had moved on to increasingly complicated recipes. She sent me the recipe for Pane Siciliano, a wonderfully moist and dense olive oil based bread using the sourdough starter. I was scared of trying the baguettes again so I decided to try her recipe. This was truly a three day labor of love between making the biga (the sponge), making the final dough, forming the loaves, letting them rise and finally baking them in a 500 degree oven with steam. I thought since I failed at making the most basic of breads, I might as well go down in flames with a really complicated recipe. The difference was, I was not afraid of this recipe. The final results were spectacular as you can see in the opening picture.
Pane Dough, oven-bound…
I am slowly gaining more confidence and am now experimenting with creating different starters from my “mother” starter. More on that later, and my second attempt at the baguettes. Wish me luck, I already have the courage.
Two books that I find invaluable are: Baking With Julia, by Dorie Greenspan (based on the PBS series) Le Cordon Bleu, Professional Baking, by Wayne Gisslen (3rd Ed.)
(My first Guest Blogger, Michelle Morgando, is a lawyer, judge, and professionally-trained Chef, who lives in Henderson, Nevada. She has just returned from a one-week travel and food writing trip to Italy and has agreed to share her fabulous story with us.)
A recipe should be simple, right? No guesswork, just follow the instructions. Of course you can improvise but when you do, be prepared for a result you may not expect. I dreamed of a trip to Italy, Tuscany in particular, for many years. The views, food, wine and culture fascinate me. I planned a trip to Tuscany for a travel writing course and two months later, my travel “recipe” that seemed so exciting at the time, felt meaningless. I lost my Mother, after several years of health issues, at a time and in a manner that was unexpected. Do I go, do I stay? If I go, will I live the experience as I once hoped? I decide to go. thewritersworkshop.net
My mother and I had a particulary strong bond where food was involved. We may disagree on politics or my choice in a spouse, but food connected us without conflict (except when I did not do things her way). She encouraged me to explore my fascination with food and my decision to attend culinary school at the age of 42. After she died, I wondered if I would enjoy cooking again. Perhaps my trip to Italy might hold some answers.
I arrive in Montalcino, Italy on a Sunday and have some time before I meet the instructor and fellow students. I do something I have always wanted to do. I take a walk through town to look, listen and imagine what it would be like to live in such a place. I feel unsettled. Is it jet lag or the sudden realization that I can’t call my mother and tell her all the sights and sounds of Montalcino? I keep telling myself to snap out of this mood. I wish there was someone who would reassure me that I was going to be fine.
The next several days are filled with writing classes on the beautiful patio of the hotel, lunches, dinners, wine tastings and exploring. The food is both exceptional and simple. Baked Pecorino cheese drizzled with local honey, earthy and pungent tagliarini with porcini mushrooms and black truffles, and the enormous and truly satisfying Bistecca alla Fiorentina, a regional t-bone steak finished with coarse salt. The people of Montalcino are gracious and interesting. I visited a wine shop during my first day and attempted to speak to the owner in my limited Italian. He spoke very little English but said “speak slowly.” After 15 minutes and and education about Brunello, I left with a great bottle of wine and a few new Italian phrases. My fellow students are diverse, talented and adventurous. Some are professional writers, many are not, but we were all in Tuscany to learn and enjoy the the experience. I still wonder, when will I feel that pure, unmitigated joy that I am in a place I have always wanted to be?
On our third day, we take a day trip to Pienza. One of our stops is the Palazzo Picollomini, commissioned by Pope Pius II as a residence for his papal court. It is breathtaking but I am drawn to the Cathedral Cattedrale dell’Assunta next to the papal residence. I think about my first trip to Europe with my mother and remember how we visited so many churches in London. I enter the church with Jenny, a fellow student, who lost her mother some months before me. We wander the cathedral, admiring its beauty and Jenny stops to light two devotional candles, one for her mother, and one for herself, her husband and son to help them with their grief. I was struck by the reverence with which she placed the candles and without any conscious thought, found myself reaching for a candle. Jenny had left a space between her two candles for reasons we can’t explain. I light my candle and pray for my mother and for my family as I place it between Jenny’s candles. Another student, Heather, follows me and lights a candle for the son she lost. I then realize that this is the moment , this is the reason why I decided to take this trip. In this cathedral in Italy, where for centuries so many have grieved or joyfully worshiped, I realize that I am not alone in sadness. At that moment, I know that I will always love my mother and that she will always love me, but I would need to learn to experience happiness again.
Michelle, Jenny and Heather
As Jenny, Heather and I leave the church, we are crying but realize through the loss we share we have found each other. As we stood outside the church, I tried to memorize the way the sunlight reflected off the centuries-old stonework and the sound of the church bells as they rang at noon. The picture I have of the three of us on the cathedral steps will always remind me that grief and joy are universal emotions.
As I continue with my trip, I begin to appreciate all that Tuscany offers. Dinner with new friends, a truly exceptional glass of Brunello, eating gelato as I walk through Montalcino, a rainstorm in the middle of the night. One of our last events is a cooking class with a resident who travels the world, but seems to be happiest in Montalcino. I then realize that I am excited to cook for the sheer pleasure of cooking, and to be cooking in Tuscany.
We make our way one evening to the home of Teresa Galli, former resident of Rome and world traveler. She welcomes us into her home and kitchen and begins our cooking class. We are all assigned tasks for our dinner. I am given the job of making one of the doughs for our pasta. As I am forming the dough, I listen to Teresa and my classmates talk, laugh and yell at each other and I feel something light up in me. This is healing, joyful and at times, truly hilarious. Permanently stamped in my memory is the assembly line of my friends trying to feed strips of fresh pasta through the pasta machine as the handle of the machine keeps falling on the floor. This is what I want my life to be about, this feeling is what makes the difficult times bearable. We sit down to dinner and I sit with Teresa and listen to stories of, as she describes, her first six lives and what she plans to do with her seventh. Her description of her early years in Rome, her bicoastal existence between Rome and New York and her travels to all the amazing countries I have never visited feed my soul as much as the food that we made that evening. We walk back to the hotel in the rain with full stomachs and hearts and an evening full of memories.
As we were leaving Teresa’s, she kissed my cheeks, took both of my hands in hers and said “Cara, you must cook for yourself every day, this will make you happy.”
I have my recipe for happiness. I will cook for myself and the people I love, and I will go back to Italy. I will cook with the memory of my mother as the best part of the recipe.
Michelle’s Welcome Home to the USA Party (note the “Aspen” caps as party favors)
