A French Friday’s with Dorie Feast: Salmon with Basil Tapenade, Yin-Yang Beans, and Semolina Bread to mop up the extra tapenade sauce.
Shortly after my daughter Melissa arrived to spend some time with me after the death of my husband, she made a suggestion. “I think, Mom, this is a time to stock up on Comfort Foods, just eat what makes you feel good.” Somehow, to hear her now irreverently tell it, I translated “Comfort Foods” into “all the Junk Food that you want” and went on a binge. My menu, for more days than I’d like to admit was:
Fritos, the Original Corn Chip;
Cheetos Crunchy Cheese Flavored Snacks;
Archway Original Windmill Cookies; (with milk)
Caramel Corn (Farmers Market); and
Premium Saltine Crackers (crumbled and mixed with sugar and milk).
Toss in one-half a Blueberry-Marscapone Roulade and a whole loaf of Semolina Bread and, to me, that spells c-o-m-f-o-r-t. For about ten days. After that, it spells j-u-n-k-f-o-o-d. That’s why it was a nice jog back to reality when this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice was Salmon with Basil Tapenade.
Wild Sockeye Salmon Fillets
There’s nothing difficult about this tasty main course which is explained beautifully here. It’s simply tapenade coaxed into two “pockets” created in each 5 ounce, thick, center-portion of salmon. The fillets cook 4 minutes in the skillet before heading into the oven for another 6. Add some leftover tapenade sauce for a lovely dinner entrée.
Fill a small plastic baggie with the olive tapenade. Then cut off a small tip of a corner and hold the “cone” tightly with your hand. Use this make-shift tube to fill the slit “pockets” in each salmon fillet. Massage gently to evenly spread the tapenade.
I thought that Yin Yang Beans, a favorite recipe from Grace Young’s “Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge” cookbook and featured on PBS a year ago, might be a complimentary side to the salmon. Even without the ground pork, which I left out, these green beans still have the tangy, spicy flair that is delicious with this salmon. So good, in fact, that I’ve joined Wok Wednesdays, a new twice-monthly cooking group that is woking it’s way through Young’s book. Next week, Kung Pao Chicken. If you want to see what others chose to serve with their salmon this week, go here.
It would be remiss and most ungracious of me not to acknowledge your many kindnesses and concerns expressed since the death of my husband. Quite remarkable, really. Six years ago, Michael wrote a letter telling me the life he hoped I would lead after he could no longer live it with me. Now, keeping in mind this is a Man’s Idea of how a Woman should live, he did leave behind good marching orders. Since by nature, I am a happy, optimistic woman, always willing to choose joy over sadness, he’s now made that even easier. In that vein, I am off to California this week-end to celebrate a lovely young lady’s 11th birthday. Life is Good.
Sunday morning began, to use a bread term, rather crumbly.
This week’s Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia recipe, Semolina Bread. Ohhhhh, it’s so yummy.
Up early, as usual, to watch the 14th stage of the Tour de France. Sadly, the 150-some racers met Trouble. Towards the end of the race and just before the brutally steep Mur de Péguère summit, some idiot tossed tacks onto the road. Bicycle tires don’t play well with upholstery tacks. That appalling act of sabotage resulted in at least 30 riders suffering 48 punctures and one sustaining a suspected broken collar bone in a crash.
Defending champion Cadel Evans suffered three different punctures which stopped him cold and would have put him out of the competition. However, Tour leader Bradley Wiggins, a Brit now wearing the yellow jersey, drew approval and accolades for sitting tall on his bike, slowing the pace, and waiting for the defending champ and others to regroup and join the peloton. Score One for the Good Guys.
Watch Magic Happen: Start with a Sponge. Mix Warm Water, Yeast, All-Purpose Flour and Give It 2 Hours to Rise.
Following that drama it was on to this week’s Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia. This week it’s a quickly and easily mixed Semolina Bread. As I walked into the kitchen, the tour over, I decided if Bradley could rise to the occasion,I could rise to the occasion, making bread that would, uh, rise.
Two hours later, the Sponge plus flours, salt and olive oil make this cute little ball of goodness. Don’t you love making bread?
Famed baker Nick Malgieri showed Julia how to make this deliciously nutty-tasting bread. If you’re thinking Semolina loaves are more Italian than French, you’re right. This flour is milled from durum wheat, the flour used to make pasta.
It takes ten minutes to whisk together the sponge and two hours to let it double in size. Once mixed together with flour, olive oil and salt, it turns into a lovely dough that needs another two hours rising time. Then you form the dough into a loaf, transfer it on to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet lightly covered with corn meal, and for the next two hours let that baby rise again.
Here, I admit to a little error . When I shaped and prepared the dough for the second rising, I “slashed” prematurely. Should have waited until after the rising. Whoops.
Slash and bake.
This is a tasty but unassuming and rather plain loaf of artisan bread. It’s color, a wonderfully warm golden brown, is what separates it from the crowd. Enjoy.
If you’d like to make this bread, I encourage you to jump to this site. To read what other Dorie/Julia fans baked this week, go here.
(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!
BLUEBERRY-MASCARPONE ROULADE, this week’s French Friday with Dorie recipe
When I spotted this week’s FFWD recipe choice, Blueberry-Mascarpone Roulade, I immediately thought of the Tour de France 2012. Stick with me here. Having begun Saturday, June 30th and continuing through Sunday, July 22, the world’s most famous bicycle race covers an astounding distance of 3,497 challenging kilometres (2173 miles). The term roulade originated from the French verb rouler which means to roll. Since I’m a bicycle fanatic, every morning, before going to work, I flip on my television and follow those two-hundred competitive riders as they roll through the French countryside. Go Bradley Wiggins!
This is the batter for the sponge cake, turned out on a jelly roll pan covered with parchment paper.
The batter is spread over the parchment paper. Next time I will be sure to blend the top more evenly.
Understandably, if you’re American, your first thought may be “jelly roll” because a dessert roulade is a sponge cake rolled around a sweet tasting filling. Although we’re most familiar with the Bûche de Noël, this week’s recipe would be a perfect dessert finale for your upcoming Bastille Day party on July 14th.
A traditional Bûche de Noël, made with a Génoise cake and chocolate buttercream, and garnished with powdered sugar, raspberries, and spruce sprigs. Photo by Wikipedia
Et, merci à Dorie, c’est facile.
We’re on a roll —– after cooling, the baked sponge cake is laid on a towel, coated with confectionary sugar, and spread with the prepared filling. Then the cake is rolled about one and a half times, finishing with the seam at the bottom. Refrigerate the wrapped cake.
The roulade is now ready to return to its “towel home” and return to the refrigerator for at least two hours.
Although a roulade can be filled with anything, this one is filled with ‘a mixture of blueberry-speckled sweetened mascarpone and whipped cream’. Because I’d never made a roulade before, I admit to approaching this week’s choice with trepidation. However, my worries were unfounded.
Dorie makes this easy for a first-timer like me. 1) Make the berries. 2) Bake the roulade. 3) Make the filling. 4) Assemble the cake. 5) Refrigerate. She also suggests making a berry coulis to serve with the roulade and this is a great idea. Next time.
If you’re game for making this roulade, stop here for a close version. To see what my colleagues baked this week, roll on over to this finish line.
There have been many challenges this past week or so since my stepfather died, but honestly, the one I feared the most was melding my baking style with my mother’s.
Let me explain.
My mother belongs to an online cooking group called Tuesdays with Dorie. Twice a month, she and approximately 500 other dedicated bakers from around the globe try their hand at creating an assigned recipe. The group is currently working their way through the book Baking with Julia, which was compiled and written by Dorie Greenspan. My mother was a recipe behind, so she suggested that we bake together to help her catch up.
Baking with Julia
Herein lies the challenge:
I am a by-the-seat-of-my-pants baker. I read a few recipes and then make it up as I go. I skip steps, omit or add ingredients, and rarely measure. Much of the time, my end results are good if not great, but occasionally there are some big flops.
My mother, on the other hand, is a by-the-book kind of gal. If she doesn’t have the precise ingredients on hand (may God strike you down if you substitute regular vanilla when it calls for Tahitian Vanilla), she will either run to the store or not make the recipe. She checks accuracy of liquid measurements by squatting to eye level, and she times everything to the second. As she says, “I don’t waver from the exact.”
I knew we were especially doomed when she opened the weighty Baking with Julia to page 315, and announced we were making Hazelnut Biscotti. “My biscotti always turn out awful,” I confessed.
“Mine too,” my mother countered.
Hazelnut Biscotti made by Katrina of BakingwithBoys.com
I would have considered throwing in the dishtowel right there, but I didn’t want to leave my mom in the lurch and I figured that during this biscotti round Julia Childs AND Dorie Greenspan had our backs. With uncharacteristic politeness and restraint, we began to bake. She got out the ingredients while I scanned the recipe.
We decided to make pistachio biscotti as those were the nuts we had on hand. (Thank goodness Greenspan offered them as an alternative in the preface of the recipe or we would have been in the car on our way to the store.)
Our first disagreement was over the merits of splat mats versus parchment paper. My mother had misplaced her silicone splat mats and felt they were too expensive to replace at $7.00 apiece. I couldn’t live without my splat mats and felt they were a more environmentally-friendly alternative to parchment.
“Well,” said my mother as she ripped a length of parchment paper from the roll to prepare the the biscotti baking pan. “Dorie advises the use of parchment.”
“Heaven forbid we should use something else,” I thought but smartly did not verbalize. I was on my best behavior.
Pistachios
My mother measured the 2/3 cup of pistachios on a cookie sheet (no parchment needed for this step) and put them in the oven to toast. We set the timer for ten minutes, and then got into a minor squabble about the necessity of mise en place. I preferred the grab-it-from-the-cabinet-as-you-need-it-and-then-put-it-back method, while my mom quoted Mary Sue Salmon, her first French cooking teacher, who said you always prepare a mise en place before you start cooking. Midway through our discussion and with four minutes to go on the timer, I smelled something burning.
“The nuts!” I yelled as I lunged for the oven. I pulled out the pan only to discovered that the nuts were already overdone. I examined one closely and then retrieved the bag of already shelled pistachios from the pantry.
“Mom,” I said carefully, we were both just barely hanging on this week and I didn’t want this to totally push her over the edge, “Um, these were already toasted.”
We looked at each other and started to laugh.
When we finally pulled it together several minutes later, we got serious about our biscotti. This wasn’t about baking styles anymore, this was about getting something posted. We both realized that we needed to join forces to make this work.
Chopping pistachios
We cleared the counter and started again. I chopped the nuts and my mom finished getting out the ingredients. I even measured the dry ingredients into a separate bowl rather than throwing everything together willy-nilly as usual.
“Where’s the baking soda?” I asked. According to Greenspan, “It’s the baking soda in the dough that gives the biscotti their wonderful open, crunchy texture.”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” said my mom, in a near panic. Before I could respond, she had grabbed her keys and flown out the door. “I’m just running over to a neighbor’s,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
While she was gone, I mixed up the rest of the batter. Earlier that week I’d read a baking hint that suggested always doubling the amount of vanilla you add to a recipe. So I did, hoping that Childs and Greenspan would approve. I couldn’t find the brandy, so I made a mental note to ask my mom when she returned.
Once I added the baking soda to the dry ingredients, I mixed everything together. I was just about to shape the dough onto the cookie sheet when I remembered the brandy.
“Oh man, I forgot the brandy and I’ve already mixed the wet with the dry,” I told my mom.
She retrieved the cognac from the pantry and handed it to me. Forgetting myself for a moment, I failed to measure, and simply chugged some into the batter, probably about three times the suggested two teaspoons. The room filled with the smell of alcohol.
“I hope these turn out,” said my mother as she retreated to the kitchen table where she’d set up camp since her baking soda run. She poured herself some more Fritos, her comfort food of the week. “I don’t want to get kicked out.”
No pressure there.
Batter complete, I began to shape the dough. Greenspan suggests making two chubby logs 12 to 13 inches long. “Chubby logs” was a vague description, so my mom got out a measuring tape and pulled up the food site Vintage Kitchen Notes. Paula, from Argentina, had kindly posted a photo of her biscotti logs before they hit the oven.
Chubby biscotti logs
After much shaping and reshaping, we put the biscotti in the oven for the first and then the second baking. As my previous biscotti attempts had been undercooked, I left the crescent cookies in the full fifteen minutes for the second go-around. For good measure, when the timer dinged, I turned off the oven and left them in another three minutes.
As you might imagine, with all that baking time, the biscotti were a little overdone. “Hard as a rock,” according to my mother. Nonetheless, we filled a special tenth anniversary bowl of my mom and Michael’s with our baking feat and headed over to a friend’s house. Adriana and her parents are originally from Sicily, and we knew they would be hard, yet fair critics.
Anniversary Bowl
I explained to our tasters that the cookies were a little firm. “Be careful not to break a tooth,” my mother helpfully interjected. I suggested they not only dunk them in a drink, but maybe soak them a while.
The verdict: Overcooked by several minutes, but great flavor.
Pistachio Biscotti
I guess my mom and I learned a little something from each other during our baking challenge: Exact is good as long as you are willing to throw in something extra now and then.
(If you are interested in the retro kitchen mixer tshirt I am wearing in the photo above, please visit Caustic Threads located at Etsy.com. Shop owner Erica Voges creates and prints these original designs for an amazingly economical price. Check out her wares and support a small business today!)
Erin, a fellow Coloradoan who blogs on Dinners, Dishes and Desserts is hosting an on-line bake sale to raise funds for the Colorado Disaster Relief fund. All of the proceeds will go to the Colorado Disaster Relief Fund c/o Red Cross to help with fire victims. Devastating wild fires have caused massive destruction in our home state, and you can help by bidding on some marvelous treats starting at 8 AM mountain time this Sunday, July 8. If you’ve never participated in a virtual bake sale before, take the opportunity to peek at this site. It’s fun. I’m already gearing up to bid on the Oatmeal M & M cookies that Liz who blogs on that skinny chick can bake is making.
Pop on over to Dinners, Dishes and Desserts to take a gander at the preview and support this good cause. We thank you.
