Everybody's got a chink in their cooking armor. Mine is fluff.
Specifically, anything where the incorporation of air comes into play. This means souffles, meringues, popovers, and yeast breads--anything where restraint is a virtue, where part of the process is knowing when to walk away.
I'm a poker, a prodder, a meddler. If me coaxing a food along is more likely to harm then help, I'm sh*t out of luck.
But it's time to conquer cooking demons. Live yeast culture, quake at my presence.
The impetus for yeast domination was a bierock that I had at Peekskill Brewery (spelled beer lock on their bar menu). Billed as pretzel dough pockets with seasoned beef, red cabbage and apples, it was a genius concept in beer food that didn't quite take wing; the dough was a little tough, and when you jerked the little packets apart (or bit into them) crumbly, under-seasoned filling flew out.
(Much, much better on that visit was the pork belly with lentils, fried oysters, and arugula salad with blue cheese and pumpkin.)
But as I picked bits of beef and cabbage off my lap I thought, I bet I could do this better.
I'd come across bierocks paging through the gorgeous Saveur Cooks Authentic American; they're a hearty, field-friendly lunch (not unlike Chinese da bao, or Cornish pasties), popular on Mennonite farms in Kansas, whose recipe stems from German and Russian immigrants.
The Saveur bierocks were huge (think smooshed softball) and filled with ground beef, cabbage, cheddar cheese and mustard.
Which sounded great, 'cept on the day of the Great Yeast Forward, I was short a couple of those elements.
So I did some digging in the 'ol pantry and tweaked accordingly: Instead of the Eastern Blockequse cabbage and cheese, I was running with Japanese hamburger curry with peas. Spicy, economical, and bound to congeal in a way that made it easy to stuff into buns.
I wish I could say the road went smoothly but , my fluff blight was right on my heels.
I followed the damned instructions to the letter, set the dough in a warm spot in the kitchen to proof; the prescribed 30 minutes ticked by, and my kneaded mass failed to double.
Ooookaaay...don't panic. Maybe it needs to be somewhere warmer? Yeast likes warm. Set the dough bowl in a barely-on oven. 60 minutes. No movement. 90 minutes. 120. Doughy defiance.
I called Max, my handy breadmaster, in tears.
WHY? WHY WON'T SHE RISE, CAPTAIN???
"Did you test the yeast in water and sugar to make sure it was still active?" Yes.
"Did you knead the dough well?" Yup.
"Is the bowl somewhere warm?" Ayup.
Then....I dunno, baby. You're cursed.
I stared down at the dimpled, snickering mass. Not conceding defeat, I re-floured a clean surface, tested and prepped more yeast, kneaded the beer-smelling primordial brew into the smirking dough, set it back into it's oiled bowl, and plopped the bowl on the counter atop the dishwasher (set to plate warmer).
Three hours after the initial bloody proofing began, the FN dough finally doubled in size. I punched it down with grim relish.
The final results? An authentic fresh-baked-bread-smelling kitchen, and a dozen curry buns to bring to a potluck. The bread itself was soft and a little sweet, and matched well with the still-moist filling.
Next time I'll go spicer and more copious with the hamburger curry (the bread to filling ratio was about 2:1, oops), but they were still loads tastier and less combative in texture than the Peekskill bierocks.
Even though I halved the size of the giant Saveur buns, my 3-inch diameter babies were still too big and filling for a potluck, expanding in the stomach like starchy C4. For the next soiree, I'd make 'em as tiny as I possibly can (divide the dough to 32 balls, roll & fill); but for getting stuck on a plane, train, bus, cubicle or wheat field, the 3-inchers would be a welcome pocket meal.
My biggest mistake? I shouldn't have been trying to do this before a dinner
party. Bread dough rushes for no man/woman; I turned what should have
been a relaxing, ruminative ritual into a spiral of
self-doubt.
We'll call it a draw, enemy fluff.
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