Try Again: artisan bread, French fries, wings
Saturday!
Lunch: Even though Cooking With My Kid proclaimed this Artisan Bread was not difficult, she admitted to having doubts ahead of time. I too had my doubts about how easy this bread would be, and I too was wrong. It was dead simple. Easy peasy. I actually followed the original recipe, but might try the whole wheat version in future, or maybe a garlic or rosemary bread, mmm. The bread came out of the oven gorgeous and delicious. I would suggest letting it brown up a bit more than I did, as my loaf was a touch doughy in the centre. When making this, my dough didn't appear to rise much. I couldn't form the ball they talk about because the dough was too runny. But it still worked out in the long run, so I have to vouch for this recipe. One thing: if you eschew plastic wrap as I do, you might want to cover the bread with wax paper or something prior to letting it sit overnight. I didn't, and it ended up with a bit of a crust on it by morning, which is not what you want. Olivia and I had this bread for lunch with meat, cheese and fruit, and we felt very Lord of the Ringsy. Maybe she didn't. I did.
Supper: I make home fries all the time. I don't usually bother with a recipe. Tonight, however, I wanted to try one I came across on Canadian Living.com and I'm so glad I did. From June 2008's Canadian Living: Crispy French Fries with Mustard Mayonnaise. These are easily the best fries I've ever made. I made them in the oven (rather than deep fryer) and I made the suggested accompaniment of mayo dip. The two together were like heaven in my mouth. I used three baking potatoes (2 lbs) to make these and G, O and I didn't leave a fry uneaten.
I screwed up the other recipe of the night, which is too bad, as I suspect it may be a good one. I found it on the Martha Stewart website; from March 2010's Everyday Food: Sticky Chicken Wings. I was overly focussed on making the fries and wasn't paying enough attention to the oven, and alas, I burnt the wings. I hadn't cooked the wings as suggested, but rather breaded the wings, baked them, boiled up the sauce separately, and tossed the cooked (burnt) wings in the sauce. This method should have worked well, had I been more on the ball.
A damp dish towel is what i usually cover bread with to let it raise - but it's usually only sitting for an hour or two, not overnight. A thought.
ReplyDeleteL
Do you put the towel right on the bread dough, or just over the bowl?
ReplyDeleteI have a recipe that has a bit of sugar with the salt (I don't recall exact proportions) to make french fries, it is excellent. I like the idea of blanching the potatoes first, though, as I have found they take 1.5 hours to cook and you have to turn them often. Blanching would solve that issue.
ReplyDeleteIt goes over the bowl, but then when it raises in pans it probably touches the loaves a bit .... but it would probably stick to the dough a bit too much if it was directly touching. I'm sure wax paper would work nicely like you thought, too. L
ReplyDelete