Sesame-Glazed Edamame, (Attempted) French Macarons

The number of Heath Ceramics I own just tripled, from one to three. I guess I should be precise - I joint-own the two I just got. E moved in with me, and her wonderful former roommate got us a pair of large bowls. This adds to my happy cup, purchased for hot drinks at work. An aside on that - SFMOMA has a Blue Bottle on the top floor in a beautiful, well lit space next to the sculpture garden. They serve coffee in cocoa-colored Heath mugs and these mugs make me quite happy. After some investigation, I found to be custom-made just for that location but an almost-identical mug is sold at their store. It may seem stupid to spend that much for a single mug, but it does make me quite happy. End aside.

The most remarkable feature of the bowls is their size. My standby dinner bowls, pictured in many previous posts, aren't really big enough for single-dish dinners. Maybe chili is filling enough given the volume, but definitely not my more standard rice-and-tofu dishes. To inaugurate them, I cooked a rather  unremarkable udon and silken tofu soup. About halfway through making the soup, I knew it would not astound and hatched a plan to make at least something good. A few handfuls of edamame, pre-steamed and laboriously popped from pods, were intended for the soup. Instead, they met their fate in my cast iron with mirin, cayenne, and sesame seeds. I was a little influenced by that little chickpea dish I've made before. The end result was a slightly crispy sweet and spicy bite, perfect for adding some flavor to a meal. Not so good for finger food - much too sticky.

The same weekend, I also endeavored on a standard trial of bakers: French Macarons. In short, if you don't care about them looking perfect and you own something for beating eggs, you have no reason to not make these. The ingredient list is impressively small, ignoring the filling, and the result is that combination of soft and chewy and sweet and sticky that begs to be savored. Again, assuming you don't care how perfect they look. Case in point, the macarons I baked up:

I think my flaw was using the wrong recipe. I should have just used the one a friend of mine does; instead, I Googled for "Miete French Macron Recipe" and took the first hit. It gave me weights for all the ingredients but the egg whites. It said 6 for the double recipe, so I halved it down to 3. But, alas, my batter was runny. Before you ask, yes, I'm sure my whites were stiff enough. They clumped in the beater and looked like meringue; they held a point. I may have deflated them too much in the mixing, but I'm going to bet if I used a recipe with weights on the egg whites and scaled around that, they would have come out at least the generally correct shape. Not bad for the mess it created.

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Sesame-Glazed Edamame

More an idea than a recipe

1/2 cup edamame beans, pre-steamed and removed from pods.

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (reduce if desired)

dash salt

dash chinese five spice

Make sure the beans are fairly dry. Toss them with spices and salt, and put them in a pre-heated cast iron over medium. Allow to cook for five minutes, stirring once. Pour in the mirin and the sesame seeds, and stir actively to make sure the edamame gets a nice coating. Once the mirin starts to gum-up, leave them alone in the pan for a few minutes so they can brown; repeat on the other side.

Sourdough: a Revival

I spent the past week with a cold, bookended with bouts of bread baking. Not much other cooking besides; a fair amount of canned soup, scottish oats, sandwiches, and eating out. I did make a comical observation - my weekend dinners consisted of three cultural takes on "round piece of dough as delivery method for meal"; namely Ethiopian, burrito, and gyro. I thought of pizza on Monday to round it out, but decided soup would be more fitting. But, yes, on to the bread. Last year, around this time, I started a sourdough experiment that ended when I got lazy and the sourdough got mold. Sad, really. A chance encounter with the Tartine Bread book in an art museum gift shop told me there was an easier way. Less baby sitting starter, less watching dough rise. Sign me up!

Armed with my partially-remembered sentences from a book and my newly-purchased cheesecloth, I began the starter. I did the following, and it seemed to work, though I'm not sure how proper it is: I put 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup bread flour, and 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp warm water in a bowl (non-reactive, non-metal is a must - use Pyrex or equivalent) and stirred it. Cheesecloth on top, let it rest in my kitchen for 3 days. Made sure it smelled funny - cheesy, almost. Threw out half of it, added in enough flour/water to bring it back up to the same size; stirred. Let sat for 2 days. Made sure it rose a little. Also, smelled funny. Threw away half of it, refreshed back to size. Everytime it rose and then fell, I refreshed; the period is a feeding every 2-3 days right now and I've reduced the size a bit so it is perfectly sized for making a loaf of broad ~160 grams, of which 80 goes into a loaf. The refresh amount is about 2 tbsp of each whole-wheat and normal flour and 2.5 tbsp of water.

I've made two loaves with this; the first (pictured below) was a half-whole wheat bread with ~70% hydration. I skimped on salt accidentally, leaving it with that peculiar taste of bread that doesn't have any salt. The second loaf (both pictures above) was 100% white flour, not counting the starter, with ~80% hydration and black sesame seeds. The second loaf was infinitely better, so I've included the process below. And, for the person who doesn't have a few hours in the morning spare for bread, this recipe is fantastic - straight from the fridge to the oven, easy peasy. Delish.

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Rustic Sesame, Naturally Leavened

Makes a single loaf

80g starter (recipe approximately above)

320g bread flour

256g cold water

10g black sesame seeds

5g salt

Take the starter right when it needs refreshing; that is, it has risen recently and begun to fall. Combine with flour, water, and sesame seeds and mix with a wooden spoon until it has come together, then stir for a minute longer. Cover; wait 30 minutes. After that first wait, add the salt to the bowl, lightly wet your hands, and stretch-and-fold the dough until you can no longer feel the grain of the salt. Cover, let rest for 3-4 hours. Stretch-and-fold it every 30 minutes or so, until it feels very difficult to do so or the bread has risen a bit (it will feel fluffier). Refrigerate the dough for a day and a night.

After giving it time in the fridge to complete the rising process, turn your oven up to 500 degrees and prepare, as I did, a bespoke dutch oven consisting of a cast-iron frying pan and a brownie pan, turned upside-down, for the lid. Have this in the oven to warm up. Remove the bread from the fridge, flour a work surface and your hands, and shape it into a round somewhat. After you think the cast iron is hot (30 minutes or so), place the dough on some parchment paper and put the parchment paper in the dutch oven, reducing the oven to 475. Cook for 20 minutes, remove the lid, and cook for 15-20 minutes longer (until the bread is ~200 degrees inside, looks golden brown, and sounds hollow).

Eat.

Sesame Spelt Bread

Back to non-failing bread, and it feels pretty good. This is after my no-rise bagels (dead yeast) and my no-rise mini baguettes (too much salt). Now, there is definitely one are where this recipe could be improved and a large avenue for experimentation. But - still good, still workable. Not a complete failure. The recipe is based off of the 50% whole wheat rustic from Artisan Breads Everyday, but contains a few tweaks. The goal was to create something like a pain au levain, without all that starter business. (Not that I'm against starters; one should be starting up this weekend).

It wasn't perfect, but it was close. The bread was a bit too much like a honey whole-wheat sandwich loaf than I would have liked. That is, it was soft but not airy, and excelled at soaking up honey (and, presumably, pbj if I had it handy). The spelt gave it a nice nutty flavor; I don't think the sesame seeds did anything besides poke out of the crust like sailors bobbing in the waters near a shipwreck. The biggest issue was definitely the texture, which was caused by my inclusion of olive oil in the recipe. I would cut it in half as an experiment; removing it entirely would likely prove drastically dry. Walnuts would also have been a great addition to this loaf, though I did not have them handy.

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Sesame Spelt Loaf

Makes 1 loaf

225g water

130g bread flour

130g whole wheat flour

20g spelt flour

20g sesame seeds

12g olive oil (halve this for a airier, less moist loaf)

5g salt

3g instant yeast

At least a night before you want to bake the bread, combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix. Add in the water and olive oil, and stir with a wooden spoon for 5 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes to hydrate things, then stretch and fold 4 times with a 10 minute break between each. Place in a clean bowl, cover tightly, and place it in the fridge.

The day of baking remove the dough from the fridge 1.5 hours before you wish to put it in the oven and shape it however you like (it might actually make great rolls as-is, without cutting down the olive oil). Place it on a parchment-lined pan, cover it, and let it sit until baking time. Preheat oven to 500, put the bread in, lower to 450, and cook for ~35 minutes. Check and rotate the loaf at the 15 minute mark. It is done when it sounds hollow and the top is very hard.

Sesame-Miso Tofu

At some point during the week, I saw a link to a recipe for scallion pancakes. They seemed delicious, I happened to have a bunch of green onion lying around, and I wanted something other than rice with my generic Asian tofu dinner that I was going to make. Seemed like the perfect accompaniment. Now, usually when I make bread, I follow the recipe precisely. I've learned my lesson in the past with baking; there is too much chemistry, too little room for experimentation. A very fine line to walk, and I've done my fair share of hiking it in clown shoes. Not a good idea.

Except this time, I think I came out ahead. Yes, I toyed with the recipe - but when your recipe has two ingredients (flour and water), you get a bit of lee-way. From past bread baking, I know that adding yogurt to a dough gives it a bit of acid tang (to substitute for lack of a starter) and a bit of fluff. I wasn't quite in the mood for a thin, fried thick - a doughier hunk, capable of soaking up the sauce, seemed in order. The sauce I prepared was very ad-hoc, and lightly measured. I'll do my best to recount it below, but there are omissions, guesses, and outright fabrication of ingredients as transcribed.

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Seasame-Miso Tofu

Serves 2

12 oz extra firm tofu, cubed

3-4 carrots, sliced

handful of snap peas, winter peas, etc

1 small white onion, sliced into strips

1/4 cup + 1 tbsp water (5 tbsp)

3-4 sprigs green onion, diced

loose handful of thai basil

2 tbsp red miso paste

2 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp Sriracha (optional)

1 tsp olive oil

pinch of poppy seeds

pinch of cumin

pinch of corn starch

In a large frying pan, with a bit of oil, start cooking the onion over medium. After a few minutes, throw in the tofu. Let cook without stirring for up to 5 minutes, until the tofu has begun to brown on a side. Throw in the carrots and let cook for 5 more minutes, then throw in the peas.

In a small bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients and stir thoroughly. The consistency should be somewhat watery. Add to the frying pan, and continue stirring and cooking until you want to call it done.

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Doughy Scallion Cake

Makes 1 pancake (serves 2?)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3 tbsp water

1 tbsp yogurt

squeeze of honey

3-4 sprigs green onion, diced

loose handful of thai basil, shredded

In a kettle, boil some water. Put the 1/2 cup of flour in a mixing bowl that can hove boiling water poured into it. Once the water is boiling, add approximately 3 tbsp of it (fill a 1/4 cup somewhat short of the rim), the squeeze of honey, and the yogurt. Mix thoroughly for a minute with a spoon. It should be cohesive and not sticky; if sticky, add more flour in small quantities. If it doesn't form a ball, add a tiny bit more water.

Flour your hands, a work surface, and the dough, and knead it a few times. Put back in the bowl, cover, and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. While its resting, feel free to prepare the above recipe. After thirty minutes, roll it out very flat on a floured work surface. Sprinkle the onion and basil on top, then roll up, spiral, and roll into a thicker pancake again.

In a frying pan over medium-high, add just enough oil to coat the bottom. When the oil shimmers, put in the cake and constantly swirl the pan above the flame. Flip after 2 minutes or less, and cook the same way on the other side for 2 minutes or less. Place on paper towel, dab off excess oil, and serve immediately.

Stubborn Biscuits

A somewhat frequent morning tradition of mine is to stop by one of the many Blue Bottle locations on my morning commute (Original or Mint Plaza if by bike, Ferry Plaza if by MUNI/foot) and get two things: a soy mocha and a biscotti regina. There is a proper order to this: wait for the drink. Bite the biscotti; chew and swallow. Talk a small sip of the mocha. Repeat until biscotti is gone. The combination of the sesame and slight anise in the biscotti pairs with the bittersweet mocha. So I want to re-create that. Except I'm a stubborn one, and I refuse to look up a recipe for bisoctti regina because it looks and tastes very much like a shortbread. So I experiment.

Looking at the picture, and having eaten on of these biscottis yourself, you may think: success! That is, until you bite it and are greeted with... a thick shortbread. Very much a dessert, not an almost-savory pairing for a liquid one.

My thinking was this: take a shortbread. Add baking powder to give it some fluff. Add some olive oil to give it some air. Coat it in milk to both soften it when it cooks and to also get the seeds to stick. Lessen the amount of sugar to cut the sweetness. So I did all of these things, but it was not enough. The inside is still far too dense, and I refuse to increase the batch size so I can include egg. I will find another way. Next up: adding a little more liquid to the dough itself (milk or water or more olive oil, I don't know) and playing with the butter : flour ratio. Recipe follows, if you want it for reference.

Cold Vinegar/Sesame Noodle and Tofu Toss

Looking for a simple, not-heavy dinner, we decided on something involving a green pepper because we had one. Stumbling our way through ideas, soba sounded really good. We didn't exactly find soba, and it wasn't quite udon - the package called it "Japanese style noodles". Definitely not soba because it was not buckwhet based and it was far too small to be udon. It was also flat; my guess is the package had a ethnic confusion or wikipedia is not-all knowing.

We made a few mistakes in the prep. The noodles were very gluteny - after a short boil, we gave them a quick rinse to cool and then tried to toss them with the sliced ingredients. It was more of a ball of noodles sloshing around in a pile of tofu, peas, and green pepper with various seasonings. The proportions of seasoning was also off, but I've fixed that below in the recipe. I recommend eating this with a cold, unfiltered sake.

Vinegar + Sesame Noodle Toss (20 minutes to make, serves 2)

• 1 small package fresh, ethnically challenged noodles.
• 1 green pepper
• 1 small block pre-seasoned/cooked tofu (we chose a salt and pepper one)
• 1 handful snow peas
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp vinegar (rice or white wine, maybe balsamic if you are feeling adventurous)
• (Optional) furikake
• (Optional) Sriracha

Cook the ethnically challenged noodles as described on the packaging - this probably means bringing water to a boil, adding noodles, bringing back to a boil, and cooking for a few minutes after that. Drain noodles and rinse very thoroughly with cold water until they are less sticky and have chilled. Chop pepper, peas, and tofu into thumb-sized pieces. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and toss. If desired, top with some furikake or add Sriracha during the tossing process for a nice kick.