Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

The classic deli rye bread recipe uses first clear flour, something that apparently only exists on the east coast. I've ordered it from King Arthur a couple of times, it's pretty pricey in a small bag.

The irony is that first clear flour was originally used in rye bread because it was cheap, it is almost yellow in color but because the rye flour is the dominant color in rye bread, first clear flour could be used.

My former next door neighbor, the head of the local Sysco office, (he moved last fall) tried to get first clear flour for me from his suppliers, his flour sales reps from both Pillsbury and Gold Medal had never even HEARD of it, though it was in the Gold Medal catalog, but wasn't available for shipment this far west unless you ordered a pallet of it. (40 bags, 50 pounds each.)

The first clear flour DOES make a difference, by the way, but it's just too expensive to order in small bags. But Aaron, if you're trying to develop a recipe for your friends to use in a deli, it might be worth looking into whether you/they can get first clear flour.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a pot roast tonight, nothing fancy but I did throw in a cup of red wine. I also made a small batch of popovers, I've discovered that the King Arthur popover recipe from the KAF Bakers Companion works great if you make 1/3 batch (1 whole egg) and that gives us 2 popover each. My wife says they're 10-11 carbs each.

[Mike Nolan]

Let's see if I can remember them all:

Deep Dish
Stuffed
Thin Crust
Cracker Crust (almost like Mazoh)
Cake-style (think 1-2 inch thick dough.) There were at least two variants on this, Nancy's (on the west side) was pretty good, The Inferno (in Evanston) tasted like raw dough to me.

To that I would have added Pizza Bread, which was the specialty of the house at Gulliver's on Howard Street, just across the city line into Chicago, the stuff was so popular you'd place your order for 1 or usually more orders of pizza bread while waiting for a table. I"m told the place changed hands 10-15 years ago and the new owners changed the recipes, probably to save money, and the quality went downhill fast, so they lost the Northwestern student trade. But they probably lost a lot of that when Evanston stopped being a dry town, these days they even sell beer in the Student Union, what the WCTU (national HQ in Evanston) must think of THAT!!

There were some places making a flatbread pizza back then, too, including one that I think made it on naan, and one or two that made pizza on lavosh, which was similar but not quite the same as the cracker crust pizza, because the lavosh was pre-baked, sauce and cheese added, then essentially broiled to melt stuff, whereas the cracker-crust went into the oven with the dough still raw and all the toppings on it.

We lived near Main Street in Evanston for several years, there was a nearby place called The Pizza Oven that was just a hole-in-the-wall place with thin crust pizzas, but their sauce was the best pizza sauce I've ever had! I discovered them my freshman year at Northwestern, they didn't have sit-down space and were too far away for most of the students to go there, but they did delivery. A few years later, there was a Sunday just before finals that I was studying with my future wife at her sorority house and we ordered from Pizza Oven. When it came, her sorority sisters descended on us like locusts on a wheat field, so we pooled funds and ordered 2 more pizzas, then 2 more, I think we wound up ordering a total of 11 or 12 that day.

The original My Pie near the Loyola campus had a pizza that defied categorization. I think they moved, don't know if they still make the same pizzas.

[Mike Nolan]

Google says National Cake Day is Sunday, November 26th. (Didn't know there was one, did you?)

[BakerAunt]

Our caravan of rental truck, long-bed pick-up truck, and Ford Explorer arrived in Indiana around 8:30 last night. When has there been snow on spring break? We did miss most of it, but the vehicle are covered with salt.

For a quick dinner, I brought with us the ingredients for tuna casserole made with evaporated milk, since we did not have time to stop at a store. I had to use canned rather than frozen peas, but I used spinach noodles and Gouda cheese. Our starving crew (my husband, younger stepson, and his friend) likely would have eaten anything, but they all praised it, and I have to admit, it is delicious. It's been a while since I've cooked for this many guys.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt. Reason: added information

[RiversideLen]

Growing up in Chicago I have learned how fortunate I was as far as pizza was concerned. The further I would be from Chicagoland the worse the pizza got. Now I understand why mediocre franchised pizza can be so successful. The thing that amuses me is when you hear people talk about Chicago style pizza they automatically think about the deep dish pie. I believe most Chicagoans eat thin crust. Of course I do like a properly made deep dish pie too. My first experience with deep dish was My Pi on Sheridan Rd across the street from Loyola University.

5 styles of Chicago pizza? I can think of thin (varying degrees of thinness), stuffed and deep dish. There is thick crust sometimes called pan pizza, something I have never cared for, so that makes 4. What else am I missing?

To me the thing about pizza is, regardless of style, the crust, sauce and toppings all have to be good, if any one of those lets you down then the pizza is a failure. I strongly agree with the slow rise method for pizza dough. I have been using the America's Test Kitchen recommendation, which is to use very cold water, a bare minimum amount of yeast, ferment in the fridge and do it all at least 24 hours in advance.

[Mike Nolan]

Going to San Antonio to learn pizza is like going to Los Angeles to learn clam chowder!

I think NY Times food writer Jeffrey Steingarten is the one who popularized the myth that Eastern pizza is 90% about the crust and 10% about the toppings. (Peter Reinhart believes it, though.)

In Chicago a slice of pizza is a meal. In New York, it's street food.

Lincoln NE is the home of Valentino's Pizza, and unfortunately that has infected most of the pizza places. There was a place that did Chicago style pizza, it lasted about 3 years.

I think my favorite local pizza is from the guy who does them at the farmers markets in a portable Forno Bravo wood-fired oven. (Of course it helps that he's also about the only one in town who doesn't use garlic in his pizza sauce.)

Right around the time that I moved from Chicago to Lincoln, Chicago Magazine was working on a piece on the '5 styles of Chicago Pizza', I knew their business manager so I saw a draft of the article. (My complaint was that I think they skipped at least 2 styles.) So diverse it definitely is!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hmmm. The East Coast trend to think about crust is relatively new. People used to look at me like I was crazy for making a slow rise crust. The other thing about East Coast - whether it's New York, New Haven, or Boston (which tends to be Greek-style) is that not only do they put olive oil in the crust, they douse their pizzas with olive oil after it bakes. They are usually way too greasy. My town probably has one pizza place per person, especially if you count the grocery stores that make their own pizza on the premises. None of them are worth going to. The latest one in town sent their exec chef to San Antonio to learn to make pizza. They have fancy toppings. And a big bar.

I'll get around to trying it at some point.

I always thought Chicago was about the whole pizza and I like it because it has more diversity than any place else I've ever been.

[Mike Nolan]

Many East coast pizza fanatics say it is 90% about the crust and 10% about the toppings. I tend to disagree, but I lived in Chicago for a number of years, and Chicago pizza is really about the toppings. (I think that's why Peter Reinhart didn't really understand the Chicago pizza scene when doing the research for his book American Pie.)

If there's enough olive oil in a crust to be able to taste it, IMHO that's way too much! But I seldom cook with olive oil, because a friend is allergic to it and we're not really all that fond of the flavor.

[Mike Nolan]

I used to buy a pumpernickel (coarse rye) flour from the Mennonite store in TN when I was down there on business, but now that I've retired and probably won't be going there again, I have no source.

A local 'gourmet' grocery store used to carry a medium rye flour, but it burned down and I'm not sure they're going to rebuild it. The owners have a second store with some of the items but I don't know if they have the medium rye flour.

I may have to buy a five pound bag of rye berries and make my own.

I have some rye chops (think cracked wheat), I've used them in rye bread. I think they're better if soaked for about half hour first.

Do you have charnushka seeds for the top?

[Mike Nolan]

Today 3.14 is Pie (Pi) day! (I wonder if some less precise people in Europe celebrate Pi day on July 22nd?)

I'm thinking about making a steak-and-mushroom pie, using a hot water crust.

King Arthur Flour has a sale $3.14 shipping on an order of $31.41 or more.

• This topic was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by Mike Nolan.
• This topic was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by Mike Nolan.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Len. My family noted the blandness too not that it slowed them down eating it. I will try again though. Butter might be even better than olive oil but the people I am most likely to make this for have serious dairy allergies (I've used non-dairy cheese for them) so I don't want to use it.

Also, my regular crust has no added fat - just flour, water, yeast, salt, and a little sugar to feed the yeast. And recently I've reduced the yeast too. So the slow rise really helps.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The other thing is, what rye flours... I have Arrowhead Mills, which is a pretty decent flour shop (I'd rather have KAF or Bob's because I am more experienced but Arrowhead will do). But I just have a light rye flour. After reading it might be good to use a couple of different ones.

No wonder it is so hard to find good rye bread. This stuff is complicated!

I do appreciate all the accumulated wisdom.

[Mike Nolan]

Peter Reinhart's Marbled Rye Bread in BBA is the one I make the most these days, though my own buttermilk rye bread is still the one I make specifically for Reubens. (Which may, or may not, have been invented in Omaha Nebraska)

When I remember it, I take some old rye bread out of the freezer, soak it in water for 5-10 minutes and use it as an altus. I think it produces a similar result to a sourdough, with a lot less effort (and my wife doesn't react to it.)

[Mike Nolan]

We have gotten an invasion of mice from outside the last two falls, and our two cats don't seem to have much interest in catching mice. Well, the grey one caught some baby mice, but not any full-grown ones.

So I use old-fashioned traps, some baited with peanut butter and some baited with chocolate. This year it was about 50-50 as to which caught more.

Before the food truck craze got to Lincoln, we had two chefs set up huge barbecue tanks (no other word describes them properly) at local gas stations. You could smell them 2-3 blocks away!

If you haven't read the Tartine Bakery books, I suggest doing so, while the recipes and methods have been strucured for home use, the text talks a lot about how he does sourdough for the bakery. There used to be a couple of websites online that discuss how to maintain a sourdough culture for bakery production, I think I found one of them through the Bread Baker's Guild site, http://www.bbga.org/