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They have to start production on the year's flu vaccine early in the year, and they can only include 3-4 strains, so they're basically trying to guess which strains will be most active 6-9 months in advance. This year, they missed the target.
I had never heard of serving cinnamon rolls with chili until I moved to Nebraska. (And of course the kids dip the roll in the chili.)
To me a pot roast isn't done if the meat isn't falling-apart tender. But a (top or bottom) round roast is not one that I would generally use for a pot roast, I prefer cuts like chuck (preferably a 7 bone roast), rump roast or arm roast.
Today I made the no-salt challah that I posted a link to the other day. As expected, I had to add additional flour before the dough wasn't really sticky.
It's a bit bland, but not bad with a little peanut butter on it. (I'm allowed SOME sodium, after all.) I put sesame seeds on half of it, but left the other half without seeds so we can try making French toast with it.
I also made a batch of 4 cinnamon rolls using a total of 1/8 teaspoon of salt in the batch, so I figure each roll has about 100 mg of sodium, maybe less. (Cinnamon rolls with chili is sort of a requirement in Nebraska. The public schools here have been serving cinnamon rolls with chili for many years, and even most of the local restaurants will often bring a cinnamon roll when you order chili.)
Today I'm making a batch of chili using ground beef, onions, red peppers, no-salt-added beans and no-salt-added tomatoes, plus some tomato sauce from the freezer. I tastes OK but I think it's going to need some doctoring with herbs and spices, so far it's got some pepper, some celery seed and some parsley. I'm thinking about adding a few dashes of tabasco or dried chipotle pepper, but I'll wait until my wife is home, because I don't want to go overboard. That may be added at the table. (Many chili powders have garlic in them, so we don't even have that on the shelf.)
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by
Mike Nolan.
It always seems to me that pizza sauce is just a bit thicker than spaghetti sauce, though I know restaurants that use the same marinara for both.
Most pizza enthusiasts say pizza sauce should be applied rather sparingly. I've actually been known to use tomato paste straight from the can on a pizza.
With the salt in the crust, sauce, toppings like sausage or pepperoni and the cheese, pizza is going to be largely absent from my diet. :sigh:
There's always something new to learn or something old to remember to do. 🙂
It may be that your pan is a bit too large for the recipe. Keep in mind that professional baking writers like the ones at King Arthur Flour, will bake a recipe many times during testing, and only pick their best efforts for the photo.
Something to look forward to is the annual April Fools Day blog post at King Arthur, showing some of their worst efforts over the year. Some of them are hilarious!
Blanche, did try the windowpane test? Here's a video of it: windowpane test
I usually find when dough doesn't rise as much as I expected it to, it was either under-kneaded or a bit on the dry side. That's something you kind of figure out as you make a recipe several times. Most doughs should be a little tacky but not really stick to your hands. (There are doughs that are supposed to be very sticky, but that's a lesson for another time.)
Hopefully the bread was good tasting, that's the most important part!
The point to autolysis is to let the flour absorb the liquid and start to break down before the yeast is added. Some authors recommend adding salt after the autolyze step, others add it up front. Some add it as the very last ingredient during mixing. Salt absorbs water and that will produce a noticeable 'tightening' of your dough if you add it last. The challenge is you don't want to wait TOO long, or it might not get thoroughly mixed in.
I don't know that it would make much difference whether dry milk was added before or after autolysis.
Not to confuse you, but you will find some whole grain recipes that utilize a soaker or a mash, where some of the whole grain flour is mixed with water (the latter is generally heated) and left to sit overnight. Either way, the point is to soften the whole grains.
King Arthur's weight-to-dry measure conversion is on the light side compared to what some authors use. (I've even seen one that assumed a cup of flour weighed 5 1/4 ounces.) It's generally a bit easier to add flour to a dough that's too moist than to add moisture to one that's too dry. When I make a new recipe, I always assume 4 1/4 ounces per cup unless the recipe specifically states otherwise, and even then I usually hold some flour back until I see how the dough looks.
After looking at the amount of sodium in the sliced deli meats at the store, I'm thinking of doing my own turkey breasts, I just wonder how much sodium they've injected into it?
How do you slice it?
I may have to give this recipe a try, it's a challah that is 50% white flour and 50% whole wheat flour with no salt. The author did it in a mold rather than braiding it.
No Salt ChallahThere's an inconsistency between the recipe and the instructions. 3 cups of flour is less than a pound but it talks about it being a 3 pound loaf. It looks like it is about 72% hydration, which is a bit on the moist side but otherwise the recipe appears to be in balance, though the dough weighs less than 27 ounces. It would not surprise me if I had to add a little flour to make it easy to roll out and braid.
I get annoyed when stores label cuts with non-standard names that don't give you any idea what primal it comes from. I once saw a big hunk of meat in one of the local stores called a 'steamship roast'. It was in the evening after the butchers had left for the day, so I couldn't ask anybody what it was. I did eventually find it but it is not a recognized cut. (It's the round with the rump cut off, which explained why it was so big.)
I looked in my meat cutting books and did not see bistro steak as a recognized cut from the teres major muscle in the shoulder. It is sometimes called a petite tender or the shoulder tender.
Here's a page on the teres major.
Maybe it was a thread on the old King Arthur Flour Baking Circle? Anyway, I'll drop them a note about the Popovers recipe.
As someone wrote a while back, keep practicing your breads, eventually you'll eat well, in the mean time the ducks will eat well. 🙂
Seriously, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Eventually you'll learn to recognize problems before they get serious and you'll know what to do to fix them.
That's what professional bakers do every day, because conditions are not the same all the time and mistakes do happen, so you need to be prepared to deal with problems.
I've had a few total disasters, one was probably due to putting in 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, as the recipe specified, and then putting in ANOTHER 1 1/2 TABLESPOONS of salt instead of sugar! It was a brick and even the birds wouldn't touch it!
The suggestion to use an instant read thermometer is another good one, knowing when the desired internal temperature has been reached is one way to improve your success rate. Eventually you'll recognize by sight, smell or touch (thumping) when your bread is ready.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by
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