First bread making after lesson

My first attempt with a cheese, pepper bread (pic at bottom) looked decent but was very dry. I think I under kneaded the bread and also over baked it.

The second attempt is my best bread ever for me personally. The crust was just nice with a nice and brittle crunch, and the inside just moist enough, tasty and chewy. I basically have to knead it just right and be patient in proofing it.

M

M

Bread baking course

was quite fun. From 1 to 6pm, fairly fast paced. Did 3 kinds of bread. Black Pepper cheese loaves, cranberry walnut bread, and rosemary foccacia.

Too fast for me to take coherent notes. Let's see what I recall... (hope I remember it right)

1. internet recipes call for "warm water" for yeast. In fact, in Singapore climate, tap water is just fine. In some cases, if you are strongly kneading the dough, or by hand, you might even want cold water because the kneading adds heat.
2. Kneading is to create a strong dough so that when the gas from yeast expands, it creates softer bread.
3. Breads with preferment tend to be tastier, but more chewy - the "Ang Mo" breads.
4. You can knead a bread intensively to make it in a shorter time, or you can just leave it for a few days to develop (less or minimal kneading). The end result is to get a bread that when you slowly pull it apart, it stretches till you see a thin membrane, rather than breaking.
5. For our local situation, a half bread flor and half AP flour (all local) seems ideal.
6. Sugar tends to make bread soft. Western breads have little sugar, so are more chewy.
7. Salt tends to control the growth of yeast, so bear that in mind.
8. Typical mixture : flour, 60-70% water, 1-2% salt, 0.5 to 2% yeast (depending on how long you are going to develop the dough).

Typical sequence

1. measure all ingredients accurately.
2. knead with or without preferment till developed.
3. shape (at this stage add in additional ingredients).
4. proof
5. Bake

Garlic infused pasta

This pasta is tossed with extra virgin olive oil, basil, cherry tomatoes, ricotta, salt, pepper, and lap cheong fried with olive oil and garlic.

But most of these ingredients seem ancillary. What lifted this was the garlic infused oil (though I think ricotta contributed with the mouth feel and savoriness). I used 2 large cloves, smashed and chopped finely, fried with one piece of very thinly sliced lap cheong until brownish, but not burnt.

Omelette

Some people apparently sort of sideways challenged me to do an omelette. 

So here it is. Not so pretty perhaps 8-)

Sunday dinner

Doesn't look like much but surprisingly tasty - especially the salad.

Salad was coleslaw made with shredded cabbage, finely chopped raw shallot, shredded carrots, 1 japanese cucumber and my homemade mayonnaise. Taking care to add just enough mayo to very lightly coat the vegetables and not overwhelm them.

Pasta was boiled fusilli tossed with extra virgin olive oil, homemade ricotta, toasted pine nuts, grated parmesan, basil, salt. This is similar to before except that I lightened the cheese and increased the pine nuts. Nicer this way.

Fish was a cheapo frozen sutchi fillet, breaded and fried in a shallow pool of oil (didn't want to use too much). Was so-so but rescued by the mayo.

weekday dinner using the homemade ricotta

I put the homemade ricotta, parmesan, cherry tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, toasted pine nuts and chiffonaded basil into a bowl. Then I boiled the fusilli and in the last 30 seconds, added frozen peas. I then took the hot mixture and mixed it into the cheesy mixture with some salt and pepper.

One mistake, I usually boil pasta and leave the last one minute to combine in a fry pan to fry with the ingredients. In this case, I did not add heat, but just mixed the pasta with the cool ingredients - hence the last minute of cooking did not take place. So the pasta was undercooked. mw suggested a save, which involved steaming the pasta - it worked. Next time, cook pasta till package instructions for this style.

Taste was good but needs adjustment : use a bit less cheese (too cheesy for our taste though it tastes similar to the amount of cheese we've had in Italy before), more pine nuts and more cherry tomatoes.

homemade ricotta cheese

Seems like I tackled the harder one first.

Ricotta cheese is almost ridiculously easy to make.

1. 1 litre of milk from fridge (pasteurization seems to not matter here). I'm this specific coz of the microwave timing.
2. 3/8 teaspoon citric acid (seems that 2 tablespoons distilled vinegar or lemon juice will do as well) dissolved in about 100ml of water.
3. Salt (say 1/2 teaspoon).
4. Mix all ingredients in microwave safe bowl.
5. Heat on high in microwave until you see the milk foam (about 180F) but not boil over. In my microwave (fairly powerful), it took about 8 min 20 secs.
6. Stir the mixture gently and leave it for about 5-10 mins.
7. drain in sieve or colander with paper filters or food safe paper towels. Time to drain depends on texture wanted. With about slightly >1hr, I got the result below - still a bit wet but relatively firm.

Yield is slightly under a cup from 4 cups milk.

Ladle the curds onto a sieve and let it drip - say 1+ hr (or more to get firmer cheese). I put mine in the fridge while waiting.

Immediately after heating to 185F

Eggplant Parmesan

Did a eggplant parmesan today. I think I got the ratio of eggplant to cheese fairly correct - it was still quite "eggplanty". The eggplants were breaded and baked in the oven instead of fried for slightly more healthy result. I used my batch of failed mozarella. This dish can be improved (esp the cheese!) - i'll do it again.

The pasta was surprisingly tasty - it was simply tossed in extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Failed attempt at making Mozarella

Just got my shipment of citric acid and rennet from Amazon. So keen to try making mozarella.

Result : failed.

My milk has probably been too pasteurized. It did not form much curd and it stayed liquefied. Following internet advice, I heated it up to 110F, let it rest, and managed to salvage some curd. I then compressed it and hung it, to try to extract some shape. Then I was supposed to heat it to 135F in the microwave and then stretch/knead it into a ball. Unfortunately, my microwave is too powerful and I heated it way past 135F into 200+F. My cheese just crumbled.

However, I still got some use out of it. I used in making Eggplant Parmesan, where the texture did not matter.

I will retry. Some possibilities.

1. source better milk (not sure where I can find it though). It should preferably be raw milk or just lightly pasteurized. Not likely I think.
2. Try an alternative method that uses milk powder and heavy cream.
3. Use slightly more citric acid to get the curd going sooner.
4. Use a water bath instead of a microwave to control the final temp.