Focaccia Tartine

Posted on June 7, 2012 by dgourmac

This is a short post but long on flavor.  It’s all about the first focaccia I ever made with Tartine bread dough — and in fact, the best focaccia I have made yet.

Yesterday was baking day.  Monday night I had started my leaven , and all day Tuesday I let the bread dough develop.  Wednesday morning (early) I baked.  I decided to make a double recipe (i.e four loaves worth of dough).  The first pair was a cranberry-walnut country-style bread, using 60/35/5 ratio of organic bread flour (KAF)/home-ground whole wheat (a little coarser than usual)/and home-ground rye flour.  We froze one loaf, enjoyed half of the other one, and gave Steve a present at dinner of the remaining half.

The other recipe was 80/20 (no rye) — a lighter whole grain bread style.  Baked one loaf for the freezer and put the other in a banneton, covered with a dish towel, in the refrigerator to retard development.  This afternoon (Thursday) we liberated the dough from the refrigerator and  — after it warmed up to be workable — put it to use for a focaccia studded with thinly-sliced Yukon Gold potatoes and hand-picked Provencal thyme from my raised-bed garden.  Chad Robertson’s recipe called for salting the potatoes to remove much of the excess moisture, then mixing together with olive oil, freshly-ground black pepper, and thyme.  The potatoes are distributed all over the surface of the dough, which is stretched across a rimmed baking sheet, then baked in a 500° F. oven until the potatoes are crispy.  Accompanied by a couple of glasses of 2007 Damaschito Aglianico from Basilicata, the results were extremely gratifying.  To be repeated — early and often.

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Rome — and especially Testaccio

Posted on May 22, 2012 by dgourmac

After Puglia, we capped our trip with time in Rome.  Aaron had only one full day before he had to return home, so following a tour of two very good wine bars with the guidance of Katie Parla, we spent all Sunday walking around the ancient part of the city on our own.  That night, we had a fine dinner with Robbie, Eileen and Miriam, who just happened to be in Rome at the same time.  Before bed, I measured on Google maps how far we had walked: 7 miles — probably a new record for me.

Aaron flew off early on Monday, so I spent the rest of the week exploring the culinary wonders of Rome in general, and Testaccio — where I rented a delightful apartment — in particular.  As you may have read in an earlier post, I was able to make a couple of dinners with the produce from the Testaccio market, two blocks away.

Food highlights were:

  • pizza at Forno Roscioli
  • treccia in Testaccio
  • seeing my old friend Mauro, co-owner of La Matriciana
  • buying, cooking and eating agretti, with thanks to Italicious for recipe

One day I shifted into cultural mode and saw two art exhibitions: one on the life and work of Dali and the other, Miro.  It was a satisfying change of pace.

The full set of Rome photos are in this album.

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Artisan-made mozzarella and buratta

Posted on May 22, 2012 by dgourmac

In my pre-vegan days, I would go 1,000 miles for good mozzarella and buratta cheese.  In Puglia, it requires less than 30 km.  Laura was good enough one morning to take us to her artisan friend, Giovanni, who makes fresh mozzarella, ricotta and buratta in a small, bright shop, among the stone walls and farm fields in the middle of Puglia.

He graciously demonstrated the technique for turning fresh milk into curds, making curds into cheese, and the cheese into various forms of finished goods, which vary in shape, texture, and with aging — in flavor.  Here are a couple of the videos showing his handiwork to stretch the mozzarella, shape it into a ball, and to fill one of those balls with shreds of cheese and some panna (cream) to make buratta.

Finally, you will see in these photos how the professional can make almost any shape imaginable from fresh mozzarella…..

….including cacciocavallo aged for three months with a lemon inside — deliciously fragrant.

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Altamura’s D.O.P. Bread

Posted on May 22, 2012 by dgourmac

One of the more interesting visits on our trip was to Panificio La Maggiore in Altamura, where they take the local special durum wheat semolina flour for bread making and turn it into one of the traditional shapes of bread.  This process has earned a coveted D.O.P. (Denomination of Protected Origin or Denominazione di Origine Protetta) designation.

Here are the videos showing the mixing, portioning, shaping and slashing preparation elements, before the bread goes into the oven.  Later, we were able to make our own dough from flour, salt and water, as well as to taste some of the foccaccie they offered for a snack.  The results were delicious.

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Puglia — the whole trip…

Posted on May 22, 2012 by dgourmac

We just returned from eight glorious days touring Puglia.  Using their deep knowledge of the region, its history, culture and geography – plus their passion and expertise about food and wine — Southern Visions Travel planned an exceptional custom-crafted itinerary with me, and they delivered it masterfully.

The principals, Laura and Antonello, and team members Ali and Leigh, made every experience a delight.  We:

  • had cooking lessons at Masseria Gelso Bianco,
  • marveled at the rapid orecchiette-making by the ladies in Bari Vecchia
  • visited bread making in Altamura, stayed in an original trullo in Alberobello,
  • watched and participated in artisanal mozzarella production,
  • shopped at local markets with an abundance of amazing fruits, vegetables, fish, and produce of all kinds,
  • were hosted at two marvelous wineries
  • ate at fine local restaurants, cafes and trattorias
  • explored Pogliano a Mare, Matera, Monopoli, Ostuni, Lecce and beaches along the Adriatic Sea

In over 55 years of travel, including eight trips to Italy, I’ve never had a more enjoyable experience.  I can wholeheartedly recommend Southern Visions Travel and its people.  You can see a short slideshow with some of the food and wine highlights with this YouTube video.

As you know, I am a vegan now.  It turns out that Puglia is one of the best regions in Italy for a vegan, with its high quality, plentiful vegetables and grains, as well as pastas made without egg.  Still, even though I celebrated the first anniversary of my culinary transformation during this trip, I also found it tempting to enjoy some non-vegano taste thrills along the way.  Some of the cheeses and seafood were the most attractive reasons for my excursions.  With lots of clean, fresh air and plenty of walking, the small quantities of animal protein did not feel deleterious to my health.

For those of you who want to see more photos of the Puglia trip, here is a list of new photo albums for each part of our trip:

Finally, I want to acknowledge with special thanks: to Jan D’Amore, who arranged with Filippo Cassano and Rita Trotti for a tour and tasting of the delicious wines at Cantina Polvanera in Gioia dell Colle; to Juliette Pope of Gramercy Tavern, who told me about Polvanera’s wines (they were featuring the Primitivo) and who introduced me to Jan; and to my wife, Barbara, who fed my bread starters for 15 days while also taking such good care of our grandchildren on her assigned days.

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Dinner at My Apartment

Posted on May 14, 2012 by dgourmac

We interrupt our regular programming with this brief announcement: I can still cook!  It’s been more than 10 days since I was left to my own devices in the kitchen, and I was eager to try again.  Tonight provided a good opportunity.

I’m staying a lovely small apartment in the Testaccio section of Rome.  This morning I took a three-hour tour of the area with Katie Parla as my guide, starting with the old market which is a block and a half from our front door.  I specifically searched for bieta (sort of a Roman chard) and the beautiful, tender Roman artichokes, which are nearing the end of their season.  I found both, in excellent condition.  Sicilian eggplants, Romanesco varietal zucchini, bananas for my breakfasts, and some tomatoes rounded out my larder.

Oh, yes, the tomatoes.  As brother Johnny would say, I didn’t say that accurately: it should be s-o-m-e tomatoes.  I watched in the market as Katie carried on a seven-minute conversation with the vendor in her best Italian, as he quizzed us on what I was going to prepare and how I would cook the dish before he would render his considered judgement on which of 8-10 varieties he would suggest for the meal.  We settled on Pachino tomatoes from Sicily:

This photo is not re-touched.  They really are the color shown, perhaps a little darker.  So I gathered a few of my Puglia food purchases (orechiette from Bari, dried oregano from Monopoli,  olive oil from Ostuni, and went to work in the kitchen at about 7 PM.  An hour and a half later,  feasted on the pasta with a thick eggplant-tomato sauce, a plate of  verdure — braised artichokes, steamed bieta, braised zucchini — a couple of pieces of a farro whole grain bread from Volpetti —  toasted crisp — and (using Katie’s sommelier expertise) a local Lazio from a nearby store, a red wine, Tufaliccio 2010 from Marco Carpineti.  Altogether, it was very gratifying — tutti bene.

Of course, anyone who has seen me cook, knows about the downside of this adventure: the kitchen is a disaster.  But I will clean up.  Eventually.

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Food and Wines of Puglia…

Posted on May 14, 2012 by dgourmac

…are absolutely amazing.  I’m in Rome now, but Aaron and I just spent eight glorious days basking in the glories of Puglia.  Later, in additional posts, I’ll give you a more balanced view of that part of the trip.  But first, I’m eager to tell you about the gustatory highlights.

With this link to our Puglia Food, you will see orecchiete made the traditional way on the streets of Bari, fresh vegetables and fruits of all kinds from the markets in Monopoli and Lecce, traditional breadmaking with special semola flour from Altamura, a cheesemaking artisan handcrafting superb mozzarella, burrata, and cacciocavallo in a scenic location not far from Alberobello, Laura Giordano’s superb cooking at Antonello’s and her beautiful Masseria Gelso Bianco (featuring lessons for making cavatelli, deep-frying lampascione, and preparing young artichokes) — plus wine tasting and lunch at Li Veli winery among the vineyards and olive groves in Salento.

More to come soon…

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First Two Days in Puglia

Posted on May 6, 2012 by dgourmac

We are here and doing marvelously well.  Internet is limited, so I am using this post to show some early photos of our first two days.  Stayed in Polignano a Mare the first night, and then visited Bari Vecchia, the old city of the Puglian capital, to observe first-hand the marvelous skill of the women who make orecchiette there every day.  Details to follow in a few days.  Here are the first pix:

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Beet Risotto with Fresh Arugula from the Garden

Posted on April 29, 2012 by dgourmac

Last summer I attempted to renew my vegetable gardening after a 35-year hiatus.  I bought a small raised-bed self-contained garden and put it behind the garage.  I did my planting late in the Spring (lazy and disorganized, as usual), but the vegetables (mostly specialty Italian greens — destined for our pizzas — plus some haricots verts) came up beautifully.  Then, disaster struck: critters ate everything, two days before the time came to harvest.  They were probably rabbits and woodchucks, though deer may have also been involved.  But this is a new year, and hope springs eternal, they say.

So I try again, mostly encouraged by the fact that two items are growing now in that garden, with no help from me at all yet.  One is a robust Provence thyme plant that I started from seed last year; the other is a nice patch of zesty arugula from the Franchi Italian seeds I also planted last Spring.   Thus, the blog from tonight’s dinner.

Judith Barrett has written two excellent cookbooks on risotti.  Her second one, Risotto Risotti, written in 1996, has some unusual combinations, all very good eating.  Since I had some beets I needed to use, I looked up the beet risotto dish I had made once before, and adapted for tonight’s meal.  Her recipe called for raw beet, wilted watercress and goat cheese.  Aha!  I have no watercress, so I picked the arugula!  We also have a prolific chive plant in the herb patch along the grass, so I took a handful of that as well.

Even when I am being only 98% vegan, I am not eating goat cheese these days, but we did have some grated mozzarella leftover from pizzas the other night, so the dish was pretty well taking shape.  One more adjustment: I wanted a bit more protein in the dish, as well as contrasting color and texture, so I cooked some black lentils to frame the risotto on the plate.  Here below are the recipe and its results.

Not everything I do is high-end, you know.  For example, the wine for the meal was a Trader Joe’s 2010 Grifone Primitivo, as recommended by my friend, Hank.  It was a perfect match, and I did not mind the fact that it was $3.99 a bottle.

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Vegan Umami

Posted on April 20, 2012 by dgourmac

I’ve been making Tartine bread for almost a year now, always starting with Chad Robertson’s designs and then improvising on the proportions and ingredients.  Today I finally made his Basic Country Bread almost exactly as written.  (I say almost because my container had 884 grams of white bread flour in it vs. the prescribed 900 grams; so I ground 116 (instead of 100) grams of whole wheat flour to make an even 1000.  And, for taste reasons alone, I use 24 grams of salt, 4 more than called for.)  The two loaves are superb.

However, that’s not my story today.  Instead, it is about lunch and an experience of umami flavors and texture of the kind not normally associated with vegan dining.  It was simply an open-faced sandwich made with two slices of fresh bread, layered with Fastachi Pecan Butter, then Cibo Tapenade, flecks of freshly-ground horseradish root, and then topped with thin slices of a perfectly ripe avocado.

 On close up inspection you can see the velvety texture.  Now imagine it with a glass of inky-dark, rich Spanish red wine, a 2008 Jose L. Ferrer Binssalem Majorca….and you have lunch!

 

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