Pain de Mie

 31 August 2022

Recipe from Bread Illustrated, America's Test Kitchen, 2016, p. 90. 

I had not tried this recipe for sandwich bread from the book, Bread Illustrated, because it requires a special Pullman loaf pan that I did not have. The Pullman loaf pan has a cover which produces square loaves of bread without the rounded top that we are accustomed to with a standard loaf pan. When a recent issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine included another recipe that used a Pullman loaf pan, a recipe that seems similar to my regular white sandwich bread recipe (Japanese milk bread), I decided it was time to purchase a Pullman loaf pan and try these recipes.

Other than the covered pan, making pain de mie is similar to other recipes for white bread. AP flour, yeast, and salt were whisked in the bowl of a stand mixer. Milk, water, melted butter, and honey were whisked in a measuring cup. Using a dough hook on the mixer, the liquid ingredients were slowly added to the flour mixture then kneaded for about 8 minutes. The dough was placed in a large measuring cup to rise until doubled in volume.  The risen dough was patted into a 12x10-inch rectangle and rolled into a log. The seam was pinched shut and the log was placed in the Pullman pan. The lid was placed on the pan and closed, leaving a 2-inch opening, and the dough left to rise to the lip of the pan. Then, closing the lid completely, the bread was baked in a 350° oven, removing the cover about halfway through baking.

In addition to providing square slices of bread, the Pullman pan is supposed to lead to a crumb with a finer texture and a more tender crust than you would get in an open loaf pan. This recipe made a perfectly acceptable sandwich bread. The crumb had larger holes in the center than I expected. I think this is partly because I didn't roll it tight enough.  However, the photos in the cookbook also had a more open crumb that I expected so perhaps the structure is inherent to the recipe. I do like the square shape. With a regular loaf pan you can get some rather odd shaped bread slices, with this pan slices are uniformly square.

Sous Vide Pulled Pork

 22 August 2022

Recipe from Sous Vide for Everybody, America's Test Kitchen, 2018, p.86.  Recipe also available online.

I like pulled pork sandwiches and have written about them in this blog several times. I have made them using my gas grill as a smoker then finishing roasting the meat indoors in the oven. I have made used a slow cooker to prepare the pork indoors. Now, a third method: sous vide where the pork, sealed in an air-tight bag, is cooked "sous vide" in a constant temperature water bath. 

I purchased a 2½-pound boneless pork butt roast. This was about half the size of what was called for in the recipe so I adjusted the other ingredients accordingly. A spice mixture was made by combining vegetable oil, salt, sugar, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper in a small bowl and heating this in the microwave until "bubbling and fragrant". I saw no bubbles as the mixture was too dry, but it was fragrant. Yellow mustard and liquid smoke were added to the warm spice mixture and these bubbled. The pork was placed in a vacuum bag and the spice mixture was spread over the meat using a spatula. Air was removed from the bag and it was placed in an immersion circulator (a device that maintains a constant temperature water bath) set to 165°. The prep took 30 minutes up to the time the pork was placed in the water. After 20+ hours the now-tender pork was removed and shredded using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer. Unfortunately the vacuum bag leaked during the cooking period and some water diluted the spices. Nonetheless, cooking liquid was defatted and some of it was mixed with bottled barbecue sauce. It took 15 minutes to prepare the pork after removing it from the sous vide machine.

This was the easiest, quickest method I have used to make pulled pork!  The end product is as tender and as tasty as pork made any other way that I have tried it. Much of the flavor comes from the sauce and in this instance I took a short cut by using my favorite bottled sauce, enhancing its flavor with the cooking liquid. The final sauce was a little thin due to the leak in the vacuum bag but this was a minor issue.

Italian Meatloaf

 20 June 2022

Recipe from Cook's Country, February 2020

Meatloaf is comfort food. But this meatloaf recipe is different from any other I've tried. The introduction to the recipe describes it as a recipe for meatballs and marinara sauce, but the meat is shaped and cooked as a loaf. We like meat balls and marinara so it stands to reason that a meatloaf made with the same ingredients would be good, too.

The sauce was made by first cooking sliced garlic in olive oil. Canned tomato sauce, canned crushed tomatoes, red pepper flakes, and salt were added and the mixture was simmered for about 5 minutes then set aside. For the meatloaf, a panade was made using crushed saltine crackers, milk, and eggs. This was seasoned with garlic powder, oregano, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Ground beef, mild Italian sausage, and grated Parmesan cheese were mixed into the panade by hand. The mixture was transferred to an oiled 13x9-inch baking dish and shaped into a 9x5-inch loaf. The sauce was poured over the meat loaf, the pan was covered tightly with aluminum foil, and baked for an hour. Grated gruyere cheese (the recipe specified fontina) was sprinkled on the loaf and placed under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese. It was sliced and served after a 15-minute rest with some defatted sauce on the side. Total preparation time was about 2½ hours.

The meatloaf was straightforward to make, much like other meatloafs. The sauce was also easy to make so it didn't add too much additional work. The substitution of gruyere for fontina worked out okay. The Italian meatloaf was okay to eat, too, having a good tender texture and a lot of flavor. It worked well as a leftover and froze well, too. However, I don't anticipate making it again. Meatloaf is comfort food hearkening to meatloafs from our childhood. This version is just too different from those in our memories to be comforting.

One Batch Fried Chicken

 4 June 2022

Recipe from Cook's Country, June 2018

This review suffers from the distance between eating the food and writing about it. Fried chicken makes a good dinner and it is also good to have as a leftover for lunches. However, deep frying is a hassle so I am always up to try a recipe that avoids all of the oil that deep frying entails. This recipe was inspired by the fried chicken recipe developed by Colonel Sanders.

I started with close to 5 pounds of chicken ... I don't remember but I probably bought a whole chicken rather than parts. The published recipe is for just 3 pounds of chicken. The bone-in, skin-on chicken parts were placed in a brine made with buttermilk and salt for about 90 minutes, in the refrigerator. A coating was made with flour, white pepper, celery salt, garlic powder, ground ginger, Italian seasoning, baking powder, and salt. A small amount of buttermilk was added to this mixture to form craggy bits. The chicken pieces were coated with this mixture, placed on a wire rack set inside a baking sheet, and refrigerated for just over an hour. Vegetable oil was added to a Dutch oven to a depth of 1 inch and heated to 350°. All of the chicken pieces were added to the pot then covered for 10 minutes. The cover was removed and the chicken pieces were flipped over and cooked until they reached 160° for white meat and 175° for dark meat. Total time, including all of the hands-off time, was 3½ hours. 

The chicken was good though we found the coating to be a little tough and uneven. I can't compare it to KFC since I haven't eaten there in many years. The Dutch oven was just big enough for this large batch of chicken though the oil did boil over a little. The temperature of the oil never recovered to the desired 300° but that didn't seem to have a big affect on the result. Some of these minor issues are related to the amount of chicken that I cooked.

Southwestern Layered Beef Casserole

 19 May 2022

Recipe from Cook's Country, April 2014

This review suffers from the distance between eating the food and writing about it. I don't remember how I discovered this recipe. I suspect I was tempted by it because I don't have many recipes like this and so I was happy to find it and to give it a try.

Rice was cooked in oil on the stovetop until it was deep golden brown. It was transferred to an 8x8 baking dish and canned tomatoes, with their juice, chicken broth, salt, and pepper were added. The skillet used to cook the rice was wiped clean and used to cook around beef with onion, bell pepper, salt, and pepper. Minced garlic, chili powder, cumin, and coriander were stirred into the beef and cooked until fragrant. Tomato sauce was added and cooked until slightly thickened. The beef mixture was spread over the rice. Pinto beans, shredded Monterey Jack cheese,  and corn were layered in the baking dish which was covered tightly with foil and baked for about an hour. The dish was garnished with thinly sliced green onions (should have been scallions) and served after a brief cooling period. Total time was about 2 hours. 

As I recall this was a good dish, though not great. It provided 4-5 meals for the two of us and kept well and was easy to reheat. Having forgotten the beans when assembling the casserole I added them to the top. I substituted canned diced tomatoes for the spicy, for us, Ro-Tel tomatoes in the recipe. This was a good decision as the casserole was spicy but not too spicy, with Ro-Tel it would have been too spicy for us.