Adventures with Sourdough (Chapter 1)

MoochNNoodles said:

My Grandmother's parents emigrated to the US from Poland.  I'm not sure if they married before or after they came here because my Great-Grandmother came after he sent for her.  I never met them.  My Grandfather is Italian; and Gram did a good job of blending traditional dishes from both sides into our family meals and holidays.  The area my parents grew up in is known for the variety of ethnic foods you can get.  Eating up there is such a treat!  It makes dining out here seem subpar.  We have so many chain restaurants.  There is more to life than another Applebees, another Bob Evans, another steakhouse!  

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Did your family do the traditional meat-free Christmas dinner? My Dad's family is from either Poland or what was Czechoslovakia, and Grandma made the dinner every year. I'm going to spell these phonetically because I have no idea of the proper spellings- and that includes Grandma's accent in the spellings. It was pierogies, puggutch (mashed potato and cheese thing made in a 8X12 pan and cut like brownies), bubalki (yeast rolls with poppyseed sauce), and Christmas soup (white beans and sauerkraut). She worked all day to prepare these dishes from scratch and us kids hated them! The adults always enjoyed the meal, though. My sister and I couldn't wait to move on to my other Grandmother's house for roast goose with all the trimmings. I was horrified when pierogies (Grandma pronounced them pa-doughy) went 'mainstream' and were available in the freezer at any grocery store! :lol3:


After the glowing reviews for the King Arthur's sourdough starter, I'm going to load up the old pre-paid Visa and order a kit! I love baking bread and mainly use my Mom's super simple, no-knead recipe. It's time for me to branch out a little! I'd also like to find a good, and preferably simple, Challah or Brioche recipe. Yum.

I know the 'meatless Christmas Eve dinner' is a Catholic tradition.  That is where the Italian tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes came from.  I don't know how many people made seven fish dishes but multiple fish dishes are traditional.  A lot of non-Catholics don't know that the month before Christmas is kind of like a mini-Lent.

There are so many things you can make with that discarded starter!! Just keep it in the fridge until you have enough. My favorite was sourdough crackers, sourdough pancakes were also good.

Wow! I just spent the past hour looking through the King Arthur website. So many great sounding recipes and products to look at! I never would have guessed they have such an interesting website- I only thought of flour when hearing that name and flour is boring, lol! The sourdough chocolate cake recipe sounds very yummy. Ordering my sourdough kit tomorrow!

Yay, happybird!  It's a great website, isn't it? Don't forget to check out their blog, Flourish, too. Some excellent recipes can be found there. The store in Vermont is just amazing. It's not a particularly big store, but it's really nice. They have the store, a small cafe (Honestly, if we lived up there, we'd go there every Sat morning for a pastry and coffee. Pizza is just delicious.), and then their baking school rooms. You can watch what's going on in the classes, too.....lots of windows to peek in. I thought we'd feel self-conscious with the people staring in at us, but we were so busy and the class was so interesting that we forgot the windows were even there.

Oh, and while you're there, enter their $1,000 contest, too! And sign up for their newsletter. Interesting things in the newsletters sometimes. I really enjoy the site. I have all three of their cookbooks and there's not a bad recipe in any of them. Last year, Rick got me a coffee mug that just says "Bake". He said I needed the mug because that's what I do.

Samus, sourdough crackers....that's sounds interesting. If you have a recipe, I'd appreciate it. I was going to do sourdough bagels this coming weekend, but then my MIL asked me about pizza, so I'm going to make sourdough pizza crust. KA included tips on how to increase your starter if you're going to do a lot of baking. I'm to the point now where I can keep Issac in the fridge and then feed him on Saturday nights, for baking on Sunday. It will work.

Happybird and Kat0121, please let us know what you decide to bake. I can't wait to hear what you're doing!

Mooch, thank you for explaining about Placek...your picture looks delicious. It sounds like a treat to enjoy, even with the multiple risings. In The Bread Baker's Apprentice, there's a recipe for Roasted Onion and Asiago Miche....that took three days from start to finish (most of his breads take longer than a day or two). An incredibly delicious bread. Most of the time was for the sponge and then the risings. Worth every minute. We had it with French Onion soup and I thought I'd died and went to heaven.

happybird said:

Did your family do the traditional meat-free Christmas dinner? My Dad's family is from either Poland or what was Czechoslovakia, and Grandma made the dinner every year. I'm going to spell these phonetically because I have no idea of the proper spellings- and that includes Grandma's accent in the spellings. It was pierogies, puggutch (mashed potato and cheese thing made in a 8X12 pan and cut like brownies), bubalki (yeast rolls with poppyseed sauce), and Christmas soup (white beans and sauerkraut). She worked all day to prepare these dishes from scratch and us kids hated them! The adults always enjoyed the meal, though. My sister and I couldn't wait to move on to my other Grandmother's house for roast goose with all the trimmings. I was horrified when pierogies (Grandma pronounced them pa-doughy) went 'mainstream' and were available in the freezer at any grocery store!

After the glowing reviews for the King Arthur's sourdough starter, I'm going to load up the old pre-paid Visa and order a kit! I love baking bread and mainly use my Mom's super simple, no-knead recipe. It's time for me to branch out a little! I'd also like to find a good, and preferably simple, Challah or Brioche recipe. Yum.

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Denice said:

 
I know the 'meatless Christmas Eve dinner' is a Catholic tradition.  

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 That was how I understood it.  My Italian & German grandparents always did a meat free Christmas Eve; which was our big dinner.  I haven't had Christmas with my family in years; but they still have fish on Christmas eve.  Usually Cod and Shrimp.  

My parents divorced when I was 2; so I always spent Christmas Eve with my Dad and that side of the family and then Christmas Day with Mom and her side.  Christmas Day dinner was always a big affair with lots of dishes and usually Turkey or Ham.  Gram did serve pierogies; which we always pronounced more like "pe-yawdgie".  My cousin's kids called them pe-dawgie.  Sometimes kielbasa was served too.  We never made them ourselves because there is an AMAZING Polish market in town.  Everyone just goes there for their pierogis and kielbasa.  I usually bring home enough of the cabbage and potato pierogis and kielbasa for 3-4 meals.  I didn't this year and i'm missing it!  Gram refused to buy the frozen ones from the store  I think they are ok; but they sure aren't like what I grew up with!  I'm kind of hoping my Dad or cousin decide to take a trip down here this fall so I can get them to bring me some.  

We may have had the soup; but called it something else.  My Grandparents made their own sauerkraut.  One thing I love about how I grew up is that people shared family recipes and both my Gandmother's kept track of who recipes came from and the history behind it.  They served favorite dishes at the holidays; so they included traditional Italian, Polish or German dishes; but others as well.  The same went for baking.  I started trying to think of all the cookie names but I probably can't spell half of them.  I'd do better to find an old picture to scan. 

Winchester said:

 
Mooch, thank you for explaining about Placek...your picture looks delicious. It sounds like a treat to enjoy, even with the multiple risings. 

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If I ever get a loaf or make some; I will send you a better picture.    I'm sure the effort is worth it!  

 In The Bread Baker's Apprentice, there's a recipe for Roasted Onion and Asiago Miche....that took three days from start to finish (most of his breads take longer than a day or two). An incredibly delicious bread. Most of the time was for the sponge and then the risings. Worth every minute. We had it with French Onion soup and I thought I'd died and went to heaven.

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That sounds REALLY good!!

Please keep updating us on how the sourdough goes!  This thread makes me SO hungry!! 

Here's my cracker recipe. All my measurements are in grams...

25 g olive oil

50 g butter

400 g starter (my starter was usually around 50% water 50% flour by weight)

50 g sunflower seeds (if I made it again, I'd use more)

100 g ground almonds (could probably replace with normal flour, I was trying to increase the protein/fiber content)

1 g mixed spices

salt

Mix it all together, then add flour (I used whole wheat) until it's stiff and not sticky. I think my scribble says 125 g....

Poppy or sesame seeds would be pretty delicious, too, mixed in or on top.

You could use all oil or all butter, the recipe I was roughly following was all butter (and I think it was more like 100 grams!!). The recipe called for brushing the crackers with EVEN MORE oil after rolling them out, then sprinkling salt and herbs. I skipped the oil brushing and sprinkled salt, rolled it in, and sprinkled a little more....

With rolling, thinner is better, if it's too thick it's just hard. A pizza cutter would work really well to cut the cracker shapes. After I made mine, I saw someone that cut theirs into long, 1 cm wide strips and twisted them before baking. Looked like they'd be great for dipping.

I baked at 200 C (about 390 F) for a bit more than 20 min.

Thanks, Samus! My scale weighs out grams, so I'm fine there. 

Was this a kit, or did you purchase each item separately?  I was looking at the King Arthur website and I see they have a kit that consists of the crock and jar of starter, but not the other 2 items.

Right now, if you buy the crock, the sourdough starter is free. 

Sourdough flavoring is here: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/king-arthur-instant-sourdough-flavor-12-oz

Citric acid is here: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/citric-acid-sour-salt

You don't need the flavoring or the acid. I bought both to try to help give my dough more of a tang than it has. It seems to have helped.

And I have figured out what to do with my discarded starter.....pizza dough! OMG, it was amazing. The crust was chewy, but with a bit of crunch. The bottom browned well on the hot pizza stone in the oven (I preheat the oven with the stone inside at 450 degrees for about 30 minutes or so). We all loved the sourdough crust.

In fact, I made my old standby crust for the second pizza. After he ate some of the sourdough crust, Rick had a slice of the regular pizza. He said it almost seem bland, compared to the sourdough crust. So the sourdough was a great hit today. His mother just loved it; she ate 3 pieces of the chicken pizza and then she took the rest of it home for her lunch tomorrow.

The pizza dough starts with UNFED starter. You just take out a cup of starter, and then feed the remainder like you'd normally do. But instead of throwing that cup of starter out, that's what you use for the pizza dough. So no more throwing away starter. I'll make pizza dough balls and throw them in the freezer; they are easily frozen.

This is after I removed my one cup of starter. I fed the rest of it, then stuck it back into the fridge until next weekend. It will be fine there. It still bubbles, just very slowly in the cold. But there were still bubbles in the starter. And if you look, you see some bubbling action already. 


I mixed everything together for the pizza dough, kneaded the dough, then plopped it back into the cleaned and greased bowl. I also made my regular standby pizza dough; that's in the stainless bowl. You can see the differences in how the two doughs rose. 


The sourdough spread beautifully onto the parchment paper (I sprayed the paper with nonstick cooking spray). The dough is baked for 5-6 minutes at 450 degrees F. Then you take it off the pizza stone and place it on your cooling racks to fill. Once you've filled it, it's ready to go back into the oven for another 8-10 minutes. And it took about 11 minutes to bake. I keep it on the parchment as it's easier for my peel to grab it and get it onto and off of the hot stone in the oven.

After it came out from the crust par-baking, I spread BBQ sauce on the crust, then sprinkled my sauteed onions, followed by the chunks of cooked chicken, followed by tons of shredded provolone. Delicious.


Alas, I have no pictures of the finished pizza! Rick came out to the kitchen, sliced the pizza and whoosh! everybody started chowing down. But the crust was brown and shiny and the bottom was nice and brown, too. Sourdough pizza crust is awesome. It has a different taste, but it's a good taste. Yum

Sounds so delicious!

Oh man.  I can't imagine that tasting bad!!  

My starter is starting. I got it going at about 7 this morning.  

I just ordered some more stuff from KAF. A bagel/doughnut cutter, some Vietnamese cinnamon (there is a batch of snickerdoodles on the horizon after that gets here--- YUM! ), some non diastatic malt powder for when I make bagels (YAY!) and a bottle of Fiori di Sicilia (from the website)- A combination of citrus and vanilla with a pleasingly floral aroma  I plan to use that in shortbread cookies. My DD's BF is coming for Thanksgiving and he can't eat dairy, chocolate or gluten. I chatted with a KAF rep who sent me a recipe for gluten free orange vanilla shortbread cookies that can be made with vegan butter. I'll be making a test batch of those soon. 

They are including a free bowl scraper with all orders right now. 

Wonderful! Yay, you!  I know you're going to have fun with your starter!

I haven't tried that flavoring yet, but I'd like to. I could definitely use a bagel/doughnut cutter,,,it would make things a lot easier.

Winchester said:

 
Wonderful! Yay, you! 

I know you're going to have fun with your starter!

I haven't tried that flavoring yet, but I'd like to. I could definitely use a bagel/doughnut cutter,,,it would make things a lot easier.

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Thanks. The instructions are easy to follow.  

The bagel cutter was $4.95. I've never seen one in stores or on Amazon so I figured I'd get one since I was paying shipping already. I've seen slicers for already baked bagels but not cutters for the dough

I read the reviews for the Vietnamese cinnamon. One reviewer said that if her house were on fire, she'd grab this on the way out 

It's supposed to be much more flavorful and aromatic than what we find in grocery stores. 

I found the Fiori di Sicilia intriguing and its flavor and scent has gotten rave reviews. One reviewer admitted to putting a dab behind her ears. I'm not sure what I think about that one

From the website:

You know that wonderful marriage of flavors you taste when you combine vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet in the same bowl? That’s what Fiori di Sicilia tastes like. We find that using it in just about anything mild and sweet–anything where competing flavors, like chocolate, don’t interfere–adds a wonderfully mysterious taste. Your friends will be guessing just what you’ve done to your sugar cookies or yellow cake or sweet bread to make them taste SO good!  

We have bread and rolls  

Nice, nice, nice! They look lovely!

Winchester said:

 
Nice, nice, nice! They look lovely!

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Thanks.. They taste even better 

I prefer the bread because I love everything bagels. That topping is fantastic. That will be a staple in my pantry. DD isn't a fan which is why the rolls are plain. I sent her the pic and she's excited about getting them and the soup which is almost done. 

I get hungry when I read this thread. :lol3: