Levy's "Real" Jewish Rye Bread

I don't have a lot of experience shopping at Jewish bakeries so I did not know what to expect when I decided to make Jewish Rye Bread.

It turned out to be a rustic, very decent, type of bread. The ratio between wheat and rye flour is 83% vs. 17% which makes it medium coarse and the only aromatic is caraway. The crust was great, and got even crunchier when toasted. Excellent served with salami. I prefer this one over the soft white "sandwich" type of breads, there's just more food to it somehow.

Banana Muffins

The easiest and fastest recipes in the "Bread Bible" are the recipes in the "Quick breads" chapter, made with baking powder and/or soda instead of yeast. You just stir the all the ingredients together, pour the batter into a baking container and bake. I tried out the banana muffins. Great moist sweet little morsels made with mashed banana, lemon zest and some vanilla as well.

My only objection to this recipe (and that goes for all recipes in the Bread Bible) is that the quantities they turn out are really small. The banana muffin recipe is for 5 American sized muffins (that means 10 Swedish sized ones) - that's nothing! Me and my son gobble that up in a sitting, just the two of us. The bread recipes are normally for just one loaf. Ms Beranbaum says the quantities are small because baked goods are best fresh, right out of the owen. She has a point there, but I still think it's advisable to multiply the quantities and freeze what's not eaten within a day or so if you don't have the time or energy to bake every day.

Great Bread Pictures

Apparently, a guy named Matthew Boyer has baked his way all through the Bread Bible, taking pictures of every single recipe, check them out at:

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2010/08/the_complete_bread_bible_inclu.html

Potato Sandwich Loaf

"Sandwich loaves" are that white soft type of bread (formfranska in Swedish) you normally get in plastic bags at the supermarket. I had no idea that you could make them at home, but apparently, you can! Beranbaums book has 9 different recipes for sandwich loaves. First there is the the basic white plain one, then there are variations made with i.e. cheddar, banana, potatoes, flaxseed, sweet potato and more.

I went for the potato bread as I had some leftover potatoes on hand. The dough was made with wheat, yeast milk and of course, mashed potatoes.

Most breads in the book are made by the "sponge process". That means that half the dough (but all liquid ingredients) are mixed first, this is the sponge  The rest (only dry ingredients) are mixed separately and sprinkled on top of the sponge. The "topping" is called the flour mixture. Then everything gets to rest somewhere between 1 and 24 hours to ferment, this gives more depth in flavour. I'm sure it's not necessary to top the sponge with the flour mixture, the author says that it protects the sponge but you can probably do that with a film of plastic wrap as well. But on the other hand, I found it good to measure up all ingredients at once, so if you notice that there just isn't enough flour at the end, you can go to the store and get more before it is time to mix all the ingredients together.

The dough was very stiff at first, more like pie dough, but after processing it for 10 minutes or so it resembled a more "normal" yeast dough.

And, here is the result:

This bread is very soft and spongy at the same time. I imagine if you sat down on a loaf and then stood up it would just sprooooing back to it's original shape. Not that I tried though, but I have to admit that is would be an interesting experiment  :)

The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

New theme, and a new book - The Bread Bible. This one is, not surprisingly, all about breads.

It's a huge brick of a book (640 pages). I've owned my copy for years and I haven't really gotten around to using it until this spring, when I went on a major bread baking spree.

There are 7 chapters :

• Essential steps of making bread
• Quick breads (muffins, corn bread and scones)
• Flatbreads (pizza, pita, focaccia etc)
• Soft Sandwich loaves (think Wondabread)
• Hearth breads (=Artisan breads)
• Sourdough bread
• Brioche breads

All the recipes are very detailed and scientifically written with measurements in both grams, ounces and in volume. There is also a little table in the end of every recipe names "Dough percentage" stating the ratio between flour, water, yeast, salt etc in the bread. In other words, a great resource for all bread baking nerds out there!

Btw, the author has a blog: http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/ and she's also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FlourRose

Summary - Thai Food by David Thompson

So, what do I think about the book Thai Food by David Thompson?

Pros:

• Lots of recipes, far outside the standard Thai restaurant scope here in Sweden.
• Good quality recipes. As long as you can get the ingredients, the recipes work!
• Great pictures.
• Lots of bonus info on Thai culture and history.
• This its the book if you're serious about Thai food!

Cons:

• Bad index, inconsistent mix of English and transliterated Thai.
• If you don't have a Thai grocery nearby there are hardly any recipes you can cook.
• Strange organization of chapters.
• Might feel a bit intimidating to beginner cooks.

Pla Hoi Shenn - sour and salty marinated scallpos

This is labelled a salad, but I'd rather describe it as scallops in a sour and salty marinade.

So, what went in? The base was fish sauce and lime, then kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, chilli, mint and coriander. A great starter.

I made a kiddie version as well, that actually went down well with my 3 years old. Probably because he thought the scallops were "fiskbullar" - a cheap Swedish type of fish patty, usually sold in cans. It's served a lot in kindergartens and schools because it's so unexpensive, but most adults (me too) hate it. Well, whatever works works.

Pla Hoi Shenn - kiddie version

Some scallops (or fiskbullar)
1 tablespooon lime juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce

Fry the scallops (if not using sushi grade scallops)
Mix up the lime juice and fish sauce.
Let the scallops (or fiskbullar) marinate for a while.

Nam Prik Tua - Peanut Relish

The type of food I miss the most from staying in Thailand is "nam prik", literally "chilli water". That's a group of dishes that can be described as thick sauces or relishes, usually eaten as dips with sticky rice and veggies. They are typical home-cooking comfort food, made with staples that are cheap and generally on hand in a Thai household. That means lots of chillies, garlic, dried fish, fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind and gapi. Gapi is fermented shrimp paste, if you think fish sauce is hard core, you haven't come across gapi yet. I keep my jar enclosed in two plastic bags in the fridge because the smell can wake the dead.

I haven't ever seen nam prik in a Thai restaurant here is Sweden, but fortunately Mr. Thopmsons book delivers, there is a whole chapter on different nam priks in there! The nam prik I chose to make yesterday was nam prik tua, peanut relish, containing the exact ingredients mentioned above plus peanuts. Put everything in the mixer and mix it up good, then fry it in lots of oil and it's done. Takes at most 10 minutes.

The taste of these things usually make me sit and giggle uncontrollable by my self, it's amazing how they can pack such an insane amount of flavours into such a small volume of dip. Balancing that strong flavours together, making the result taste good, is nothing short of an art form. However, it's really not advisable to go breathe on anyone for a while after eating it. And there is no picture today, I gobbled up all the nam prik before I thought of taking one :)

Panaeng curry with beef

An feature I've noted when cooking Thai curries at home is that no matter if the name in the title says that the curry should be red, yellow or green, they always turn out brown.

The curry I chose to cook, panaeng curry, is supposed to brown though. Maybe with some red oil flecks on top, but basically brown. The curry paste, that is the base of the curry, contains a lot of peanuts, shallots, garlic, lemongrass, galangal, chillies and coriander root. For a quicker version ready made panaeng paste can be used. In Thailand this curry is mostly done with beef, but I suppose you could really put in any kind of meat and veggies, anyway, I used beef.


The recipe in the book is kind of involved, saying you should boil the beef in coconut milk for 2 hours. The beef I had would probably be turned into porridge by that time, so I skipped that step and just used my standard Thai curry algorithm.

1) Fry some coconut cream until the oil separates from whatever else is in there.
2) Fry the curry paste in the coconut cream
3) Add the meat, other spices and/or veggies
4) Add chilli, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice until everything tastes right.

And, voilá, it turned out really good :)

The Thai cookbook that ends all other Thai cookbooks.

I love Thailand, I spent a year there as an exchange student in high school, trying to cram as many cooking classes as possible into my schedule. Therefore, the first cookbook I'll review here will be "Thai Food" by David Thompson.

Quick data:
Title: Thai Food
Author: David Thompson
Length: 674 pages
Recipe quality: 5 out of 5
Recipe complexity: 4 out of 5 
Organization: 2 out of 5
Index quality: 3 out of 5
Food Porn Vale: 5 out of 5
Notes: All recipes need more lime juice! (I think the limes we get here in Sweden  just aren't as sour as the ones mr. Thompson is using wherever he lives)

This book is HUGE and contains a lot more than recipes. There is a lot of info on Thai culture, history and beliefs. Thai ingredients and cooking methods are explained in detail, with both Thai and English names which might come in very handy at the Thai supermarket.

The recipes are mostly organized by type, one chapter for soups, one for curries etc. Then there is one chapter for "special menus" and one for "food outside the meal" containing recipes for all types of food. This I find rather confusing, I like to find the "Som Tam" recipe in the salad chapter, not among the "outside meal" stuff. Also I'd like the menu chapter to contain just references to the recipes, not recipes themselves.

That said, this is the best Thai cookbook I know of. There are A LOT of recipes. Everything I've made has turned out as expected or better. I'm planning on reviewing some of them here over the next few days.