New York Style Pizza: Experiments

If you have read more than a few of my posts here, you will probably come to realise that I am a fairly suggestible guy. It takes just the briefest of mentions of mac & cheese during the week to get be obsessing about it right up until the weekend when I inevitably have to turn my thoughts into reality.

Well, this story starts no different. I can't really remember what made me think to start obsessing on pizza. I can only imagine I saw some writing about it somewhere, or maybe its the fact that I now have a pizza stone (which I actually purchased to cook my Christmas turkey, but that's a different story), either way, I decided I wanted to crack New York style pizza - specifically, the thin base with bigger crust.

Being as dough is such a scientific beast, I turned to a few recipes to get started with to try and benchmark my findings so I could start experimenting further.

Attempt 1: 4 day cold rise before a few hours at room temperature - I didn't seal the dough sufficiently so it dried out. I was using a non-kneading food processor approach recommended by the FoodLab RESULT: In the bin!

Attempt 2: Similar timings as my first attempt, but remembering to keep the dough in a ziplock freezer bag and with an amended recipe (but still using the food processor technique). RESULT: No visible rising, but was more or less edible (well, it served as the most basic of vessel for the tomato sauce and cheese!)

Attempt 3: I switched to a less pizza-purist dough recipe and tried a Jamie Oliver recipe that only took a few hours to rise  also switched to traditional kneading (via freestanding mixer) rather than food processor. RESULT: The dough tasted so-so, but was well risen with decent crust, the dough wasn't as strong as I had wanted and tore occasionally whilst stretching it out.

Attempt 4: Continued with Jamie Oliver's recipe, but adjust the quantity of salt to improve the flavour. RESULT: As expected, it did not rise as well as 3) but disappointingly no meaningful improvement in the flavour

And this is where we are up to so far - the good news is that I have a presentable pizza that tastes fine, but definitely still a long way to go.

Observations

The two main goals I am aiming for are: 1) be able to make amazing New York style pizzas (regardless of time) 2) make decent tasting pizzas in a day.

A lot of yeast sold in the UK is Instant Dried Yeast - which is different to Active Dried Yeast, that a lot of recipes will use. It's worth being aware of the differences - The dried yeast needs warm water to "activate" the yeast, and can take up to twice as long to work(!!)

I was originally using my measuring jug for the water (basically one of these), and decided to weigh the water - on repeated experiments filling the jug to the red line (by eye, leaving the water to settle before confirming)  for 150ml I found a variance of +/- 10grams, which seems remarkably high to me!

I believe the Food Lab is onto something with the theory behind the food processor technique, but I think for now I will stick to the kneading technique - even if only because it should more consistently work with any recipe, plus sticking the dough in the mixer and leaving it to knead on a low speed for 10 minutes really doesn't take much effort on my part.

Recipe creation, the Adjacent Possible & my first Fish Pie

On the weekend I decided to cook a fish pie. I enjoy fish pies when I eat them, which is relatively infrequent - to the point that I can probably count the number of fish pies I have eaten in my lief on my hands (or at least fingers and toes!).  As you might imagine, having eaten so few fish pies, I have never cooked one myself.

Now when I cook, by and large, I like to freestyle it (with the exception of cakes, where I follow recipes, but I don't frequently bake cakes).  Which can be a challenge when it comes to attempting to cook something I have never cooked before, so I thought as well as writing up my final recipe for the pie (which turned out pretty tasty, in my opinion) I would write a bit about my process.

I say process. I mean bumbling around trying to read enough to make sense of what is going on and not ruining dinner for us all.

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The recipes I post here are all devised by myself, but they always borrow from lots of sources.  I think everyone does really, and very few recipes are genuinely original thought.  A while ago, after cooking my sausage and apple pie, my mum (my parents were visiting at the time)  asked if I had invented the recipe up myself, I answered yes, but at that moment, I felt a little bad taking credit for it, as really it was just the culmination of years of more informed, practiced people's success.  I certainly wasn't the first person to pair pork and apple, nor pairing pork and mustard, nor undoubtedly the first to put pork and apple into a pie!


There's an idea that is often used in reference to in innovation and invention that is the Adjacent Possible

The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself. (Steven Johnson - The Origin of Good Ideas)

What it really means, is at any given time, given everything we know, understand and have, there is the next step on from that, which is where innovation happens - this can be seen throughout history through lots of remarkable discoveries being made simultaneously by different people, in different parts of the world - that is, innovation isn't happening in the large, its the small increments from where we are (hence, the adjacent possible - the next thing), which is why at the same time, lots of independent people come up with the same ideas at the same time.

And that's the way I look at recipe creation - the adjacent possible. It is a different chronology for sure, as some of the ideas I am working on are decades old, but its the same principle. I take lots of other people's good ideas, and mix them together as I fancy.

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There are some things that need to be exact, and there are some things that can be messed with - but once you start to understand what is happening when you cook, then identifying what these are then the more freedom you get to experiment with the components that you know won't make or break your end meal.


For example, on the very exacting, precise side you have things like pizza dough - here, the small details matter, and bakers work with very precise percentages mastering those. It's a known fact that salt slows down the fermentation process in dough (which I have only recently learnt, having just tried to make pizza dough!), so if you play too much with your salt percentages, then you need to understand that you need to also change your timings, and too much salt is just going to effectively kill the process for you.  On the other hand, basic things like aromatics (onions, leeks etc) are pretty much always inter-changeable, as they are bringing flavour - and thats something you can play with, to suit your own tastes (or food supplies).


Let's take an example of any slow cooked casserole I have featured on this blog. As I have mentioned in some of the posts, they are pretty formulaic, and it's really the discovery of this approach and flexibility that got me started on home recipe invention and learning what can be experimented with.

The basic components of my slow cooked casseroles are:

• Fat - most commonly butter or oil etc
• Aromatics - onion, leek, celery, carrot, etc, 
• Flavour - I'm just using this term to categorise additional flavouring mustard,Worcester sauce, vinegar, tomato puree, soy sauce, fish sauce, herbs/spices etc - basically a fairly intense flavour "hit"
• Liquids - stock/alcohol/water
• Meat - lamb/beef/pork etc

As I'm sure you can guess, as these all have multiple options listed, these are all interchangeable, and by-and-large if you take a random combination of those listed above, you will likely get something at least halfway decent.

However, there is one important factor in your casserole that can't be messed with (too much) - that's the meat. Slow cooking is, like all cooking, a scientific process.  When you cook, the heat, over time, is altering the make up of the meat - in slow cooking specifically it is breaking down the collagen (in the connective tissue) which dissolves to gelatin, making for really succulent, tender and flavourful meat. Which is great news for pieces of meat like lamb shanks or beef short rib, which are cheap cuts of meat but high in connective tissue, but is exactly why you will never have any success slow cooking chicken breast, as it has very little connective tissue and will just dry out (but luckily, chicken breast is quick to cook anyway, so there isn't really any need to slow cook it!).

Having identified the constraints on the approach (the meat), we can be confident experimenting with the other factors to suit our taste, imagination or cupboards!

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So, back to my fish pie.

The first thing I wanted to do was understand what makes up a fish pie and what constraints there are.  My normal approach to a new meal is just reading. I like to read recipes, even recipes for things that I know how to cook, as its always interesting to read ways other people have tried things, or find any interesting insights they have which can be borrowed in the future.

So I read several fish pie recipes, there seemed to be some variations: some people pre-poach the fish in milk before putting in the pie, some people don't use potato for the topping, and the fish itself varies too.

I wanted to make a classic style fish pie (creamy filling, mash potato topping) and from what I could tell (and based on what I know about the different components) the only constraint seemed to be that the fish was cooked (and not over cooked), which left me quite a bit of freedom to just pick the ingredients and flavours I wanted.

Ingredients

• One fillet of cod (MSC approved, of course) without skin/bones
• one fillet of smoked haddock without skin/bones
• a handful of king prawns (I used pre-cooked prawns)
• a handful of strong cheddar, grated
• a teaspoon of chopped dill (fresh)
• half a lemon
• 200ml milk
• tablespoon butter
• tablespoon of flour
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 3 large potatoes (for mashing to top)

Method

Preheat fan oven to 170 degrees centigrade

1. Peel, chop and boil the potatoes to make the mash
   
   
2. Heat the milk in a pan with the bay leaves
   
   
3. Melt the butter in a pan, once melted add the flour and whisk into a smooth paste. Keeping over the heat, slowly add the milk, a little at a time - whisking each time until the mixture is smooth
   
   
4. Chop the cod and haddock and toss into a casserole/pie dish a long with the prawns
   
   
5. Throw in the chopped dill, a pinch of salt, the grated cheese and then squeeze the half lemon - stir the ingredients to mix through
   
   
6. pour over the milk sauce (removing the bay leaves) and top with potato
   
   
7. Put in the oven for about 40minutes, then serve

Recipe: Red wine & rosemary lamb shanks

It turns out I have quite a backlog of posts sitting around that I just haven't had the time to publish, so I will try and bang them out quickly now. This particular post seems sensible to go out first as it is the most recent in memory, and chances are given a few more weeks the exact details will be escaping me.

It was Mother's Day here in the UK on Sunday, so as well as a cake (see a forthcoming post!) I also cooked up some lamb shanks. The advantage of lamb shanks is, like much of my repertoire, it is slow cooked, so pretty easy to throw together whilst also looking after children (which is obviously my main purpose on Mother's Day).

It's a pretty easy dish to make, tastes great and as usual we just need to let time do its work.

Ingredients

• Two lamb shanks
• Tomato puree
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 large carrot
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 leek
• olive oil
• 1 teaspoon ground rosemary (dried is fine)
• ~100ml red wine
• ~400ml stock - vegetable, lamb, whatever
• 1 tablespoon flour

Method

Takes about 20minutes prep, then 2 1/2-3 hours cooking. 
Preheat fan over to 170 degrees centigrade

1. Add some olive oil to a pan and brown the lamb shanks over a high heat, once browned remove the lamb and set aside in a casserole dish.
   
2. Chop the carrots, leek and celery and add to the pan, adding more oil if needed - there will probably be bits of lamb stuck to the pan in places, de-glaze with oil and the spoon and mix through. Add a pinch of salt and cook over a medium heat until soft, probably 8 minutes or so (side note: this will smell awesome!)
   
3. Add a heaped tablespoon of tomato puree and a teaspoon of the ground rosemary, cook for another few minutes
   
4. Sprinkle over the tablespoon of flour and mix through
   
5. Add the red wine and mix through, de-glazing the pan
   
6. Add the stock, then pour vegetable & liquid mixture over the lamb shanks in the casserole dish
   
7. Cover the casserole dish and cook in the over for about 2 1/2 hours - depending on the size of your shanks, but you should be able to tell when the shanks are tender and soft
   
8. Serve - if the sauce is too runny, then remove the shanks and return the liquid & vegetables to the pan on the hob and reduce until appropriate thickness.

Mothers Day Cake 2016

Yep, that time of year again, and of course, children have to be involved when it comes to a Mothers day cake, right?

Just days before, I had seen on some social media a rather impressive looking easter cake, and thought to myself, me and the boys should do that!

@BakeBehaviour My Mini Egg Drip Cake! #goldenmixerbadge pic.twitter.com/EwYrJSN5RM

— Jane's Patisserie (@janespatisserie) February 28, 2016

We didn't exactly follow the recipe, so our version is more inspired by the one above, all though I did follow the directions for making the chocolate ganache on the top (just chop chocolate and pour hot cream over the top).

The sponge was my go to food-processor sponge recipe from Nigella Lawson (I take it from her "Domestic Goddess" book, but the recipe can be found online), which is both incredibly easy/kid-friendly and seems to be pretty consistent in producing great Victoria sponges (note my highlighting! the food processor is the way to go, so don't be put off that it won't be good as traditional techniques!)

The buttercream was also a basic buttercream - based on BBC's basic buttercream recipe, which is basically a 2:1 sugar:butter ratio with a few spoons of milk as needed for consistency.


We went for a slightly more easter-y theme, and had a small chick popping out of the chocolate egg in the center, rather than just more eggs..

I believe the phrase that people use is #NailedIt

Food tourism: New York City

I had the pleasure of a weekend trip to NYC last weekend. Having been previously with my wife and done the usual tourist stuff, I decided this time to do some more experience-type-food-tourism stuff, which turned out to be really nice! As you can see from the maps, they were all highly reviewed places, so a good weekend eating!

Breakfast: Buttermilk Channel

Sunday morning I trekked across town to Brooklyn with some friends to this place - clearly a hip and in-demand place as once again, there were queues of people out the door and a waiting time of about an hour (luckily we had a local friend who had headed down early to put our names on the list!). I had the french toast with a side of bacon and sausage - it was both a big portion and pretty indulgent (as I was told by the waitress before ordering!) it came with a bourbon and pecan sauce and the cream, and was delicious. Bottomless coffee as standard too.

Coffee: Stumptown Coffee (ACE Hotel)

First thing I wanted to find on the Saturday morning was a good coffee - so I did some quick googling and this place ticked both boxes of being highly recommended and fairly central.

I got there and the queue was out the door (surely a good sign) - the coffee was good, but honestly, being spoilt for choice for good coffee where I am (I work in Fitzrovia, London, which has an abundance of great coffee places) it didn't seem out of the ordinary.

The best part about the place was that it was attached to the lobby of a fairly hipster hotel (Ace hotel, 29th Street) and the lobby had free wi-fi and loads of comfy seating (although it filled up pretty quickly too) so was perfect to sit, relax and use the wifi to plan the rest of the day's food.

I ended up stopping by here a few times through the weekend to chill out and use the wifi.

 

Pizza: Prince St Pizza

This one was recommended by Kenji Lopez-Alt as the best pizza slice in the city, so I made the trek south to try it, and it was good!

Not much to be said, its a decent square slice of pizza with thick, rich red tomato and white homemade mozarella and a generous helping of peperoni.

BBQ: Mighty Quinns

Saturday evening I went out for dinner with friends again, and BBQ seemed like a good idea - a quick Google search later, and Mighty Quinns looked like a good choice (from the reviews on Google Maps). And apparently it is currently considered to be the best BBQ in NYC and the place that put New York on the map in terms of BBQ joints.

It was decent - the pulled pork and brisket both very good, and as you'd expect for slow smoked BBQ meat - disappointingly they had run out of their beef ribs, which I would have liked to have tried, but good all round. Their sides, including the buttermilk brocoli were all excellent too - and a decent selection of American craft beers.

Mastering shortbread (brown butter shortbread recipe)

I have always been a fan of eating shortbread. Well, good shortbread anyway.  Honestly, I can't remember what started me off on this latest quest - I think it was maybe just browsing some recipe books and it put me in the mood to give it a shot.

I don't normally cook that many sweet things, possibly cookies and brownies aside, and have never attempted shortbread before, but a month or two back I suddenly decided on a whim to give it a go.

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I started off using the recipe in Ruhlman's Twenty , which is as follows:

• 225 grams plain flour
• 170 grams butter
• 100 grams caster sugar

(and to be honest, whilst there has been some variation in quantities throughout the experiments, this is pretty much spot on as to my final ratio of the parts)

He advised that the most important thing about making good shortbread was the quality of the ingredients, which makes sense being as its such a simple combination of three ingredients.  What followed was me spending several hours reading about butter. And I am speaking literally. I spent at least three hours reading about butter online.

Michael Ruhlman recommended using cultured butter if you can get it, so I went about trying different butters - the first two I tried were cultured, but honestly I didn't see that much of a noticeable difference in real terms - I then tried a few high-end British salted butters (cultured butter is more of a French/European thing, most English butter isn't cultured).


After a while of variations - all of which predominantly turned out very tasty - I still wasn't super impressed with the quality.

One day, for no particular reason that I can remember, I thought to myself, why not try browning the butter first and using that for my shortbread. This turned out to work well.  Maybe it wouldn't impress shortbread purists, but it works for me. So here it is..

Ingredients

• 1/3 teaspoon fine salt (I started using 1/2 teaspoon in my firstbatch, but it was ever so slightly too salty for my taste, although still very edible - so adjust this to taste) 
• 200 grams plain flour
• 20 grams cornmeal (if you want, just replace this with more plain flour)
• 100 grams white caster sugar
• 170 grams brown butter (butter will reduce in the browning process, so you probably need to start off with something like 220 grams butter to be sure)

Method

1. Brown your butter - this is a simple process, chop it up and chuck it into a pan (ideally a stainless steel or something where you can clearly see the colour of the butter throughout the process) and melt it over a gentle heat - once melted, it will start to turn a golden brown and will start to smell awesome (more so) and kind of nutty, as it starts to brown, keep stirring it to make sure the sediments don't burn 
2. Transfer your molten brown butter to a bowl to cool and set (I transfer it to a bowl on top of a digital scales, so I can get the required 170 grams I need later.
3. Once set, cream the butter and sugar together in a mixer, ideally with a paddle attachment if you have it (this is just for ease really)
4. Once creamed together and looking light, add in the flour, cornflour and salt - mix until combined
5. At this point we are freestyling, if you have a pan or something you want to put it in, then chuck it in, and slam it in the oven at about 160 (fan oven) for about 20minutes, or until lightly browned - What I do at this point is normally roll into a tube shape, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge to cool. Once cooled, it's easily sliced into disks that can be lay on a baking tray for consistent size/appearance biscuits.

Recipe: Autumnal Sausage & Apple Pie

Earlier in the autumn, I was feeling particular autumnal, and was looking for something apt to cook one weekend and for me, sausages and apples are pretty autumnal.

So I decided to put them in to a pie. Pies are one of those things, much like casseroles, that are pretty easy to do. They are largely formulaic to the point of being boring (if it wasn't for the fact that they taste great that is!) - that’s not to say they cant be experimental, or wacky, more that if you have a solid ingredient base, then you really can't go wrong. In this case, sausage and apple being a tried and tested pairing, it was just a case of going through the motions and slapping it in some pastry.

Once again, I didn't make the pastry myself - its something I neither have the time, or any real great inclination to get involved with. Shop bought ready-to-roll works fine for my pies, and I just let the filling do all the hard work.

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Anyway, as I said, its a pretty formulaic thing - Start with a savoury base using butter and some aromatics (in this case, as often, leeks), then add some flour and a bit of flavour (whether it be tomato purée for a red meat casserole, or something else - this time wholegrain mustard, because I love mustard and pork), add the primary filling then cover with stock (or other flavoured liquids such as alcohol - even water will work though), reduce and then bang into a pie!

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Ingredients

• 10-12 sausages (judging by the size of your pie)
• 1 large apple (I have cooked this twice - the first time I used two apples, and it was just a touch too apple-y for my liking, so reduced the second time around), roughly chopped
• 1 large tablespoon butter
• 1-2 tablespoons of plain flour
• 1 large leek
• Pastry (make your own or shop bought)
• 150ml cider (I do this by eye - I bought a normal sized bottle of cider, but guess it was something like 100-150 ml I added)
• 1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard 
• 200ml stock (vegetable, chicken, whatever. Cubes are fine)

Method

Pre-heat the oven according to your pastry - the filling will be cooked by the time it hits the oven, so we are just heating and cooking the pastry.

1.  Cook the sausages - either in the oven or grill, pan
2. Whilst cooking, melt the butter in a heavy frying pan and cook the leeks with a generous pinch of salt until soft and starting to brown
3. Add the chopped apples and heat for a few minutes
4. Add the plain flour and stir through to bring together the juices
5. Add the mustard and stir through to form a paste with the leeks
6. Once the sausages are cooked, add them and any juices to the pan and stir through to mix together
7. add the stock and the cider to the pan, and simmer gently on a medium heat to reduce - once reduced to a pie like thickness (well, a bit less viscous actually, as it will continue to thicken whilst cooling) take off the heat and leave to cool
8. Put together with your pastry and slap in the oven to cook. Serve with other vegetables, mash, whatever..