Bread & soup & failed ice cream

I want someone else to bake this Moro bread so we can discuss. It's stunningly easy if you have a mixer. This is the third batch, and it's better than almost any bread I've ever baked, and I've baked a lot of bread. 

The recipe below is true to the book, but I've added slightly more salt. I've left the metric measurements in because I fear conversions might jinx the excellent results, so you'll need a scale. I hope someone tries it and tells me what they think.

 

MORO BREAD

1. Dissolve 1 teaspoon yeast in 125 ml. tepid water.

2. In the bowl of a mixer, combine 2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, 700 ml. tepid water, 1 kg. bread flour (or plain), and the yeasty water. Mix until smooth and elastic. It will be too wet to handle.

3. Oil 2 bread pans and sprinkle with flour. Pour in the dough. You'll need a rubber spatula to ease it into the pans.

4. Cover with a damp towel and let rise for 3-5 hours or until doubled.

5. Heat oven to 450. Bake loaves for 30 minutes, then remove from the pans and bake on the oven rack for 15 minutes more.

The crust on this bread is hard and crackly, and when you slice there are biggish bubble holes. 

The flavor and chewy texture are, in my opinion, perfect, like the best artisanal bread but in sandwich-friendly loaf form. And it's simpler than  Mark Bittman/Jim Lahey no-knead bread because you don't have to think a day ahead. In future, I might increase the salt even more, and try to omit the flouring of the pans. I also wonder if you really need a separate step for dissolving the yeast.

My sister-in-law, Amy, is visiting and we have spent a lot of time talking about food, though we come at it from very different perspectives. She's writing her dissertation on food in women's prisons, but she is not, herself, a cook. She said, "I feel about cooking like I do about skiing. I don't care if I can ski, and I really don't care if I can cook." She goes to Stop & Shop and buys the same reliably tasty things every week-- chicken, veggie burgers, pre-made pesto, pre-crumbled goat cheese, and then comes home and assembles it. I, on the other hand, spend untold hours obsessing about what I'm going to cook and then cooking it. Is this perhaps the reason that I, unlike Amy, will never have a PhD?

For dinner, I served the Moro's version of harira, a classic North African soup that includes a lamb shank, lots of vegetables, turmeric, chickpeas and lentils. Moro: "We always imagine the name of this soup being spoken with a guttural Islamic tongue, and being eaten without ceremony at the edge of a busy bus stations somewhere in Morocco. The flavours of the spices and coriander are very evocative, and only the bus fumes are missing. "

Nice!

Malaga raisin ice cream was a fiasco. I had frozen some heavy cream a while back, defrosted it for the ice cream, thought it looked a bit grainy but since it tasted okay went ahead and used it. Lesson: don't ever do this. When churned, this ice cream contained little flecks of hard butter. "You shouldn't have told me!" said Amy. "I thought those were tiny white chocolate chips."

 

In other news, my mother is very sick. I don't know how to weave this into my goofy food blog, and the idea of trying to do so makes me way too sad. But if I'm going to keep writing a blog that is any way honest, I can't pretend it's not happening.  I'll just leave it at that for now.

Farr's Grape Ambrosia Sherbet

That is my sweet daughter, eating Farr's grape ambrosia sherbet and rebuking her little brother. For what transgression? His existence. At any given moment, it is fair to assume that Isabel is planning to rebuke her brother, rebuking her brother, or trying to figure out a reason to rebuke her brother. 

It is not a lot of fun to watch, but as an older sister myself, I do understand.

I recently posted at sentimental length about Farr's grape nut sherbet, which my grandmother loved so devotedly. 

Yesterday, we were in Ogden, Utah and made a beeline for Farr's. There were a few surprises in store.

a. It is actually called grape ambrosia sherbet, which I had forgotten.

b. It has a really zippy, fizzy taste, which I had also forgotten and which is reminiscent of nothing so much as Fanta grape soda. 

Alice Waters would not approve. Oh well. 

I may declare my quest for the Farr's grape ambrosia sherbet recipe closed. I can eat the real thing whenever I'm in Ogden, and the rest of the time make my slightly different version (based on Claudia Fleming's recipe) with fresh concord grapes and walnuts. 

But I do think I'm going to start calling it grape ambrosia sherbet. Such a pretty name.

 

Alice Waters: Pork Chops & Beet Salad

Stella liked her concord grape sherbet, though disapproved of the walnuts I added to Claudia Fleming's excellent recipe. 

Today, I'll be pithy.

I haven't yet fallen in love with Alice Waters' books, although her Quick Brined Pork Chops (Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook) were the finest pork chops I've ever made. You take those whopping big, 2-inch chops they sell at Whole Foods (and which I've always managed to ruin) and cover them in salt and ground allspice. Let sit overnight in the fridge. When you're ready to eat, you can grill or, as I did, pan fry the meat. It comes out juicy, perfectly salted and flavorful all the way to the bone. Miraculous.

"Dare I call these revelatory?" I asked my father. He is not the kind of person who would ever approve the use of the word "revelatory."

"Oh, probably better not," he said, with one of his funny little smiles.

I am going on a trip to Utah and Wyoming today. The car is packed and the children and I are heading to visit the Old Sod. I'm looking forward to eating a Maddox spoon roll and walking along the banks of the Bear River, my favorite place in the world.

Alice Waters: Concord Grape Sherbet

A few years ago, I decided to try to replicate the fabulous grape nut sherbet that I have only ever tasted at Farr's Ice Cream in Ogden, Utah. 

I am emphatically NOT talking about Grape Nuts ice cream, the bizarre (yet also blah) New England dessert made with Grape Nuts cereal. I'm talking about a refreshing, bright purple fruit sherbet studded with walnuts. It was my grandmother's favorite flavor of ice cream, and there was often a quart of it in her freezer, right next to the Cool Whip.

I called Farr's but they couldn't, or wouldn't, help me. So I tried numerous internet recipes for grape ice cream and sherbet with results that ranged from the passable to the positively vile. Most called for Welch's grape juice.

Then, last year, I bought some fresh concord grapes and made a sorbet recipe out of Claudia Fleming's beautiful book, The Last Course. 

This was IT! This was my grandmother's beloved Farr's grape sherbet. All it needed was some walnuts and maybe a little milk. (My memory of Farr's sherbet is that it is slightly creamy.) 

I was speechless with happiness because I had achieved my goal; my children were speechless with happiness because it was so incredibly delicious.

Yesterday, I saw concord grapes at the Marin Farmer's Market so I bought a couple of pounds and decided to try Alice Waters' recipe (Fruits) for Concord grape sherbet. How did it measure up to Fleming's & Farr's?

Not even close. Waters calls for simmering the grapes in hot water, which robs them of their vibrant flavor. The sherbet tasted nice enough and was a pretty pink color, but it wasn't the grape sherbet of my nostalgic dreams. 

Fortunately, I saved some grapes and am going to make a batch of THAT tonight.