I've done the tamale thing now for several years on and off, serving mostly as labor who spreads the masa on the shucks. While this could be drudgery, it is usually accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol, plenty of good food and quality time spent with family. But with our head tamale chef (Sylvia, my mother-in-law) in St. Louis for Christmas, it was either go it alone or no tamales this year.
So, after a bit of thinking and then planning (and then calculating, as in "how many people can I trick into coming over to help spread the masa?) I decided that we would give it a go. I knew that mom would always be at least a phone call away, and also I remembered that last year she had discovered that you could buy masa that was pre-mixed, meaning that the hardest part of the job (in my experience) was already done for you.
So the first part is planning and shopping. I knew a partial list of stuff I would need: masa, shucks, a pork roast and chiles. Patty called around and found a few places that sold masa pre-mixed so I knew that I could get it. With my confidence in place, I started to make plans.
I ended up going to Fiesta Mart to attempt to get everything. This was on Christmas Eve eve, i.e. the 23rd. It was evening, but I figured that things wouldn't be too bad. Of course I was wrong, but nothing new there...
When we arrived (Bailey was with me, as I was bringing her home from swim practice) we headed to Fiesta. I bribed her by promising to buy her ojarascas, which she really likes. We showed up around 6:45 in the evening and the place was packed. We had to park a ways across the lot and then make our way in through the thronging patrons. Now if you've never been to Fiesta it's and experience. It's about as much of a third-world experience as you can get in Austin, expecially when it's crowded. They sell just about everything: clothing, luggage, cds, in addition to all of the strange foods that you could imagine. As we made our way into the store the tamale making stuff was front and center. And middle center and back center... Five pound bags of masa, lard in ever imaginable measure from one pound up to huge buckets, bags 0f dried chiles of all types: anchos, pasillas, cascabels, Guajillo, etc. I picked up a few things that I knew we needed (based on a call to Sylvia earlier in the day). This included a bag of ancho chiles, and a few heads of garlic. I searched high and low for the pre-mixed masa and also for a decent pork roast (shoulder or butt) but no luck. However, if I wanted a pig's head, well then there are more than enough to go around. I wanted to ask at the meat counter, but it would have taken 20 minutes just to wade through the line, so I gave up and picked up the few things that I had already and vowed to come back early in the morning. Oh, and they were out of ojarascas too...
to be continued...
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Panettone
Every Christmas one of the things I do is bake at least one batch of Panettone. This is an Italian Christmas bread that is studded full of candied fruit and nuts. It's essentially a brioche dough with a few extras added, as are most Christmas breads for that matter.
This year I decided to go with the recipe from _ The Bread Baker's Apprentice_ (by Peter Reinhardt). I can't remember if I've made this one before or not? I think that I have at least once, but I'm not sure. I know that in the past I've used a recipe out of Bernard Clayton's book (the title escapes me right now) and also one out of _Bread Alone_ by Daniel Leader. I also think that a time or two I made up my own recipe on the fly, but this year I decided to follow someone else's lead, at least mostly anyway.
Reinhardt starts with something he calls "barm" which is a wild-yeast starter that requires a bunch of time and effort. I decided to dispense with that and just go a more standard pre-ferment starter. So I started with:
1 cup milk
a pinch (~1/8 tsp) yeast
1 1/2 cups flour
I mixed these up about 4-6 hours ahead of making the final dough. (In reality I had to call home from work and ask Patty to make this starter for me.)
When I got home, prior to starting the dough, I got the fruit ready. I took a cup or so of candied fruit that I had bought at the store plus about 1/2 cup of golden raisins and soaked it all together in 1/4 cup of rum. I also heated some water to boiling in a small saucepan and once it had boiled, I put turned it off, added 1/2 cup of raw almonds and covered the pan to let them soak. This would make the them easy to skin later on. So, in recipe terms:
1 cup candied fruit
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup rum
1/2 cup almonds
After letting the fruit soak for a couple of hours, it was time for the final dough. Here I followed Reinhardt pretty directly. As I remember, the recipe was something like:
starter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3 tsp yeast
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1 stick butter, room temperature
You start by mixing the yeast and the warm water and let the yeast soften. Then you add the starter and sugar and start mixing. Once it's well mixed, it's time to add the salt, egg and egg yolk and mix it well. Next the flour, letting the mixer mix it all well and knead it for a bit (~1 minute). At this point, it's a good idea to let the dough rest for a bit so the gluten can get started forming. About 20 minutes give or take.
Now it's kneading time. Also time to get the butter incorporated into the dough. I like to keep using the paddle attachment here because it cuts the dough a lot better than does the dough hook, and in trying to incorporate butter you need to keep the dough kind of broken up.
The butter didn't really want to go in this time, but I kept at it, even removing the beater and choping at the dough with a knive to force the two (dough and butter) to combine. Eventually thought it all mixes and comes together into one solid mass that you can knead with the dough hook. After letting it go for a bit, it's time to work the fruit and nuts in.
I was using raw almonds, which took a bit of work to peel. Even after soaking them for 30 minutes or so, some of the skins didn't come off easily. But, with Patty's help, we got them all peeled. I didn't bother to chop them as it was getting late, but a lot of them broke in half when I peeled them, and I thought that would be perfect. A nice crunch to counterpoint the soft dough and chewy flavor of the candied fruit.
I mixed in all the fruit and nuts at once, rum and all. This made the dough wet all over again, but the mixer was able to incorporate the fruit and nuts pretty quickly. I added flour, one tablespoon at a time, to convince the dough to come together and pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. Probably four or five tablespoons at most until I felt like things were ready. The dough at this point is a nice silky smooth texture with a beautiful yellow sheen from the eggs and butter. I shaped it into a ball and put it into the rising bowl and into the fridge to wait for tomorrow.
This year I finally bought some actual panettone baking papers so I can have something that makes it easy to bake and then easy to transport afterwards. After letting the dough sit overnight, I got it out the next day at about noon and let it get to room temperature and then continue to rise. For whatever reason (probably the butter) this dough rises slowly. But rise it does, and eventually it pretty much filled the bowl, so I took it out and divided it to be ready for shaping. I had large panettone papers and small ones, so I made a mixture. My dough was enough for two large ones or several small ones, so I made one large and several of the smaller ones. Once again, it rises slowly, so after spraying down the paper with oil spray I formed it and put it in there and set it out to rise.
The bread is generally baked at a relatively low temperature (325) for a pretty long time (> 1 hour). I've taken to testing the temperature with an instant-read thermometer for these breads to be sure that they're done but not over baked. At about 195 they should be done, so that's what I did. The smaller ones were done in about 50 minutes, but the bigger one took more like 75.
In the end, the bread was much moister this year than in the past. Whether that has to do with using the papers or the recipe, I'm not sure. But I thought that it was the best I'd ever made. Here a a couple of different pictures.
This year I decided to go with the recipe from _ The Bread Baker's Apprentice_ (by Peter Reinhardt). I can't remember if I've made this one before or not? I think that I have at least once, but I'm not sure. I know that in the past I've used a recipe out of Bernard Clayton's book (the title escapes me right now) and also one out of _Bread Alone_ by Daniel Leader. I also think that a time or two I made up my own recipe on the fly, but this year I decided to follow someone else's lead, at least mostly anyway.
Reinhardt starts with something he calls "barm" which is a wild-yeast starter that requires a bunch of time and effort. I decided to dispense with that and just go a more standard pre-ferment starter. So I started with:
1 cup milk
a pinch (~1/8 tsp) yeast
1 1/2 cups flour
I mixed these up about 4-6 hours ahead of making the final dough. (In reality I had to call home from work and ask Patty to make this starter for me.)
When I got home, prior to starting the dough, I got the fruit ready. I took a cup or so of candied fruit that I had bought at the store plus about 1/2 cup of golden raisins and soaked it all together in 1/4 cup of rum. I also heated some water to boiling in a small saucepan and once it had boiled, I put turned it off, added 1/2 cup of raw almonds and covered the pan to let them soak. This would make the them easy to skin later on. So, in recipe terms:
1 cup candied fruit
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup rum
1/2 cup almonds
After letting the fruit soak for a couple of hours, it was time for the final dough. Here I followed Reinhardt pretty directly. As I remember, the recipe was something like:
starter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3 tsp yeast
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1 stick butter, room temperature
You start by mixing the yeast and the warm water and let the yeast soften. Then you add the starter and sugar and start mixing. Once it's well mixed, it's time to add the salt, egg and egg yolk and mix it well. Next the flour, letting the mixer mix it all well and knead it for a bit (~1 minute). At this point, it's a good idea to let the dough rest for a bit so the gluten can get started forming. About 20 minutes give or take.
Now it's kneading time. Also time to get the butter incorporated into the dough. I like to keep using the paddle attachment here because it cuts the dough a lot better than does the dough hook, and in trying to incorporate butter you need to keep the dough kind of broken up.
The butter didn't really want to go in this time, but I kept at it, even removing the beater and choping at the dough with a knive to force the two (dough and butter) to combine. Eventually thought it all mixes and comes together into one solid mass that you can knead with the dough hook. After letting it go for a bit, it's time to work the fruit and nuts in.
I was using raw almonds, which took a bit of work to peel. Even after soaking them for 30 minutes or so, some of the skins didn't come off easily. But, with Patty's help, we got them all peeled. I didn't bother to chop them as it was getting late, but a lot of them broke in half when I peeled them, and I thought that would be perfect. A nice crunch to counterpoint the soft dough and chewy flavor of the candied fruit.
I mixed in all the fruit and nuts at once, rum and all. This made the dough wet all over again, but the mixer was able to incorporate the fruit and nuts pretty quickly. I added flour, one tablespoon at a time, to convince the dough to come together and pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. Probably four or five tablespoons at most until I felt like things were ready. The dough at this point is a nice silky smooth texture with a beautiful yellow sheen from the eggs and butter. I shaped it into a ball and put it into the rising bowl and into the fridge to wait for tomorrow.
This year I finally bought some actual panettone baking papers so I can have something that makes it easy to bake and then easy to transport afterwards. After letting the dough sit overnight, I got it out the next day at about noon and let it get to room temperature and then continue to rise. For whatever reason (probably the butter) this dough rises slowly. But rise it does, and eventually it pretty much filled the bowl, so I took it out and divided it to be ready for shaping. I had large panettone papers and small ones, so I made a mixture. My dough was enough for two large ones or several small ones, so I made one large and several of the smaller ones. Once again, it rises slowly, so after spraying down the paper with oil spray I formed it and put it in there and set it out to rise.
The bread is generally baked at a relatively low temperature (325) for a pretty long time (> 1 hour). I've taken to testing the temperature with an instant-read thermometer for these breads to be sure that they're done but not over baked. At about 195 they should be done, so that's what I did. The smaller ones were done in about 50 minutes, but the bigger one took more like 75.
In the end, the bread was much moister this year than in the past. Whether that has to do with using the papers or the recipe, I'm not sure. But I thought that it was the best I'd ever made. Here a a couple of different pictures.
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