Recipe thread

[Puck]

I want to hear your best wing recipe's. I will post my wife's if she will let me

[Puck]

I hear Smitty has an italian dish but for sure he needs to post his and Mrs Smitty's dips... And Pez needs to teach some bread making! Amazing!

[Pez]

This is a fantastic off-season thread, I shall contribute.

[Pez]

Yea, so I didn't really realize how much bread gear you need for this:
- Planetary stand mixer (the kitchen aid mixer). A spiral mixer is better, but if you own a spiral mixer please send me your ciabatta recipe.
- huge pizza stone, the size of an oven rack
- 3 oval bannetons (link below)
- bread lame (it's a razor blade on a stick)
- danish whisk (not required, but makes you feel like the real thing)
- parchment
- plastic wrap or plastic tubs
- I think everything else is pretty common

Ciabatta w/poolish

Makes 3 loaves, aboug 520g each... I will explain some stuff here so that non-bread people understand. I use King Arthur All Purpose flour. They are very particular about the consistency of their protein content.

A poolish is a common variety of a preferment. The idea is that you take a portion of the yeast, flour, salt and water and let that ferment overnight to ripen. Doing this adds significant flavor to the resulting bread you make the next day.

So to make bread for Sunday, you have to start Saturday evening with making the poolish:

272g room temp water, just run it out of the tap until it "feels" like room temp. Yeast dies at about 105 degrees, so dont be too tempted to make it warm.
272g AP Flour - it's important to do this by weight, no sifting required.
0.5g Active Dry yeast

1. Measure out your water in the bowl you are going to leave out overnight (needs to be about half the size of a basketball)
2. Measure and add your yeast, set a timer for 5 mins
3. During the five mins measure your flour and tidy up
4. when the timer goes off, add your flour
5. Mix well (I use a danish whisk, I don't know why they work but they do). scrape the sides with a rubber spat. Consistency wise, this will be a bit runny, probably twice as thick as pancake batter.
6. Cover with plastic and put on a high shelf in your kitchen, go to bed.

Next morning it will have transformed into a weird sort of spongy and runny thing that frankly looks kind of disgusting. It will be bubbly and sticky. It's important not to mess with it too much as there's some weird science with gluten strands and gas buildups that get messed up if you decide to stir it again or whatever. Ciabatta is a bit of a pansy of a dough and will not respond well to rough handling. Again, the weird science of gluten strands etc...

So it's Sunday morning now and you are ready to make the final dough, start by measuring your stuff:

635g AP Flour
391g water (room temp is fine, just guess. If you have a thermometer that can measure 80 degrees, go for it). Measure this directly in the bowl of your stand mixer.
17g Salt (fine salt dissolves better, but don't sweat it if you just have the coarse stuff)
3.7g Active dry yeast
544g of Poolish (all of it)


**Variant - you can make this a cheese bread by adding 127g of shredded parmesan, if you do this, increase the amount of yeast to 4.7g. Salt retards the yeast, and cheese has salt in it.

1. Your water is already in the bowl of your stand mixer, so add the yeast to that, 5 min timer. Use this time to tidy up.
2. after 5 mins, add your poolish, just scrape this out of the bowl with a bowl scraper or rubber spat. Admire it's strange nature.
3. Add flour, salt (cheese if you decided to)

The reason we are adding the poolish over the water is to keep the most of the flour off the bottom of the mixer so it has to travel "through" the poolish and water. Most home mixers (cough, cough, kitchen aid, cough) struggle with mixing a soft bread dough and can leave dry flour at the bottom of the bowl. This is something you still need to watch for.

First Mix
Anyway, use your dough hook and mix on lowest speed for about 4 mins. During this time you should use a rubber spat to scrape the sides down as it's running. Use your head and recognize that this is a mildly dangerous activity.

Once the four mins is complete the dough should be pretty well mixed. but wont come together or clean the sides of the bowl like a standard bread dough would. Take the bowl off your mixer and use your spatula to mix it a could times by had, the only point here is to check for pockets of raw flour left by the mixer. It's usually there on the bottom and you really just have to figure out how to get it onto the top.

Second mix
Put the bowl and hook back on the mixer. Turn the mixer on 3. and mix for 6 mins. During this six minutes tidy up and fill your dough tub or large bowl with very hot water and let sit aside. Check on the mix every now and then and make sure you don't need to scrape the sides.

First Proof
Dump the water from your dough tub or proofing bowl and leave the inside wet. Pull the bowl off the mixer and use a bowl scraper or rubber spat to transfer to the warm, wet bowl. Cover with a lid pr plastic wrap, put on a high shelf and set a timer for an hour.

Folding during first proof
The first proof is 3 hours. however you have to do an 8 way fold each hour. This helps incorporate air into the dough and lengthens the gluten strands. you will do this twice, unless you did the cheese, in which case you will do it 3 times and increase the overall first proof time to 4 hours.

1. When your 1 hour timer goes off, grab the tub and put it next to the sink. run a bit of room temp water so you can keep getting your hand wet.
2. Wetting your hand, reach under the North side of the dough and try to get half way under it, grab gently and fold to the center.
3. wet your hand and repeat on the S, E, W, NE, NW, SE, SW (hey that's 8 ways, cool)
4. Cover, put back on the shelf and set a 1 hour timer.
5. Repeat when the next timer goes off.... set a one hour timer.

If you don't wet your hand each time it will stick like mad you your hands. The only caution when folding it to make sure you don't tear the dough. If you tear the dough, you are breaking the gluten strands we have thus far worked so hard to maintain.

You need some gear here In the for of three equally sized bowls or baskets and three smooth fabric (linen) towels. You cant use the regular terry cloth towels as they will make a mess with the little stubby fibers. These should be about the size of half a football. The right gear is called a banneton, and is a basket with a sort of linen shower cap on the inside:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XC2HYBB..._ZrMGCbG74WZ7N

You need three of these. Use your last hour on your timer to prep your bannetons. You need to moderately dust the bottom and side of each banneton with flour. You can use AP flour here, but semolina is more proper (oddly difficult to find in Fort Wayne). The Semolina is coarser and isn't absorbed as much by the watery dough.

Tangent: if you have made it this far, please note that you have made a dough that is 73% hydration, which is stupid wet for a bread dough. Hydration is the ratio of water weight to flour weight. If you are nerdy about bread, you would note that the poolish was 100% hydration, the final dough (less the poolish) was 61% and change, 272+391 (water) / 272+635 (flour) = 73% holy crap, science!

Ok, so while you were playing with your calculator your third 1 hour timer went off, you have your bannetons prepped and it's time to play with some dough.

Shaping
Generously flour your work surface, and invert your dough tub on top of this floury surface. The dough will slowly come out by itself, but if not, help it along with a dough scraper. Moderately flour the top of the dough. Use your bench knife in a bit of scraping motion, pick the dough up off the surface and let it fall back down until it's not stuck to your surface anymore. Flip it over so the floury top becomes the bottom. All this is done with your bench knife. You are doing this to get the dough floury enough that it's not sticky and you can touch it with your hands without sticking (sticking means you have to tear the dough to get it off your hands (gluten strands man).

Gently shape the dough into a rough rectangle and use your bench knife to mark how this rectangle should be divided into thirds. Cut into thirds with your bench knife. If you are nerdy about bread, each third will weigh 520g.

So now you have 3 equal amounts of dough. Earlier you did an 8 way fold on the big mass of dough when it was in the tub. You will do the same thing here, except without wetting your hands. (flour is your friend).

1. Place one lump of dough in the center of the bench. Stretch and fold half of north down to the center, repeat for the over 7 directions. You will feel the dough get firmer with each of these folds. That's the gluten strands getting pissed off and fighting back. this forms a bit of a ball.
2. Fold this ball in half so all the seams are on the inside and shape into a log. press the seams together and gently roll this into a loaf the same shape as your banneton, try to get those seams a bit tidy.
3. Drop the log into you banneton, seam side down. Repeat for the other two.

Final proof / bench rest
Holy hell, you made it this far. you need to figure out a way to cover your bannetons so air doesnt get to them. You can do this loosely with plastic wrap (but this can stick to the dough, so spray it first). I found that it's easiest to invert a plastic bin over top of them. The bin cant be too much larger than the bannetons it's covering or it will have too much air circulation.

Oh, you have a baking stone right? It needs to be the size of one of your oven racks, else you cant cook all three of these at once and the proofing schedule will get fouled while you are cooking on loaf at a time.

Anyway, the final proof is 90 mins. Set a timer for 50 mins. When this timer goes off, prep your oven. Put one rack at the very top of your over (or take it out). The other rack with the stone on it should be 1-2 notches below the middle. Set your over to 460F. Set your timer for 40 mins. Use this time to cut three pieces of parchment just about 2 inches longer and wider that the tops or your bannetons.

Baking
Holy malliard reactions Batman. So the yeast has been chowing down on the starch, releasing CO2 and making some crazy stuff happen that is about to result in some golden brown goodness.

Lay your three pieces of parchment on the counter. Invert each banneton center onto a piece of parchment. Gently lift the banneton off the dough, and you will see the linen shower cap thing invert. Watch for the dough to stick to the liner, if it does, gently use your finger to seperate it, and make note for next time that you need a bit more flour on your bannetons.

Make three quick slashes about 5-6mm deep, diagonally across each loaf. The loaves expand in the oven and the slashes relieve the stress of this oven spring, you will notice that my slashes kind of sucked and I had some side blowout.

The pics below are the cooling loaves that I took over to Pucks for the SB, another, smaller loaf with the same dough that I cut open, and then the weird looking poolish. In the cut open piece the yeast consumes the starch, makes CO2.... this CO2 cant escape the strength of the gluten strands so it leaves a hole.

Anyway, if anyone makes this let me know how it turns out.

Oh, this formula is Jeffrery Hamelman's, from his book "Bread" (really creative there, Jeff... btw, why the heck are all your measurements in ounces?)

[smitty46953]

Mexican Dip
(Can also use as a filling for pin wheels in flour tortillas 8-10)

8 ounces cream cheese
8 ounces sour cream
4 ounces chopped drained black olives
2 cups shredded Mexican Blend Cheese
1 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chives
garlic powder, to taste
1 tsp season salt (optional)
8 oz salsa
1 jalapeno, chopped very fine, I take seeds out if don't want it too hot


1. Mix all items together.
2. Chill
3. If you add to much salsa and it is to Spicy, just add in some more sour cream, not Cream Cheese.

[Pez]

ok, here's another go at our Pez House Sunday Sauce. I posted this once before but made a botch of it and it got lost to the ether somewhere.

This is a great sauce, time consuming, and labor intensive. I'm a bit of an early riser so I start my Sunday Sauce before anyone else in the house wakes up and it's a chill way to start a Sunday, especially a game day Sunday. Music in my headphones, coffee, a quiet house, and preparing the mise. I make the sauce and simmer it all day. The only two ingredients I would not substitute would be the San Marzano tomatoes, they are the best for long simmered sauces. Also, this recipe calls for wine and there is a rule in the Pez house that if you are cooking with wine, you use a wine that you would drink, not that bottle of weird Holland House "red cooking wine" thats been in the spice cabinet for eight years. Throw that shit away.

The sauce and the meatballs use many of the same ingredients, so some of the prep overlaps. Anyway, off we go:

Sauce Ingredients:
2T. EVOO
1/2 a red bell pepper - fine dice (you use the other half later so dice the whole thing)
1 medium white onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely diced (this is not a precise measurement, you measure garlic with love)
6 oz. Tomato paste
28 oz. crushed San Marzano tomatoes (I dont dig on big tomato chunks in my sauce, sometimes I just get two cans puree, see below)
28 oz. San Marzano tomato puree
1 C. red wine, divided into two 1/2 cups
3/4 C. fresh grated parm
1 T. Sugar
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper
1 T. Italian herb mix (I use Penzey's brand)
1 T. chopped basil (or 1 t. of dried basil)
1 t. Oregano

Meatball Ingredients:
I swear, one day I'm going to make square meatballs. Seems like that would be a hell of a lot easier to brown properly. Anyway, I digress:

3 T. EVOO, divided into 1 T. and 2 T.
The other half of the red pepper
1 medium white onion, finely diced
1 garlic clove, fine diced (see note above)
1 lb. 80/20 ground beef (the fat is important so get the cheap stuff)
1 lb. ground veal & pork mix (dont sweat it if you cant find veal, get groupnd pork, or just do another pound of ground beef).
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 C. plan bread crumbs
1/2 C. whole milk (whole is best flavor, 2%, skim etc still ok)
1/2 C. red wine
1/2 C. fresh grated parm
2 t. Italian herb mix (dried)
1 T. chopped Basil
1 T. chopped oragano
1 T. choppped parsely
2 t. salt
2 t. black pepper

I can be a bit of a freak sometimes, but I like to chop and prep all of the stuff above before I do anything else, the full mise en place. Yes, it takes longer. Yes, you could chop the garlic while the peppers and onions are cooking. For me, this adds stress to the act of cooking, and I think you can taste stress in your food. I like to get everything in it's place before I even get the stock pot out, then the cooking is all about linear execution. This is just me, your kitchen is your kitchen, do it how you want.

Make the Sauce
1. In a very large stock pot (we use a Le Creuset knockoff we got for $80 instead of $500), heat EVOO over med-high
2. When hot, add peppers & onion, saute 3-4 mins
3. add the garlic and saute 1-2 mins (if you burn your garlic here, start over)
4. Once the garlic is fragrant add the tomato paste from the 6oz can, then refill the can with water and add that also, stir well
5. Add crushed tomatoes
6. Add tomato puree, then use the can to put in 42 oz water (1.5 of the 28 oz cans)
7. Add one of the half cups of wine, add cheese, add sugar, give this a good stir
8. Add salt, pepper, the dried herbs, basil, parsely & oregano, stir well and give it a min to settle
9. Taste it, then add salt and pepper to taste
10. reduce heat to low, sauce should be at a very low simmer (no lid)
11. Tidy up your space, take a break & drink the other half cup of wine


Make the Meatballs

1. In a small skillet, heat 1 T. of the EVOO over med-high heat
2. Once hot, add peppers, onion & saute 3-4 mins
3. Add the garlic and saute 1-2 mins more (if you garlic gets brown, start over with less heat)
4. Once garlic is fragrant, remove from skillet and spread the mixture out on a dinner plate, put this plate in the fridge or even the feezer (this mixture needs to cool or it does weird shit like cooking the raw eggs that you add later. The plate is to increae the cold surface area it's touching. If you use a bowl instead, stir it every now and then).
5. Combine all remaining ingredients EXCEPT the red wine in a large bowl
6. Once the onion / garlic / pepper mixture has cooled, add to the bowl
7. Mix with your hands until well mixed
8. Form into 24 meat balls, about golf ball sized, perhaps a bit smaller. (meat squares, go for it, you will be forever remembered as an innovator)
9. In a large skillet, heat 2 T. EVOO until hot
10. Brown the meatballs in 3 batches of 8 (this is just for texture, and to keep them together during the long simmer). As a meatball is browned enough, go ahed and drop it into the sauce.
11. After all the browned meatballs are in the sauce, get it back to a slow simmer
12. Tidy up your space, relax and drink the remaining 1/2 cup of red wine.
13. Simmer the sauce for at least two hours, but all day is better. At least two hours so the meat cooks and you don't kill someone with trichinosis. The fat in the meat will render into the sauce as it cooks, thus all day is the sweet spot. Stop by every now and then and give it a stir.

It's usually about 10:00 AM by the time I get to this step. The house is starting to wake up. It's a chill Sunday. I've had 3 glasses of red wine and have 3 hours before the games start. After we watch the colts win their 1:00 game it's 4:30 and we start thinking about making some spaghetti and sitting down.

[Pez]

Yea, cultural appropriation. It's got soy sauce so it must be Asian. This is a simple recipe that is a go to on school nights. Can be done end to end in about 30 mins.

Note, it's super easy to get this too salty, do not add salt to anything until you get to the end and taste it. Not all my recipes are complicated.

Note on meat. This recipe is originally made for beef, but can be chicken, pork, even (very firm) tofu, hell it might be good with hamburger and served as a side over veg. I think the best beef for this is a cheap sirloin. The meat ends up being braised, so it gets tender even if it's not one of the best cuts. Once we ordered a whole strip loin and cut it into steaks. We had over a pound of meat scraps leftover and cooked it on an Asian meat Monday. This is a great way to get rid of that one steak you have in the freezer etc.



Asian Meat

1 lb. beef
3 T. Sugar (less if you are not a sweet meat fan)
2 T. Sesame oil (yea, this makes it tend toward Thai food, but it's a great flavor)
1 T. Sesame oil (another for later)
3 T. of soy sauce (low sodium if you have it)
3 T. of Oyster Sauce (if you don't have this, use more soy. In general, 6 T. of an asian sauce, primarily soy. If you use the full 6 T. of full sodium soy, this will be too salty)
2 Pinches of crushed red pepper
2 green onions, chopped thin on a bias (a quarter of a regular onion is fine)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 T. Flour
1/3 C. water (for later)


1. Start cooking 2 cups of rice, we use sushi rice... I'm not going to tell anyone how to cook rice, just that you need to start it now as you will be done in about 25 mins.
2. Cut the beef into thin slices, about 1" x 2" x 1/4". I cut whatever beef I'm using into 2" wide strips and then slice it thin. Put the slices in a medium sized bowl.
3. Add remaining ingredients, EXCEPT the water and the single T. of Sesame oil.
4. Let marinate at least 20 mins.
5. Add reserved sesame oil to 10" lidded skillet. Heat over high-medium heat.
5. Once hot, dump the bowl Into the skillet.
6. Cook until meat is just browned. Longer if you are using chicken or pork.
7. Add the water and wait until it boils.
8. reduce heat to Low, cover and simmer 20 mins.

Serve over rice.

[Pez]

Originally Posted by Puck

I want to hear your best wing recipe's. I will post my wife's if she will let me

Hey Puck, When I was 12 or 13, my dad and I used to make wings every Sunday in the garage before we watched the Colts and thought we had a pretty bad assed recipe going, we even revive it now that I'm almost 50 and my dada is 75.

Mrs. Puck's wings are the best. wings. I. have. ever. had. in. my. life. I just love how they were just unapologetically killing it with good flavor vs masking it with heat.

Hook us up with the recipe if you can.

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Pez

Hey Puck, When I was 12 or 13, my dad and I used to make wings every Sunday in the garage before we watched the Colts and thought we had a pretty bad assed recipe going, we even revive it now that I'm almost 50 and my dada is 75.

Mrs. Puck's wings are the best. wings. I. have. ever. had. in. my. life. I just love how they were just unapologetically killing it with good flavor vs masking it with heat.

Hook us up with the recipe if you can.

Read this to Mrs Puck She was extremely grateful. And yes she will share the post on here.

But seriously dude you were the talent with the crust and sauce

[Puck]

Here ya go. You won’t be disappointed

This recipe is comprised of two recipes put together.

Brine:
2 beers
2 Tbls brown sugar
2 Tbls salt
Marinade 5 lbs of wings overnight in brine.

Place wings on a rack over a bar pan (spray liberally with non-stick spray).
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

While the wings are baking mix the sauce (this makes enough for 15lbs of wings and will store in the fridge for a couple weeks):
3 Sticks of Butter, softened
1/2 cup Tabasco Sauce
3 Tbls Brown Sugar
3/4 tsp. Paprika
3/4 tsp. Salt
1 Tbls Balsamic Vinegar
2 Tbls Sriracha, Chili Sauce

After the wings have baked or 20 minutes baste with sauce, turn wings over and baste second side.
Bake until done...approx 20 more minutes.

Enjoy