Oh Glorious Sourdough Starter!!!

First of all, Nursing sourdough starter is like babysitting. It never fucking ends. Since I had bought starter (Thanks King Arthur!) for My and Tim's tanked pizza adventure, I finally decided to try to nurse it back to health after letting it dry out in my fridge for damn close to 2 years.















"Classic"

That's the jar it came out of. Notice it says in fairly obvious lettering:
"PLEASE FEED ME"
Hmmm, that's funny, because when I read that I got:
"Please dump me in your refrigerator and fucking forget about me for 2 years until you actually try to do something with me."
So I decided to revive it.

After doing my usual half assed half interested, not really paying attention search on the interblog thingy, I decided that I had read enough to devise an acceptable method for reviving said starter. Here's how it goes. '
Basically add warm water to starter.
Dump starter in big ass bowl, and add flour and water every 6-8 hrs for several days until the starter quadruples in volume in under 8 hours.

THE RESULTS SO FAR.....

So I read on another interblognet page that somebody had been able to revive their starter after letting it sit unfed for 18 months. Being encouraged by the probably bullshit words of a total stranger, I decided to try it. So I added 1/2 cup of warm water to the 2 yr old starter, then transferred it to a big bowl, where I added one cup flour and let it sit for 12 hrs.

Nothing happened.

But, I soldiered on, refreshing with warm water and flour for going on 5 days now, and that starter is nowhere near quadrupling in volume.
Here are the results after a few days.















Nothing's happening


I let it sit out for a few days longer, and wouldn't you know it, it started to smell like vinegar! So I guess the lactobacilli that actually metabolize the gluten and produce acetic acid (vinegar, hence "sour" dough") were still alive and kicking. The yeast I'm not so sure about.
So after some more half assed "research" courtesy of the interblognet, I read that I should throw out most of it and keep feeding it. Well I did. And I left it to rot on the counter for 2 days.
But it rose a little! So I transferred it, minus crusty top, to a bowl it hadn't been festering in for 5 days.

So after going through a good portion of a 5 lb bag of flour and a week on the counter at room temp, here's what I get:















WOW!

So do I have a refreshed sourdough starter? Who the fuck knows? But I do have the warm sense of satisfaction that comes with a job kinda done. Or not. I'm not sure, because the dough won't rise. It rises a little, and it smells sour, so I'll keep it on the counter until:
A: I either get sick of throwing more flour at it and wasting my time with it. OR
B: Throw some yeast in there and see if I can come up with something. OR
C: My girlfriend tells me to throw the sour smelling ball of shit out.
We will see.



UPDATE: I gave up on the starter fiasco. I DID happen to keep a little that's still in the refrigator, so we'll see...

Pita

So I made pita. My brother told me to post the recipe. Here 'tis! This makes enough for, shit I don't know, 10-12? It kinda depends on how big you roll em out. So anyway, here's a basic recipe for Pita bread.
1& 1/4 cups water at 110-115 deg F
2 cups of All Purpose flour
2 cups of bread flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 & 1/2 teaspoons of salt.

Step 1: The dough
Add the yeast to the water in a big ass mixing bowl. Let is hydrate for a few minutes, then add the combined dry ingredients into the water, mixing with either a wooden spoon, or that crazy flour mixing wand I showed earlier. Mix this until it's a rough dough and all the ingredients are incorporated. Now let this sit for at least 2o minutes. This rest period is called "Autolyse" by bakers. It helps hydrate the flour and thus make a smoother dough once it's kneaded. After this has rested, slap that bitch onto a cutting board. Now knead it for 10-15 minutes until it's smooth and, uhh, smooth. Put this into a lightly greased bowl, cover and let dough double, probably between 1&1/2 to 2 hours. Maybe less if it's hot out.

Step 2: The dough, again
Now that the thingy has doubled, slap the mofo onto your cutting board again and cut it into 10-12 balls. Let them rest for a while, like 10-15 min, then as your oven's heating up to 450 deg F, start rolling. Roll them into flat discs about 5-6 in across, and this will make a decent size pita for, uh, pita. Once they're all rolled out next comes"

Step 3: The baking
Onto a preheated baking sheet from a preheated 450 degree F oven, slap 2 pitas and cook them 1 & 1/2 minutes a side. The first side won't look like much is happening, they'll just start to rise a little bit and blister. Once they're flipped is when they puff up. So flip em after 1.5 minutes, and bake on the other side until they puff up and stop. This is usually between 1.5 an 2 minutes. Don't let them get toasted, or they'll get crisp and worthless for, uh, pita. Here's a picture of the 2 I have left after Tricia and I ate most of them. Mostly me, I think.















Barely brown!
Of course, since I was obsessing about making my own pita I also made my own hummus and falafel.
The Hummus: good
The falafel: Meh
More on Falafel later.

Pickles

So maybe the recollection of the Stage and the bagels got me jonesing for a new dill pickle. I KNEW there's no way I'm going to be able to find that, so I'm attempting to make my own.
Here's a "recipe" I sorta cribbed from a Doubleday everything cookbook, except I modified it, because theirs was for canning pickles. Seeing as it's April, there are no pickle cucumbers in season yet, so I just used a regular large cucumber from Seasons Market. The Closest Thing to Market Of Choice in Portland!! Here's the recipe

4 cups water
1 cup distilled white vinegar (Heinz)
1 & 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp granulated sugar (I used C &W organic granulated sugar. The stuff is milder tasting than their regular sugar made from the blood of Caribbean children)
~1/4 cup each of:
Whole allspice
Fennel seed
Whole peppercorns (Tellicherry!)

Here's what I did:

Heated water, vinegar, salt, sugar, and spices to 185 deg F or so, then added cucumbers with a shit ton of fresh dill, and let steep for 10 minutes.
Into a plastic container, I dumped the cucumbers and the brine along with:
a shit ton more of fresh dill
5-6 cloves peeled whole garlic.
Here's what it ended up looking like:

















And into the "plastique" for the big chill















Notice the extra shit ton of fresh dill added in addition to the dill that steeped with the cucumbers. Now comes the waiting game.

Notes on the first attempt

So I was able to replicate bagels at home. But here's the thing: They tasted like shit.
So here are some observations.
First of all under NO circumstances should one use King Arthur Unbleached White Whole Wheat Flour for making bagels. Now, don't get me wrong, I like King Arthur Flour. They make great flour, but don't believe for a second that this flour "doesn't taste like whole wheat" because it absolutely does. There's nothing white about this flour. Like my girlfriend said after eating one of these polished turds: "If I can't eat a bagel with just butter, something's wrong" She's right, something was wrong: It was the DAMN FLOUR. I knew it too when I was kneading, because the dough smelled like whole wheat, but I was too far in to stop.
Here's a pic of the actual bag of flour I used just in case there's any confusion.




















Avoid this flour like the plague if you're making bagels. Trust me. Maybe they make good sandwiches, but I wouldn't know because after tasting them they went into the trash.

I'm not so sure about leaving some of the yeast out and adding it to the dough step after the sponge. My guess is that the idea was that there'd be more yeast available during the cold fermentation step or something. Once the yeast is in there, it's in there, and I don't think adding more at the dough step matters. Next time I'm putting all the yeast in at the very beginning. The yeast metabolize at a certain rate. Once it's active it's active. It's not like the yeast in the sponge knows that there's more yeast on the way "Oh shit, we should eat faster, cuz here comes some more yeast!" BZZZZZT!!

Barley syrup in the boiling water: observations
I added a tablespoon of the barley malt in the boiling water, because I'd read on some peoples' blogs that they thought it gave the bagels a better appearance and "more of a bagel flavor". I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I tried this exact recipe 2 days later with different flour, boiled some bagels with plain water, and some with the barley syrup added, and I couldn't see or taste a difference at all. On the plus side, it caused the water to boil over more easily and created a huge brown mess under my burners that was a pain in the ass to clean up. So try this yourself. Oh, and I've been having dreams about sticky brown goo all over everything since then, and I think I smell barley syrup all the time now. That stuff may be evil. I'll keep you posted.

Attempt number 2: More polished turds??
After the first attempt/debacle, I tried a couple of days later with some Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose Flour we had laying around in the cabinet. Here's a pic of that flour.




















I followed the exact same recipe and here's what I got:
















Notice the color. THEY'RE WHITE. Like a bagel should be. They were a little doughy tasting to me, but Tricia said they were fine. They were a shit ton better than those other whole wheat monstrosities. These were chewy, bagelly gut bombs. In short, they were really closer to a real bagel than what I've had so far. Exactly? I don't think so. I think I need to add an autolyse step, and I have to try the drying step as well. But these would work. For a relatively quick recipe, with the right flour, I was able to whip up some passable bagels. The only part that took time was the kneading, the boiling, and the baking. Not bad. 15 min for kneading, and maybe 20 minutes with the boiling, topping and baking at the same time.

Bagels Cont'd

So I don't know what it is, but for some reason, people out here either don't know what a good, old school bagel is, or they don't care.. I'm not sure which. Sure there are a couple places in P-town that kinda sorta get it right, but not RIGHT right. So time to try it at home. See, the thing is, since I worked in a bagel bakery, I know that it's a process. There are steps in the process that professional bagel bakeries do that would be very hard for a home baker to replicate well. The hardest step to me would be the intermediate step of "drying" the bagels between the boiling and the baking. The drying is tricky. I haven't tried it yet. Any idiot knows you have to boil em. Otherwise it's just bread with a hole in it. But I've yet to see the drying step done in a home recipe. The driers are these big long conveyer belt deals, with extremely low heat applied to the bagel as it moves through the dryer. Maybe by setting your gas oven on low broil, and putting the bagels as low down in the oven as they can go, you might get it right. But I haven't tried it. Yet.
So I tackled the obvious parts first. I found a recipe that I could work off of, which goes something like this:
STEP 1: The dough

For the sponge:
1 tsp instant yeast.
4 cups flour (What kind, you wonder, I'll get to this later)
2 &1/2 cups water

For the dough:

1/2 tsp instant yeast
3 &3/4 cups flour
3 tsp salt
1 Tbsp barley malt syrup
2 tsp sugar (I left that out)

I got good results with the sponge by pre warming a big glass bowl with hot water for a minute or two, then adding tap water at 115 Degrees F, then adding the yeast to the warm water and letting the yeast activate for a bit. A few minutes.
Then add the flour and mix it up until everything's incorporated Don't worry about the texture too much at this point, because the kneading comes later. Let this sit until doubled, usually a couple of hours. Of course, if you've ever baked ANY bread AT ALL you know this time will vary greatly with the ambient temperature. Basically let it double, and forget about time.
Next comes the dough. After the sponge is doubled, add the malt syrup to the sponge and mix it in until completely incorporated.
mix the remaining dry ingredients seperately, then add them to the sponge, until you have a mixture that's ready to knead. I get good results for mixing the ingredients with a flour whisk I bought online from King Arthur Flour, like this:









Since I don't have a mixer, and can't afford one right now, I did all the kneading by hand. It builds character. So knead for at least 10 minutes, until sufficiently doughy and pliable. Once that's done, the doughs ready to roll into bagel shapes.

STEP 2: The bagels
Split the dough into 12 bagel size pieces, and roll into a thick short rope that's tapered at the ends, and pinch and roll ends together to make a bagel shape.
Put these onto a greased baking sheet and let rest at room temp until they start to rise, about 20-25 minutes. Then wrap them loosely with plastic wrap, and stick in for the big chill.
STEP 3: The overnight proof
Why proof overnight? Well, this allows fermenation to continue without rising the dough. Acetic acid production peaks at temps between 50-60 Deg F, and this is what gives bread a bite.
Does this really matter?? More on this later...
STEP 4: The difference between bread and bagels: BOILING
So it's a new day. Take the damn bagels out of the refigerator and let them warm up to room temperature. While that's happening Get a very big pot of water boiling and, once the bagels are room temp, put them in the water 3-4 at a time, just make sure they have enough room to move around. Boil 3 minutes a side, remove them, and top them with whatever you want. We chose poppy seeds. Here's a pic of the boiled, not baked bagels:
















STEP 4B:Baking in a HOT oven.

Bake the bagels hot hot hot! 500 degrees F oughta do it. I had to cook mine for about 12 minutes, and here's the end result
















Here's the inside:















Looks about right, right? Look closer. Look at the color of the bagel. I MADE WHOLE WHEAT BAGELS! What the hell happened, you ask? More on that later.

Bagels made at home: It begins

So, yeah. East coast bagels. The heavenly old school bagel. Moist, delicious, chewy, heavy as a brick. Growing up in Detroit, we had great bagels, and one of the best delis there ever was, the Star deli on Twelve Mile and Telegraph in Southfield. Right next door was a little bagel bakery. My second job was at that bakery. Getting up at 4:30 AM, driving to work on my learner's permit, blowing through the blinking yellow lights on Telegraph, the sun tinting everything a pale yellow gold. the right turn on 9 mile, the left U turn back onto Telegraph, past the liqour store. Past ten mile, 11 mile, over the highway, then past the Tel twelve mall and the elephant in front of Tamaroff, and on into work.
Making bagels was fun. There was the boiling, the drying, then into the huge rotating rack oven that I think was set to "Surface of the Sun". It was a fun job. My first day I burnt 2 whole racks of bagels. They kept me around. After a while, I had it cold: Boil, top, dryer, stroll to the front and load up the oven. A good bagel maker could bake enough bagels for the entire day before opening time. Alone.

So you live your life, you move out, you move on. New foods are discovered. Things like "Fresh produce" and "Avocados", well lit supermarkets, aisles brimming with food. Pace Picante Sauce?? We didn't have that growing up in Detroit! Your new friends look at you like you're an idiot. "He's from Detroit" or "He's from somewhere back east" you hear them explain to each other under their breath. "Oooohhh....", Then the combination of pity and confusion. I didn't care. We might have had avocados when I was growing up, but I don't remember them.
You're on a new journey, a new part of your life has begun.

Then, life happens. The routines start. You have problems. You have money trouble, you have problems with your partners. You fight, you break up, you move. Again. The novelty starts to wear off, and you just want a little bit of comfort. Maybe something from the past that reminds you of what you naively and selectively remember as better days....

...The flavors of childhood come sneaking back, teasing your subconscious. "You know what?" you say to yourself, "I'd really like a Pastrami sandwich, like the kind I had as a kid at the old Stage Deli in southfield". Very few people remember the old Stage Deli, with the red walls, the deli counter on the right as you walk in, the walls filled with photographs and caricatures of "MOVIE STARS" everywhere. That place was great. Matzo balls the size of an 8 year old's head. The pickles, the noise. Gone.

So I'm craving a little bit of my childhood. The only part that wasn't a complete nightmare. The only times my family was able to sit in a room together at the same time and not try to kill each other was Sunday. That was the day. I'd usually get to tag along (read: forced to go) to the deli with my dad, and we'd get pastrami, lox, salami, crazy good pickles, from barely pickle, still kind of a cucumber to full on pickle pickles, sometimes a Dr Browns, then next door to get a grip of bagels. A big fat bag of bagels. We'd eat one on the way home. A salt bagel. We'd get home. we'd sit down together as a family and eat. My dad wasn't yelling. My mom wasn't, well, being mom, My sister was actually being sort of nice. My older brother was kinda happy. My little brother was exaclty the same. It was weird. It was like: "Is this what normal families do all the time?"


So the food triggers carefully edited memories of happier times. It might work. It might make you happier for a second. You walk by what looks kind of like a deli.. "Hey, this place has pastrami" a little voice in your head says. You go in, you have a sandwich. It disappoints. "These people know nothing about Pastrami" says the voice in your head. Then it happens again, this time with pickles. Then again, the next time with a reuben. Then Italian food. Then Greek. Every time is as bad as the last. You start to wonder. "What's wrong with these people? Haven't they ever had "real" -insert favorite food here-?" Then you start asking your friends "You ever had a real bagel?" "You ever had a Coney Island hot dog?" It goes on and on. It's madness. They haven't. It hits you. Things are different out west. You start to wonder: Is it the water? Is it the air? Is it the people? What the hell's going on out here?!