Friday, January 8, 2010

Jen's Soft Italian Bread Dough


Matthew won't eat Mac and Cheese. He won't eat Spaghetti-O's. He doesn't even like pizza. BUT, he will eat pizza if I make the dough using this recipe. I call it "Jen's Bread Pizza." (You can also use it to make breadsticks.) Jen found this recipe on "Taste of Home." See bottom for credits.
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Jen's Soft Italian Bread Dough
1 cup water (70 to 80 degrees)
3 Tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups bread flour
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
Topping (if making Breadsticks)
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
1 Tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
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Directions:
1. Put water, butter, salt, flour, sugar, Italian seasoning, garlic powder and yeast in the bread machine pan.
2. Select the dough setting (after a few minutes, check your dough. Add 1 to 2 Tablespoons of water or flour if needed to get the right consistency).
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For Pizza:
Once the dough cycle is complete, roll the dough onto a cookie sheet (cut in half if desired) and add pizza sauce and toppings. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.
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For Breadsticks:
1. Roll on a floured surface. Cut in half. Then cut each portion into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a 4 to 6 inch rope. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 20 minutes).
2. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown.
3. Immediately brush with butter and sprinkle on the parmesan cheese. Serve warm.
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"Soft Italian Breadsticks." Christy Eichelberger. Taste of Home. http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Soft-Italian-Breadsticks.

philosophy

January 8

The biggest self-deceptions are that life has a “meaning” and that each of us is unique.

That’s a favorite quotation of my friend Kenyon Phillips from one of his idols, David Byrne (his other big idol, musically, at least, is Brian Eno).

Perhaps that quotation sounds bleak to you, but it’s not really. If life has no set meaning then we can imbue it with whatever meaning we like. We can point our own moral compass, seek our own destiny, live life as we think we should. That’s wonderful.

Not that Kenyon’s incapable of being bleak. He’s a warm, thoughtful, good-natured guy, but he has a pronounced dark side, and the lyrics to his music are full of pain and aggression and reflections on destructive, often masochistic relationships. He gets a kick out of that.

Philosophy was in order last night, as we were eating in what is possibly New York City’s most philosophical restaurant, Rouge Tomate.

The New York venue is Rouge Tomate’s second location. The first one was opened in Brussels in 2001 by Emmanuel Verstraeten, founded on a principle he made up called Sanitas Per Escam — which is Latin, no less, for “health through eating.”

From the web site (scroll down if you get bored):

SPE® is an innovative approach toward nutrition, transcending the idea of balanced eating to offer optimal nutrition that maintains, protects and strengthens the body.
In order to offer optimal nutrition, the SPE® approach revolves around three key elements:
Sourcing: selecting ingredients seasonally, locally, and with a focus on nutritional characteristics.
Preparation: using specific cooking techniques that preserve the integrity and nutritional qualities of the ingredients.
Enhancement: optimizing nutritional value by the synergy of product combination and menu diversity.


Okay, so it’s sourcing local, seasonal products and preparing dishes from them that keep nutrition in mind.

That’s nice. It’s kind of taken for granted in the cuisines of China, Japan and much of South Asia and Southeast Asia, so I don’t know that it’s particularly innovative.

I get skeptical any time someone tells me they’re doing something innovative. And the more words they use to describe what’s innovative about what they’re doing, the less innovative it usually is.

Still, it’s nice.

However, it’s worth noting that flavor and taste aren’t mentioned in the restaurant’s principles. Maybe Mr. Verstraeten thought it went without saying that the food should taste good, although anyone who has been subjected to “health food” knows that it shouldn’t go without saying, that for decades Americans claiming to proffer food that was good for you were so smug about its healthful qualities that they seemed uninterested in making it tasty.

I’d heard only good things about Rouge Tomate since it opened in October of 2008, though.

I’ve also had good interviews with Rainlove Lampariello (Rainlove, I know!), who’s in charge of the restaurant’s beverage program, and I’ve always enjoyed the work of its chef, Jeremy Bearman, whose food I last had when he was at Lark Creek Steak in San Francisco.

So it made sense for Kenyon and me to check the place out.

[update: it turns out that Rainlove’s not with Rouge Tomate anymore. Taking up the slack at the moment is executive sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier, a very nice woman from the Loire region — which is where France’s most popular restaurant wines come from — who recently places third in the Best Sommelier of France competition; that’s the best a woman has ever done in that contest].

Kenyon’s a teatotalling vegetarian, so I like to take him to restaurants with strong non-alcoholic beverage programs and an emphasis on good produce. Those restaurants should be able to put their best feet forward with him.

Kenyon and I spoke of many things as we ate — I ate his amuse-bouche of salmon tartare and avocado, and the scallop mid-course that Jeremy sent out for us — such as Avatar, and Kenyon’s favorite parts of the Marquis de Sade.

And this is what we ate and drank:

Green Tornado: Green juice (tarragon, spinach, basil, butter lettuce and fennel), mint and lemon juice

French Daisy: Gin, bitters, lemon juice and huckleberry syrup topped with sparkling wine


Chickpea hummus with sweet peppers, house-cured olives and flatbread crisps
Peekytoe crab and celery root panna cotta with grapefruit, marcona almond and feuille de brique
2008 Nikolaihof “Hefeabzug” biodynamic Grüner Veltliner (Wachau, Austria)

House-made fettuccine with wild mushrooms, sunchoke, celery root, chervil and crispy onions
Alaskan black cod with winter bean stew, prosciutto, lacinato kale and Provençal oil
2006 Michel Lafarge “Raisins Dorés” biodynamic Bourgogne Aligoté (Burgundy, France)


Blood orange with pomegranate, black sesame and bourbon vanilla ice cream (although it seemed more like a semifreddo to me)
bittersweet mi-cuit: banana, molten chocolate cake and coffee ice cream

cardamom chai
La Colombe Brazilian Bourbon Rainforest Alliance-certified French press coffee

Leftover Panettone



Looked at objectively, panettone, a yeast-risen bready cake enriched with butter, egg yolks, sugar and dried fruit, is not a health food. But up against our own Christmas pud, the Italian festive offering looks like a lo-calorie Weightwatchers special.

Having said that, the sheer size of these vast, billowing, pillow like cakes does mean that there is inevitably some still floating around this side of Epiphany.

There are a number of recipes that advocate using it in place of sliced white when making a bread and butter pudding. Admittedly this does sound delicious albeit a little, shall we say, involved? Time-consuming? Elaborate?



A far better option is to dip it into an egg and sugar mix, fry it in some nicely foaming butter then finish it off with a light dusting of cinnamon. And more sugar. And maybe a little whipped cream. Health food no longer.