Andrew Jorgensen

Until recently I had assumed that steaming would be slower than boiling.  The thing that tipped me off was the times listed in the directions on the back of a package of broccoli.  Duh: steam is hotter than water.

Salsokies™ are Lit’l Smokies simmered in salsa. Another delicious cullinary invention.

Just for the record, salsa made in San Antonio is no more likely to taste authentic than salsa made in New York City. My guess is there are as many, if not more, Mexicans in NYC. Those from San Antonio are also more likely to be Texican. Also, there’s no difference between Picante Sauce and Salsa Picante, except perhaps that the former term is also more Texican.

And, no that wasn’t an endorsement for any particular salsa product. My tastes in salsa are simple — less vinegar and more fresh. I’m a fan of Pico de Gallo which, incidentally, means rooster beak. I probably need to start making my own.

After learning about chocolate chip cookies from Shirley Corriher’s Cookwise I found myself wanting to read the rest of her book. So far it’s excellent. I’ll probably review more fully after I’ve read it all. There’s an awful lot of information in it, particularly about breads and cakes. Today I tried to make banana bread using some of the techniques she writes about.

Unfortunately banana bread isn’t something she writes about at all so I had to go it alone using what I’d learned from her sections on bread and cake techniques. Even more unfortunately banana bread isn’t exactly cake or exactly bread either. I used the ingredients listed in Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (an excellent basic cook book, by the way; has a recipe for just about everything) but ignored their instructions completely.

According to Shirley mixing the fat (in this case cooking oil) into the flour before mixing in the wet ingredients coats the proteins in the flour help prevent a lot of gluten from forming (gluten is what makes bread bready). This should provide a more melt-in-your-mouth texture. I blended all the dry ingredients thoroughly and then mixed in the oil. Since the recipe only called for ¼ Cup this proved to be remarkably difficult – I had to mix it with my hands, basically squishing the oil into the dry mixture until it was evenly mixed throughout. I also beat the egg pretty good, whipping in as much air as I could. Did the same with the banana (I hate having little chunks of banana in my bread) and then whipped them again when they’re together. Getting a lot of air into the mixture helps baking soda or baking powder leaven the bread better.

Then I made a mistake – I mixed the two mixtures together using the hand mixer I’d been using. I thought to myself that if I mixed them only a little bit it wouldn’t form much gluten and I’d be fine. A hand mixer mixes way too much even in only a few seconds. I should have stirred it with the rubber scraper that I had handy. I could see the gluten forming instantly.

After putting it in the oven I agonized over the 50 minutes the recipe said I should bake it. That really seemed too long. In fact I’m pretty sure 45 minutes would have been enough for this modified recipe. I was delighted, however, when I checked on it at around 20 minutes and it had risen nicely and had a beatiful split crown. I wish I’d thought to take a picture of it, I really do.

The end product was a little too bready I think but was otherwise almost perfect. There are only a few things I’d do differently. First I might use a little more oil, maybe as much as ½ Cup. Using more oil would prevent gluten formation and would make the end product a more moist. Second I’d use a pan with a silver finish rather than a black finish. Mostly I’m just curious about the difference that might make. And third I’d mix the wet and dry mixtures with a spoon or rubber spatula as I mentioned above.

I’m pretty excited to learn how to control the results of my baking. Expect to read more later about something else, perhaps biscuits again, or if I’m really brave: brioche.

I bought a huge bag of chocolate chips at Costco and it’s presence in the house has caused me an uncanny hunger for chocolate chip cookies. Our first attempt was to just follow the recipe for the Original Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies on the bag. This left much to be desired, though I will admit to being at least partly at fault: we forgot the brown sugar and had to add it at the end. Our second attempt was based on Chocolate Chip Cookies – Four Ways by Shirley Corriher, food scientist and author of Cookwise, specifically the fourth way, In Between. Thanks to Eric for pointing me to Shirley’s recipe.

We did things a little differently than Shirley suggests: I don’t like nuts so we left that part out entirely, and I prefer a lighter color so we used part brown sugar and part white. Ours ended up taking only 9 minutes in the oven but that’s probably because we don’t have an oven thermometer and the dial is probably somewhat off.

By some accounts it’s the shortening that makes the cookies a little puffier. I haven’t gone through the differences in the Four Ways enough to have learned all there is to know about controlling how your cookies come out but we were very happy with the results of this attempt.

The credit for most of this goes to my older brother Eric. The remainder of the credit goes to an old calendar with a picture of a Chicken on the month that had the original source of this recipe. I’ll post a scan of the original recipe if I can find it.

Oven 450°

2 Cup All Purpose Flour
2 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
4 tsp Baking Powder (aluminum-free?)
½ tsp Cream of Tartar
6 Tbsp Butter
1 Cup Milk

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in butter. Pour in milk and mix until nothing is dry, try not to kneed the dough too much. Flatten and fold the dough in thirds 3 or so times. Cut into desired portions. I generally try to get 8 square biscuits out of a batch. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 450° or until golden brown.

Rebecca is pretty sure extra Cream of Tartar is what makes these biscuits especially good.

Eric taught me a good trick for cutting in the butter: Use frozen butter and grate it with a medium-sized cheese grater. This allows you to easily mix the butter into the dry mix and improves the flakiness of the biscuits. 6 Tbsp is ¾ of a stick, so this works pretty well. The grated frozen butter trick also helps the mixing go easier.

It helps to have some flour on the table and on your hands (or rolling pin) so the dough doesn’t stick. Basically the more you kneed the dough the more bready (and less flaky) the biscuits will be so try not to work it too much.

Sometimes I use the remaining ¼ stick of butter to baste the biscuits. I also never bake without parchment paper. It makes cleanup a lot easier and I think it improves the quality of the biscuits.