Making Sausage – Preview
As many readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of “making it yourself” food. I am not talking about the frozen pasta dinner that you throw in the microwave. I am talking about getting the eggs and semolina flour on the counter (or stand mixer) and kneading it yourself type of food. Now I know that some of you are rolling your eyes and calling me a “food snob” and complaining about not having enough time to do all of that. I totally understand. I call this blog Weekend Food Projects because the weekend is the only time I really sit down and focus on making food from scratch. On the plus side, doing it yourself gives you the ability to control the ingredients and the final taste of the product.
Sausage is a perfect example of a product that you may want to have some control over what goes inside of the casing. Some people do not want nitrates in their food, other people are concerned about the meat (or lack of meat) that goes into their sausage. I ultimately care about taste and the sustainability of the meat.
Over the next few months, I will blog about my journey into making sausage and sharing my tips, recipes, and mistakes. The above pictures are the andouille sausage made from Michael Ruhlman’s fine book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.
Working on Pizza Perfection (Part 1, Dough)
I have resigned myself to the fact that I am never going to reach pizza perfection. Yes, I know that perfection is a ever moving target that changes with ones palate and food experience, but I always love the pursuit. Just like my search for the perfect burger, the goal is to get to a point where the cost of labor/time/ingredients are too high to justify squeezing that last percent of performance. (Smarter people than I call it the “law of diminishing returns.”) Making pizza at home has a built in limitation, the home oven. For the most “authentic” tasting pizza, one really needs an oven that can hit 700, 800, or even 1000 degrees. The problem is that most home ovens max out at 550 degrees and I am not sure that spending a few thousand dollars on a wood-fired oven is really practical. I have come close by using a slight variation of Heston Blumenthal’s technique, but I know that a wood-fired oven would add so much flavor. So for now, I am going to concentrate on the dough.
Ingredients:
3 cups Antimo Caputo 00 flour
1 cup water at 105 degrees
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon organic sugar
Application
Combine yeast, water and sugar at let it sit for about 15 minutes (or foamy).
In a Kitchen Aid, combine the flour, salt and olive oil. While using the dough hook attachment, slowly add the yeast, water, and sugar mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough forms a ball and knead for about 5-10 mins after.
Now, you can use the dough after an eight hour rise and it will be ok. It will be so much better than the national pizza chains. However, if you are seeking pizza dough love, 24 hours is the minimum time for the for your dough to mature. After testing the recipe for while, I have found that the complexity of the dough peaks at about 48-72 hours. Trust me, it is worth it
