I've been slowly brewing away with some thoughts over the years.... Starters and their differences. Why is it that sometimes a weak rising sourdough starter culture will bounce back quickly (too quickly) and suddenly "stabilize" after chilling or a near death experience?
I got to playing with pepper jelly.
Ingredients: gelatin, sugar, one orange habanero, assorted sweet garden peppers, one garlic clove, water, and one glass 250ml. Method: slice everything colorful and thin and mix with sugar, gelatin and a little water to let all the vegetables shrink and curl up for about 6-10 hours. Amazing how they do that! Bring to a light boil until passing the gel test on a cold plate. (about 10-15 minutes) Pour into hot sterilized jar and cap, let cool.
They just didn't want to be baguettes!
I took the recipe under Metric and divided by 20 to use 500g total flour in the recipe. I did make some changes... I added an egg white into the water to total 165g in the final dough. I used 1/2 tsp of yeast in the final dough. This gave me longer fermentation. I also hand mixed the dough.
Monday: My garden is bursting with Spring! The wind is windy and the birds are joyful! We have 18°C and the furnace has been turned off. I've pulled a starter out of the fridge. A firm rye that was not put into long hybernation (do not fear, my pretties, the prepared starter is the jar next to it also looking none the worse from wear.) It's wonderful and exhausting to be back in Austria. Lots of garden work and getting used to stairs again. Back to the starter.
Inspired by Charles Luce gluten free millet starter (following instructions in The Bread Builders, by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott) I startered a sourdough starter using amaranth...
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14476/excellent-gluten-free-bread#comment-91244
Yes I did it. I found rye flour in Seoul, South Korea, in the Bangsan Market between wall paper shops and packaging tucked into the alleyways kept cool in the winding shadows from the burning sun. I found two different ryes, that with my third, and my unending curiosity can only lead to one thing.... a comparison. I have already gathered that there might be some flavor differences evidenced by the interesting additives in North American recipes...
Did anyone find the latest issue of National Geographic interesting? How about Dan Fisher a paleontologist who plays with his food by preserving it with Lactobacteria?
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/05/mammoths/latreille-photography
Mini
