Some books about fermentation for beginners and expert

I've been fermenting a lot this year.  Be it making apple cider or sour cucumber pickles, I find the magical transformation of fermentation deliciously fascinating.

Fermentation covers a wide variety of foods, including apple cider, cucumber pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, and more.  Some of which I've featured on this blog, some of which I still need to write about.

Here are a few books on the topic fermentation:

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

Cucumbers, dill and garlic scapes

This is the book that gave me the confidence to try (and stick with till the end) home fermenting experiments. Sure I've tried my hand at fermenting before, but usually chickened out when mold formed on the surface, or when the experiment gave me stomach cramps and the runs.  The problem was, I didn't really understand what was going on when things ferment.  But Katz book helped solve that.

Wild Fermentation is a collection of recipes, stories, and information on what's going inside your vat, and how to get the best result.

layered with salt,
ready to start fermenting

I've tried many of these recipes, and plan to try more in the near future.  Not all of them turned out well, but the ones that did, are now things I make on a regular basis.  I do find that many of the pickle recipes turn out too salty, so I tend to cut the salt in half if I just want a quick'ish pickle I can keep long term in the fridge.  By reading Katz (both this and his other book The Art of Fermentation) I now feel confident that I can adjust the salt for what I want to achieve and the time of year.

This is a beginner friendly book, but is useful for fermentos (apparently that's what they call fermentation fanatics these days) of all skill levels.

Keeping Food Fresh by Eliot Coleman

A collection of recipes from rural France, it has the feel of someone going around a bunch of villages and talking with the old ladies, asking them what recipes they use to use before refrigeration.  This, in my opinion, is Fantastic.  I love how the author collected and preserved this knowledge which would otherwise have been lost.  I also think it is a great opportunity to learn how to extend the shelf life of foodstuff using little or no electricity.

Veg ready for kimchi

The recipes, however, are not for the faint of heart or inexperienced.  Think of them more as guidelines: you take some of this, do some of that till it has this subjective quality, then do some vague thing.  This is really good now that I have a bit of experience with fermentation, but I would not recommend this as a beginners book.

The chapter on fermentation is small, but has some good recipes in it.  The book also covers preserving in oil, vinegar, salt, sugar, alcohol and drying.

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

yummy kimchi
goes well with everything

Nourishing Traditions has a wonderful section at the front of the book that explains what food does for the human body, about the Modern Diseases how our health correlates with our diet.  Fallon talks about traditional diets (aka, pre industrial revolution technologies) where people make and eat just about everything from scratch.  Diets that include animal fats and live culture (aka, fermented) foodstuff.  Basically it's a primer on why so much we were taught as kids (don't eat butter, be scared of food you process at home, the only safe food is one that comes from a supermarket, specifically from a box - thank you grade eight home ec. teacher.)...why these things don't hold up under close scrutiny.  This book is about how people have been eating these traditional diets that have evolved for thousands of years, and yet they don't have the same things wrong with them that are so common in our Western World.  Yet, they eat butter, &c....

I recommend this book to people just for the chapter on cholesterol and fats... it's the best explanation I've come up with about what it is, what it does, how eating foods that contain cholesterol affect our health.  Why it may not be such a bad thing after all.

All that said, I do not recommend Nourishing Traditions for the recipes.  I've tried about a dozen or so by now, and the best case scenario was foul tasting mush that even the chickens turned their beak up at.  There are a few bouts of suspected food poisoning from trying some of the fermented recipes... but I don't know why.  Is it just that the microbe community in my gut cannot handle these traditional foods?  Possible but doubtful.  The methods in the recipes look like they should work, and I know enough about fermenting now to adapt for environment and so forth.  It may just be one of those things that just doesn't work for me - like certain sewing machines I've known, they work for everyone else, but when I sit down at them there are tangles of thread, broken fabric, and wisps of smoke.  Sometimes no matter how much I want it to be, there are some items in this world I am simply not comparable with.  I suspect the recipes in this book are one of them.

I would recommend this book for the more curious reader.  Someone who has their toe (or entire leg) in the door and wants to learn more about the whys and wherefore of human diet.  It's not for everyone as things get technical really quickly.  Michael Pollan touches on many of these issues in his book In Defence of Foods, so for the more casual reader I suggest you start there.

The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz

This thick tome is more an in depth exploration of fermenting then a recipe book.  This is where you go when you've made a first batch of Sauerkraut or two and you want to know more.  What else is fermented in this world, how can I make my kraut better... &c.

After an embarrassingly large numbers of failures to make ginger beer, including following the recipes in Fallon's book and Katz other book, Wild Fermentation, I gave up.  That is until I read the section in The Art of Fermentation, which casually described the process of making ginger (and other root beers) in a vague, non specific way.  Yes, I know non-specific if redundant there, but think of it as rhetoric, because it was such an ambiguous explanation.  It was also exactly what I needed.  Forgetting recipes and following a small selection of words otherwise burred in a large book, I was able to make ginger beer, successfully, that tasted quite good.  The ginger beer improves each time I make it.

It got me thinking maybe fermenting doesn't need a recipe, maybe it works better if it is allowed to develop ...dare I say it?... organically.  Maybe that's what Katz message is all about, recipes are there to help you get the hang of how things ferment, but once you understand what's going on, you don't need to stay bound to a set series of instructions.  Working with the knowledge you gain from reading and experimenting, you can try different and creative things.  Afterall, isn't that what fermentation was like before the industrial revolution?  People had too many crops - trust me, when a crop is ready, it is Ready! - and they used fermenting as a means for preserving the foodstuff for the winter months.

This is a book for anyone not an absolute beginner.  It ranges from moderate-beginner to extra advanced, been doing this all your life, kind of information.

Cooked by Michael Pollan

Like Pollan's other books, this is a fantastic introduction on how we cook.  It's a collection of storytelling and explanation on everything cooked from roasting meat over an open flame, to making a stew, and yes, even a quarter of the book dedicated to fermentation.

Sourdough crackers and red wine
both fermented foods
both delicious

Cheese, bread, wine, beer, mead, pickled swiss chard roots, are just a few of the fermented foods he explores.

Although there are very few recipes, okay next to none, the book is one I recommend to people who are curious about food.  Cooked can stand on it's own, but it's even better paired with In Defence of Food, also by Pollan.  While Defence of Food tells us what is wrong with how we eat, Cooked, tells us how to eat and better still, the story of how we create it (I'm going to cite the introduction to Cooked for this last sentence, but I can't find my copy right now.  So I'm not sure if that is where I read it or if I dreamt I read it.)








There you have it.  These books make up the fermentation section of my library.  I will likely add some more books and update the links later.  But for now, I have some ginger beer to brew.

2 recipes: hot cross buns and sourdough hot cross buns

Earlier I talked about how to convert a regular yeast bread recipe to a sourdough recipe.  Although the theory is pretty straight forward, I've always felt rather intimidated by the idea of trying it.

Finally, my desire for sourdough hot cross buns overcame my fear of failure, and I set to work converting an old favourite recipe from commercial yeast to sourdough.

This first recipe come from one of my all time favourite bread (and cake books) Homemade Bread by the Food Editors of Farm Journal   It's out of print now, but if you ever see a copy at a second hand bookshop or yard sale, snatch it up.  Not only is it full of yummy bread recipes, the decidedly sexiest attitude is always good for a laugh.

Hot Cross Buns

Easter Buns with frosting crosses - traditionally served on Good Friday

1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
2/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
2 pkgs. active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 eggs
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour (about)
3/4 cup currants
1 egg white
1 tsp cold water
white frosting (recipe below)

• Scald milk,add sugar, salt and shortening; cool to luke warm.
• Sprinkle yeast on warm water; stir to dissolve.
• Add eggs, yeast and 1c flour to milk mixture; beat with electric mixer at medium speed about 2 minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl.  Stir in currants and enough remaining flour, a little at a time, to make a soft dough that is easy to handle.  Beat well.  Place in lightly greased bowl' turn dough over to grease top.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5 hours.  Punch down.  Turn onto lightly floured board.
• Roll or pat to 1/2" thickness.  Cut in rounds with 2.5" bisket cutter; shape cutouts in buns.  Place about 1.5" apart on greased baking sheets.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
• With a very sharp knife, cut a shallow cross on top of each bun.  Brush tops wit unbeaten egg white mixed with cold water.
• Bake in moderate oven (375F) 15 minutes  or until golden brown.  Cool on wire racks about 5 minutes.  Then with tip of knife or teaspoon, fill in the crosses on buns with White Frosting.  Best served Warm.  Makes about 18 buns.

White Frosting: Combine 1c. sifted confectioners sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla and 2 Tbs hot water.  Mix until smooth.

Now, the above recipe makes a decent hot cross bun, but I do usually add spices and candied peal to it.  I also find it a wee bit sweet for my taste, particularly the frosting.

This next recipe takes a long time to make, but it's so worth it.  I recommend making the sponge in the morning, the first part of the dough late in the evening, leaving it to rise overnight, then shape and do the second rise in the morning.  The buns should be ready for late afternoon on the second day.  Doing the second rise overnight ends up drying out the surface of the buns before they go in the oven which makes them hard to cut.

It's also very difficult to photograph these hot cross buns.  By the time I have the props and camera ready, the buns are all eaten.  Three days of baking from dawn till 3am the next day and I finally learned to hide the buns while they cool so that they didn't get snatched up.  (I did a lot of test batches and testing, so I'm confident they are fantastic).

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

A word about Sponge.  Although the word sponge can mean different things in various parts of the word, I use it here to mean a fairly active runny batter like substance made of sourdough starter, flour and water.  Make the sponge at least 4 hours before you plan to begin the bread.  I usually make mine the night before.  Mix at least 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup water (or more) and at least 1/8th cup sourdough starter.  Mix them well to make a runny batter, and leave in a warm corrner of the kitchen, covered with a cotton or linen towel.  After a few hours, depending on your temperature, the weather, whatnot, it should be bubbling.  You know the yeast is active in it.  If you leave it more than 24 hours, you need to feed it again.

1/4 cup sourdough sponge
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup honey/maple syrup/or other sweet liquid (I use the juice the fruit is candied in if there is any left over)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter/lard/or other fat (butter is best)
3 eggs
less than 4 cups flour (your choice but I recommend the first cup be all purpose or bread flour).
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup candied ginger (optional)
1/2 cup other dried or candied fruit or peal
pinch each nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves

• Scald milk, add honey, salt, butter.  cool to luke warm.
• In a big bowl, add eggs, sponge, 1 cup of flour, and milk mixture.  Mix a lot.  What you are trying to do here is to blend everything and activate the gluten in the flour.  It takes about 5 to 6 minutes to mix this by hand.  I do it in 2 min sessions, with a min or two rest in between.  Wooden spoon is my favourite tool for this.  Alternately, you could mix in electric mixer for 2 min.
• Add spices, and fruit, mix some more.
• Mix in the flour a little at a time until a soft dough forms.  Should be barely firm enough for you to handle.
• Place in a lightly greased bowl, grease the top of the dough, and cover with a linen or cotton towel.  Rise until double in size.  Even with a very active sourdough starter, THIS TAKES A LONG TIME SO YOU MIGHT WANT TO DO THIS OVERNIGHT.
• Punch down and break off egg sized balls of dough.  Form into bun shapes and place in a lightly greased tray or baking pan.  Cover and raise till double in size.
• Carefully cut the cross in the top with a VERY sharp knife.  Optional:brush with egg white mixed with 1 Tbs of cold water.
• Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 min.  

I'm not bothering with the egg wash (I don't like egg whites much, especially with bread) or frosting, but feel free to do it if you like.

Ideas for fruit to put in them: dried currents, dried cherries  dried raisins  dried peal, freshly grated organic citrus peal, candied peal, dried pineapples, dried anything... make sure you pit and chop up anything bigger than a raison.  My favourite is to get the chunky runny marmalade they have in Europe and strain off the juices (use this instead of honey) and the chunks of orange as the fruit for the bun.

Healthy: well, um.  I don't recommend  eating as many as I have this week.  But hey it's only once a year and when compared with commercial made hot cross buns full of highly processed ingredients and florescent coloured lemon peal like substance, YES they are much healthier.

Affordable:  I have no idea.  I don't even want to price these out, they are so delicious.  They do however help use up the left over dried fruit you have in the back of the cupboard... that's got to count for something I suppose.

These are NOT suitable to serve to your Vegan Friends because of the egg, honey, butter, &c.  See this vegan friendly recipe for hot cross buns.

Allergies: This is fairly easy to modify for allergies.  I don't recomend cutting down on eggs and butter though, it is what makes the dish.  If these are the things you are allergic to, then please make the vegain version I just linked to in the last paragraph.

 

Converting a normal bread recipe to sourdough

First stage, to write out a recipe based on the
original hot cross bun recipe, yet incorporates sourdough

I almost never have commercial yeast in my house any more  I much prefer to make and eat bread with sourdough.  This is mostly because I'm lazy.

Lazy because commercial yeast acts really quickly and you have precise timing for each stage - sourdough is less fussy and gives you an hour or two leeway.

I also really enjoy the flavour of sourdough.  I can make it strongly sour (making a stiff sponge) or mild and lofty (a runny sponge started several days before baking day).  With sourdough you are the master.


Been hankering for a sourdough hot cross bun recipe but I haven't found one yet that captures that certain I don't know what, I remember from my youth.   The Vegan Sourdough Hot Cross Bun Recipe I posted earlier is very good, but I'm looking for something a bit more old fashioned and full of eggs.  So instead of working from a sourdough recipe, I decided to start with a recipe I know and love, and transform it into sourdough.

highly amusing bread book

The recipe I'm starting with is from my most favourite bread book ever:  Homemade Bread by the Food Editors of Farm Journal.  Now, I don't recommend this book to everyone.  In fact, I think most people would be offended by it's attitude towards woman.  But I find it a funny attempt to counter the feminist movement.  I laugh at descriptions how on election night, a woman should be in the kitchen baking Election Night Bread (be careful how you spell that folks) to serve to her husband and his friends from work as they gather around the television watching the polls.

I have Baking with Sourdough
on my kindle

The other reference I'm using to convert this modern recipe is Baking with Sourdough (Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletin) by Sara Pitzer.  It's an excellent reference for beginners and experienced sourdough lovers alike. I find myself referencing it time and again.  I highly recommend it.

Sara writes:

"To adapt a yeast recipe, begin with a small amount of starter, about 1/4 cup... Mix the starter with some flour and some of the liquid from the basic recipe you want to convert.  Figure that 1/4 cup starter has replaced about 1/4 cup flour and slightly less than 1/4 cup liquid in the recipe.... "  She goes on to describes the method of making a sponge, mixing some of the flour and liquid with the starter and letting it sit 4 (for mild flavour) to 24 (for strong flavour) hours.  Then proceed with the regular process, being careful to get the right texture of the dough (it helps to have made the recipe using commercial yeast before hand so you know what the desired texture and consistency of the dough should be) and allowing for longer time rising the dough.  Sara finishes up saying, "If it 'thinks good,' try it." which is exactly what I plan to do.


A few things to note (and Sara's book goes into more detail about this) is that you can control how strong a flavour your sourdough starter gives your bread.  You are not at the mercy of your starter.

One way to control the flavour, making it more mild, is to create a runny sponge a few days before hand.  I usually keep my starter extra-thick and then create a runny sponge from it (using by volume 1 part starter, 1 part flour, and 2 parts water).  Feed it at least once a day for at least 2 days, twice for a more mild texture, don't worry if you make too much, the extra sponge can become sourdough crackers or bread.  By having the sponge runny and at room temperature for a few days before baking day helps make the bread more lofty and less sour.


UPDATE: I just tried my buns and they are officially delicious.  Be posting both recipes very soon.



     

pasta bolagna

 Pasta Bolognese, or pasta bolagna as some people I know call it, is one of my favourite sauces.   It's perfect for after a long stressful week.  I kick everyone out of the kitchen, blast some music and make my favourite dinner.  There is usually enough sauce left over for later, and it only improves in taste the next day.

I use the recipe from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie's Food Revolution , with a few small changes (of course).  I'm not going to write out exactly what I do for this recipe because I think that everyone should go out and acquire a copy of this book.  It's my favourite recommendation to those new in the kitchen.  Just about every recipe uses things that (should be) are already in a standard kitchen.  There's no running around town searching for that specific olive that you will never use again.  In stead, this book is good, wholesome, everyday, easy to do, cooking.

Hurry up, I'm hungry.

well, if I'm putting wine in the sauce, why not poor a glass for the cook?

mess in place, or whatever the 'real' cooks call it

Today I used 1/2 pound of ground goat, and 1/2 pound of ground pork.  Omitted the celery, added extra garlic, used 1 large sweet onion instead of two regular ones, used goat cheese instead of parmesan, replaced the water with red wine, and changed the spices.

I don't have any dry oregano on hand, or any fresh basil.  So instead, I used fresh thyme.  This was amazing!  I kept taking photos trying to capture how great this was when frying up, but then I realized, it wasn't the image I was trying to capture but the smell.  Finely chopped fresh time with onions and bacon sizzling in a pan filling the house with the overwhelming feeling that a master chef had come to call.  I wish I could capture it and share it with you.

can you smell the bacon?
Such a small amount but makes all the difference
Veg and herbs waiting patiently to one side for their turn

This is what I'm talking about with the smell of the thyme.

steamy kitchen love

But other than those minor changes, I think I followed the recipe pretty close for a change.

Usually I would like to make fresh pasta with this sauce, but there wasn't enough room in the kitchen, so I did the next best thing:

Affordable cooking: oh, that depends on how much you pay for the meat.  Personally I have an extreme distrust of ground meat, so I spend extra money and only get it from somewhere I trust.  About $1 to $1.50 for veg and herbs, $3 for the tomatoes, let's say another $4 for meat = about $8.  This will server at least 6 generous servings, and this particular pasta costs about 50 cent for a serving.  That's about $1.80 to $2 per serving.  Which considering how incredibly yummy this is, isn't half bad.

Allergy friendly:  there are some potential problems with the dairy and some people have sensitivity to garlic, &c.  But so long as you can include the onions, tomatoes, and meat, the recipe is actually easy to adjust for allergies.

This is neither vegan or vegetarian friendly.  I've seen quite a few vegan versions of this sauce, but quite frankly, the meat substitute tends to distract from the overall taste.  If I wanted to cook a rich tomato sauce for a vegan or vegetarian, I would grab a good cookbook and start again from scratch instead of trying to imitate meat.  There are so many good vegan friendly pasta sauce recipes out there.  But that's just my
opinion.

 

My adventures with Bouza, or brewing homemade wheat beer

In the book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods, there is a recipe for Bouza, or Ancient Egyptian Beer.  It looked like good fun so I decided to have a try brewing it.

The 'beer' itself ended up terrible.  I finished with a dozen bottles of strange vinegar; however, the bread I made with the mash is AMAZING!  I'll post about the bread next chance I get.  It's well worth making the 'beer' just to have mash for bread later.

Please note, apparently it's not legal to make your own beer in some parts of world, including a good chunk of North America.  It's your responsibility to be aware of local restrictions before you try this at home, or at least before you start bragging about it.  Most of Canada is fine though.  We may not have the god-given right to bear arms, but we do have the god-given right to make our own home-brew.  

Out of the entire book, this is the one recipe that I've had the most trouble with.  Anyone around know more about the process of brewing this beverage, please get in touch.



According to Sandor Katz, people in Egypt have been brewing this form of beer for at least 5 thousand years.  Given that beer was one of the main sources of nutrition for the masses over the years, that basically means the pyramids were built on this stuff.  Wow.


I'm going to describe to you what I did, and some of the problem solving I attempted.  I'm not going to give you the actual recipe because that would not be fair to the books' author.  However, the book is available at most libraries and its well worth buying your own copy.

The recipe has three main steps: Malting, Forming Loaves, and Brewing Bouza.

Malting is way easier than I ever suspected.  It involves sprouting then toasting the grain.

wheat in jars waiting to sprout

sprouted wheat ready for toasting

The recipe says to toast on the ovens lowest setting for 20 to 30 min until the grain is dry.  This is no where near long enough,  2 to 3 hours will do the trick.

When the grain is dry, it can be stored in an airtight container for later use.  The smell of the sprouted and roasted (aka, malted) grain when it is ground, is heavenly.  I've taken to sprouting half a cup of wheat whenever I have a chance, and maybe I can coarsely grind it and add it to rice or bread later on.


The next step is to make a loaf with coarsely ground wheat.  Combine some sourdough starter (I used sponge as it's generally moister) and coarsely ground grain. You then leave this loaf to ferment for a few days before half-baking it so that the outside is cooked and the inside is still gooey.

ground wheat and soudough sponge

the loaf ready to be put somewhere to ferment before baking

This is the step I had the most trouble with.  To start with, I wasn't able to get the loaf to stick together, so I ended up kneaded in about two tablespoons of all purpose flour.  I put it on a piece of parchemt paper and covered with a cotton towel to ferment.

 After two days, I went to put the loaf in the oven, I noticed there was the start of mould on the bottom.

I probably should have done something about this, but I hoped that either the heat from baking or the alcohol from brewing would take care of this.  This might be why I ended up with vinegar.

When it comes to baking the loaf the recipe tells us that the finished result is to have the outside baked and the inside gooy and alive.  That way it will keep until you are able to brew the Bouza.  Problem is, the temperature given is far too low to heat up the outside of the bread.  At 350, to bake the outside of the bread enough, you will have to bake the inside of the bread too.  Instead, I think it's better to bake at 400 to 425F for about 10 to 15 min.  The outside is cooked, but the inside is all gooey and still quite cool.



Brewing day finally arrived and I ground up the malted wheat, broke up the loaf and added them both into the water.

Malted wheat as it came out of the mill

In the vat you go malt

yeast loaf with gooey interior broken up ready for brewing

Into the Bouza with you too

I sealed up the top of the bucket and waited a couple of days.  After the recommended time, it had only just started to ferment (I keep my house cool so it's understandable), so I left it a couple of more days (and made the mistake of stirring it again, which added air to the mix and might be another cause of my vinegar).  When the bubbles started to slow down, I strained it into a pot (kept the mash for bread) and left it to settle.  I strained it again through a cloth and kept the second straining.  This second straining is traditionally considered a major source of yeast and use to be a necessity in bread baking.

An early sample, after two days brewing

Tastes like yeast and water at this stage

The drink itself turned out pretty dismal.  Most of the recipes I've tried from Wild Fermentation I had no problem with; however, this Bouza was nothing but trouble.  But I'm going to try it again later and I have a few ideas that might make it more to my liking.  And even if it doesn't work, I'll have more mash for baking bread.

Bread, yummy!

Beer mash, water, flour and salt - that's it. Apparently it's the best bread ever, but I haven't had any yet because it got eaten so quickly.

Hello Bento - amazon kindle book

ETA: Sorry guys, looks like it is back to the regular price of $3.95.  I read it last night and have lots to say (both good and critical).  Hope to write a review for you today or tomorrow.




I haven't read this yet, but I noticed it's currently free on Amazon.com for the kindle version of the book Hello, Bento! - A Collection of Simple Japanese Bento Recipes

No idea if this is a long term price, so might as well grab it while it's free.

If you don't happen to have a kindle, you can still 'buy' this free book and read it through the Amazon Cloud Reader, which allows you to read books on your computer, phone, &c.

When I have a read of it, I'll let you know what I think.  I find a lot of bento books, especially the ones compiled by Westerners, tend to be hit and miss.