Rhonda Bracey: At Random

When I made blueberry muffins the other day, I also tried my first attempt at ‘no knead’ bread. It was a disaster!!! Just a hot glob of yucky dough. It seems that dried yeast has a shelf life—who knew?! So I bought some more yeast and tried again today. (And put the yeast container into the freezer afterwards to prolong its efficacy.)

So far, so good—my first loaf has just come out of the oven and it smells and looks great. The proof will be in the eating, of course, but that won’t happen for a few more hours. It’s quite a small loaf, so next time I may double the recipe.

Some tips for my future self: The dough mix was quite dry and didn’t bubble after 3 hours, as stated in the recipe and as shown in the video. So I put the bowl containing the dough in the oven on ‘warm’ (about 50C) for about 10 minutes to kick it along. I don’t know if this made any difference or not, but figured I should mention it in case this happens again. Otherwise, I followed the recipe and timings exactly.

Recipe is here: https://www.jennycancook.com/recipes/faster-no-knead-bread/ (2-hour method: https://www.jennycancook.com/recipes/2-hour-fastest-no-knead-bread/)

FAQs about the recipe are here: https://www.jennycancook.com/no-knead-bread-solutions/

YouTube video (with lots of comments/suggestions) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0t8ZAhb8lQ

And pics just after it came out of the oven

Bread cooling down

Bread fresh out of the oven and still in the cast iron dutch oven I cooked it in

The underside of the loaf

I couldn’t resist and cut into it while it was still quite hot! Delicious—hubby loves it too! It’s a bit denser (similar density to sourdough) than bread you’d buy in the shops, but it has a lot of flavour. That said, if I make it again, I’ll try the recipe writer’s variation with more yeast and a shorter ‘proving’ time, and perhaps a tad more salt. Others have added rosemary, cheese, olives etc. but that’s for another day.

Sunday 19 July 2020: I made it again, but this time I used the 2-hour method, which uses more yeast and has a lot shorter proving time. Recipe and method here: https://www.jennycancook.com/recipes/2-hour-fastest-no-knead-bread/

This time the dough rose nicely and went bubbly, as per her YouTube video (see link above). I wanted to add more salt, but based on the comment left after my first write-up, I didn’t know how to adjust the yeast to match the extra salt, so instead I scored the top of the load and shook over some chili flakes and a ground a bit of rock salt on top too. Hopefully that will add just that little bit more flavour. As usual, the proof will be in the eating, but it’s too hot to cut just yet! Because it had a better rise at the dough stage, I don’t expect it be as dense in texture as the first loaf.

Verdict? YUMMO!!!! As expected, the texture was much lighter. Still had that amazing crust. Tasted delicious!

Monday 27 July 2020: Attempt #3, but second with the 2-hour method, which will be the method I use from now on. Cut 8 slits across the top of the dough, sprinkled on chili flakes and a bit of coarse salt so that what you can see on the top of the loaf. The house smells AMAZING! Just out of the oven in the pics below.

Thursday 30 July 2020: Hint: If you keep your dried yeast in the freezer, take out the quantity needed about 30 mins before you start and put it on the kitchen counter to warm up. I did this for the loaf I made today and got the best rise I’ve had and a much better (less dense) texture after baking. For this attempt, I added nigella seeds (black sesame seeds) to the top instead of chili flakes and salt. (Yes, I also baked some more muffins.)

April 2021: I’ve recently made this bread with little cubes of cheese and whole jalapeno slices mixed into the dough after the first rise, and with small cubes of cheese dotted on the top of the loaf. Also on top—some poppy seeds and chilli flakes. Super yummy!!!

I’ve never had much trouble getting a decent crackling on roast pork, but sometimes the edges where the skin turned under were a bit rubbery. For decades, my method has been a well-scored skin, with the scores about 1 to 2 cm apart (about half an inch) and about 1 cm deep, lightly rubbed over with olive oil, then rubbed with cooking salt. That hasn’t changed.

What has changed is how it’s cooked. Some weeks ago, in our state’s newspaper, a top chef published a recipe for a pulled pork done in the oven, promising the best crackling ever. I wasn’t interested too much in most of the recipe, but his method of cooking to get the best pork crackling intrigued me. So I tried it. OMG! Perfect pork crackling, every time, and deliciously soft and tender roast pork meat. But you have to start cooking long before you normally would for a roast.

His method:

1. Turn the oven on high (220 C [430 F]).
2. While you’re waiting for it to heat, prep the skin (I used my usual method).
3. Once the oven is hot, put in the pork leg (or whatever cut you’re using) and roast it at that 220 C temperature for about 30 minutes.
4. Turn the temperature down to 150 C (300 F), and continue roasting for at least another 3 hours (the time will depend on the weight of the roast — he had 3 hours for a 1 kg piece of meat; I work on about 5 hours for a 2 kg piece).
5. When done, the crackling will be perfect, and the meat soft and tender.

I also put the veges (typically potatoes, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin, and half onions) in at the same time, and found that they weren’t overcooked, despite being in the oven for much longer than usual.

Try it!

I’m currently in the US for a conference. After a nice long walk this morning, I had breakfast in one of the hotel’s restaurants (I looked to eat elsewhere but it was Easter Sunday in a downtown area and nothing else was open).

When I first sat down my server offered me a coffee, but I declined (I don’t drink coffee) and instead asked for a green tea, which I drink very occasionally. He brought me a tea bag, a pot of hot water, and an empty mug for my tea and a nice big glass of iced water.

After my meal, he brought the check and I noticed that I’d been charged $4 for ‘hot tea’, which I’d had to ‘make’ myself.

As a general interest query, I asked him if customers who said ‘yes’ to the offer of coffee got it for free. He said they did, so then I asked him why coffee is free in many places in the US, but you have to pay for tea. It wasn’t an accusatory conversation — I genuinely want to know the reasoning behind it. Coffee itself is not free — someone has to grow it, harvest it, roast it, package it, export it, import it, distribute it, grind it, brew it, etc. And the price of coffee fluctuates with supply and demand and other economic forces as most commodities do. Yet in the US it’s expected to be provided free with a meal in many places, or as a bottomless cup where you pay a token amount for the first cup (e.g. $2) and can refill as often as you like. Obviously, that’s not the case in specialty coffee places like Starbucks and others.

If a restaurant provides coffee for free then why don’t they provide tea (and soft drinks) free of charge too? And if they charge for tea and soft drinks, then why don’t they also charge for coffee?

Is it ‘tea discrimination’?

Can someone explain WHY coffee is free in many places in the US but other beverages aren’t, despite them ALL being a cost the restaurant has to bear? And ‘it’s always been like that’ isn’t an answer!

By the way, as far as I know in Australia you pay for your coffee by the cup — it’s rarely, if ever, free.

I cooked up a storm for 3 hours on Friday afternoon — the aim was to fill the freezer with prepared meals so that on the nights I don’t feel like cooking, I can always grab something and heat it up for our dinner. I’ve been doing this for decades, and it works well.

In that 3 hours I made:

• about 4 litres of chicken stock (chicken carcasses, celery tops, carrots, onions, mushrooms, chillis, etc.), strained so that I only have the stock and none of the bits
• 8 servings of my Mexican Chicken
• 8 servings of Chicken Madras
• about 3 litres of pumpkin soup (butternut pumpkin, sweet potato, chicken stock [from the freezer from an earlier batch cooking episode], chilli, mushrooms, etc. — I don’t add coconut cream and yoghurt until I heat it up ready for serving)

And yes, we ate the crusty loaf of bread (in the foreground of the photo) that night with some of the pumpkin soup!

I’ve been meaning to write this post since mid-December, but a house guest, Christmas, summer holidays etc. got in the way.

I had a significant ‘zero’ birthday in December, and to celebrate, we intended opening and drinking a bottle of 1990 Penfolds Grange for the occasion (I had purchased it in the early 1990s and we kept it for this birthday). This is a significant wine, and reputedly one of the best Grange vintages ever produced.

The obvious food to go with such a red wine is steak, and we have a couple of favourite steak restaurants that we like to go to. One of our favourites for special occasions is a steakhouse in Albany, a 750 km (approx 8-hour) round trip from where we live.

As Albany is so far away, we only go there about once a year, and we always stay at least one night, usually two. While in Albany, we eat breakfast along the cafe strip in York St, and often purchase clothes for one or both of us from local businesses. And of course, we purchase fuel on the way there and back, and have our meal at the steakhouse one night and at another local restaurant the other night. All up, I’d guess we would spend well over $500 in Albany if we stay two nights, and potentially more than $1200 if we also buy clothes and local wine.

But this year Albany missed out on all those tourist dollars. Why? Because of one restaurant’s policy in no longer allowing us to bring our own wine (BYO), despite their website menu saying that we could (http://www.rustlers.com.au/images/user-images/documents/Rustlers-Drink-Menus-2013.pdf — see the item for ‘corkage’ at the bottom of the second page). Yes, we were prepared to pay corkage to drink our own wine (for those not familiar with Australian restaurant lingo, corkage pays for any serving of your own wine by waitstaff and providing/cleaning the glassware), but we were prevented from doing so by their policy.

I called the steakhouse to find out if we could bring this special bottle of wine for this special occasion. I was told no (their website — but not the drinks menu — says ‘Strictly no BYO’, so there was a mismatch of information there and I queried them on it). I was told that as they now had a tavern license the Liquor Act prevented them from allowing BYO. I was surprised, as I didn’t think any restaurant in our state could legally prevent a customer from bringing their own wine. Yes, they could actively discourage it, but I didn’t think they could stop it. I checked the Liquor Act and found NOTHING in there that prevented this, although I did find a clause that said a licensed premises could make some decisions about BYO for ‘commercial reasons’. That’s NOT the same as blaming the Liquor Act for this policy, which is what the restaurant did.

The upshot of this commercial decision by the restaurant is that the Albany region lost out on more than $1200 tourist dollars, just for the sake of a single bottle of wine. Where do I get this figure from? Let me break it down, based on past experience:

• $120 for the meal for two people at the steakhouse
• $320 for 2 nights’ accommodation
• $80 for two breakfasts for two
• $60 for fuel, plus more for drinks/food from the service station
• $200 for clothing for my husband
• $200 for clothing for myself
• $100 for a meal in another restaurant on the second night
• $200 for wine from the cellar door of a local winery

We were just two people. Extrapolate this $1000+ to other couples or families and you can see that a single policy such as this one could have negative flow-on effects to the local economy. Instead of injecting $1000 or more into local Albany region businesses, we spent nothing there at all.

By the way, our local steakhouse (also a tavern, so if there was something in the Liquor Act they would have said so) allowed us to bring the wine and so they got our business for the evening, which was just $100 as we went home after dining there and spent nothing more on other activities that you participate in as a visitor to a region.

Making these is SUPER simple and requires about 2 minutes preparation, then waiting a few hours (or overnight) for them to harden. I’ve made heaps this summer, and they are a great healthy snack. The only equipment you’ll need that you may not already have is a set of ice cream/popsicle moulds — many kitchen stores sell them for about $10.

Ingredients:

• 500 g of yoghurt (my preference is Greek yoghurt, or Greek Vanilla yoghurt for a creamier and less sharp taste)
• whatever else you want! I decided to go healthy with fried fruits and nuts. I chopped up some nuts (cashews, almonds, macadamias), some dried fruit (apricots, a date) and added some more dried fruit that was already in small pieces (cranberries, sultanas). For the batch I’ve photographed below, I also added a few dark choc bits (used for chocolate chip cookies) and some passionfruit pulp. You could use fresh fruits like blueberries, strawberries, stone fruit, mango, banana, or whatever you like.

Method:

In a bowl mix all the ingredients using a spoon (this takes only seconds).

Spoon into the ice cream moulds leaving a small air gap. If the mould allows it, tap the base on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles and settle the ingredients into a solid mass. Add the sticks. Place into the freezer for several hours or overnight.

To eat, run the mould under some hot water for a few seconds then wiggling the stick slowly, carefully loosen and release the ice cream from the mould. If it’s stuck, run it under a bit more hot water.

Enjoy!