Apple Juice'd Tofu and Eggplant !! An Chinese Take-Out Inspired Dish

I like to make things that remind me of Chinese take-out.  This usually involves sweet and salty.  Homemade Americanized-Chinese food lends itself to orange-something, but I find that if I use orange juice from-the-carton and cook it I don't necessarily like it.  I am also not keen on using / preparing fresh squeezed. However, I usually have apple juice on hand and I like the way it tastes when cooked.

Recipe:
10 oz marinated and baked tofu
1 large eggplant, diced, salted for 30 minutes, rinsed
1 red pepper chopped
1 onion chopped
3 cloves garlic chopped
1 inch of ginger peeled and minced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 T vegetable oil
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2/3 C Apple Juice
1 - 2 T soy sauce
3-4 T chopped cilantro


Saute onions for 5 minutes in vegetable oil. Add eggplant and cook for 5 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes and cook for one minute. Add the remaining ingredients and cook about 5 more minutes until the apple juice has reduced by about half.  Take off heat and add cilantro. Serve over your favorite whole grain.

Salt Risen / Rising Bread - Round 3: Success

                                                                                 

  

  

Clostridium perfringens: a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium of the genus Clostridium. In the United Kingdom and United States, C. perfringens bacteria are the third-most-common cause of food-borne illness. It also is responsible for the flavor and rising of Salt Risen Bread.

Does this sound tasty to you? It did to me. If so, continue on:

Background:
Once upon a time I was reading about sourdough starters and I came across salt risen / rising bread. There were some details, etc but what really caught my attention was where the fermentation was described as smelling like rotten cheese and that the bread was supposed to sorta, kinda taste like cheese. I was sold. I tried and failed.  Now, about a year later I am at it again with all sorts of ideas that are not rooted in experience or know-how.

Recipe:

Starter:
1 T organic polenta
1/4 C organic whole wheat flour
1/4 C organic cornmeal
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp sugar
1 1/3 C water (I boiled it and then waited for the temperature to fall to 140F)
- Combine all ingredients, cover and keep near 100F for 8 - 16 hours.  When its bubbling and some of the ingredients have formed a 'cloud' over the rest, its time to make the sponge.

Sponge:
Starter
1 C milk or water at ~ 115F
2 C AP flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt
2 T sugar

- Mix to combine and cover. Keep at ~ 100F until it approximately doubles in volume. Took about 4 hours for me.


Bread:
Sponge
4 C AP Flour
1/2 C shortening
3/4 tsp kosher salt

Mix everything knead for about 5 minutes by hand. Shape and let rise in bread pans covered until double in volume.  (I may have not waited long enough for double ~ I was at about 3 hours of rising time). Bake at 375F for 30 - 40 minutes until golden brown.

Notes:
I used a heating pad placed inside of closed coller to keep the starter warm.  FYI: Leaving a heating pad on all the time is, perhaps, a bad idea. My cooler wasn't big enough for the starter or the dough in loaf pans. To keep these stages warm I put them in my oven on top of the heating pad and I would heat up a cast iron skillet on my stove top for about 10 minutes and then place in the oven about every hour or so to keep it cozy.

It really did smell pretty rank during the process. Which I delighted in mostly because it was nature and science at work.  According to the tasters it had a cheese-y flavor.  If you are concerned about the whole bacteria thing check out this medical journal article (PDF LINK - Page 28), from what I gather they deem it safe, but please feel free to make your own decision.  There was a marked time investment to a successful load and it was delicious, but I am not sure I'll be making again it any time soon.  Overall I had fun making the bread and getting to tell people its risen by "food poisoning".

Salt Risen / Rising Bread Round 2: Failure

I didn't get the raisin/risin'/starter to start.
Round 3 already under way.

Baked: Seitan Bacon

The taste: Delicious
The texture: A little dry
Other: No need to make seitan look like this. Make seitan like normal but with the intent and ingredients to make it bacony ... (e.g. smoke, maple, salt) and then keep it compressed, bake and slice.
Um: Didn't record my recipe.

Inspiration: here and here. They obviously had better results with respect to the bacon motif.