Bread Rolls using old dough (老面) or pate fermentee

Background:

To make the pate or old dough, visit here.

I am on a new baking journey using old dough or pate fermentee for making my loafs. In this case, it is bread rolls. Old dough or pate fermentee saves the hassle of buying instant yeast and is a compromise between instant bread and sourdough.

This recipe took 2 days to do because I wanted  a slower fermentation for better lactic production and a lower sugar content for the end result. It can be made into a loaf in a day but the taste might not be as 'artisanal'.

This recipe is very forgiving and I made the first loaf without a mixer.

Makes 10 slider buns or a medium loaf.

Recipe:

Defrost a batch of old dough or pate fermentee on the counter. It should be about 50g of old dough/pate fermentee.

Ingredients:

310g tap water + 50g old dough

400g bread flour + 100g wholemeal flour

10g Morton salt 

Method:

Day 1-

In a mixer, break up 50g of the old dough with the reserved 310g of water. It might be lumpy but that's ok.

*310g water translates to 310ml since density of water is 1g : 1ml

Add 400g bread flour, 100g wholemeal wheat flour, 10g salt.

Put mixer on 2 and mix for 10 minutes or until dough comes together.

Pinch off 50g of well mixed dough and freeze for another project. This is your pate fermentee or old dough.

Remove the mixing hook. Cover to let it rise for at least 2 hours.

Send it to the fridge to slow ferment overnight.

Day 2-

Ingredients part 2:

1 dish of salt, 1 dish of milk with brush for brushing

First thing in the morning, bring out the mixer bowl with the overnight dough.

Let it come to room temperature.

Allow another couple of hours of fermentation. Dough is ready when it feels airy when poked.

On a lined baking tray, make out 10 equal parts of the dough into balls. Use a scale for this and a calculator if you need to.  

Brush the balls with milk. Sprinkle salt on them, sparingly.

 Leave the dough balls to rise, about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile,preheat the oven to 190C.

Mist the balls just before baking.

Bake at 190C for 20-25 minutes. I did at 23 minutes.

Remove the buns and brush with butter. 

Eat on the same day. 

To keep, freeze immediately.  Air fry at 180C for 10-15 minutes before eating.

If you are making a loaf using a pullman , bake at 230C , covered, for 20 minutes and 200C uncovered for 30 minutes. Loaf cuts very well.

Pâte Fermentée (Old Dough)

A lump of frozen pâte fermentée out from the frozen for its photo shoot 

Ever since I came back from my holiday last year, I never managed to kickstart a new batch of sourdough starter. At least 5 batches died, costing a good 30 days and much waste of rye flour.

In comes pâte fermentée , or called old dough ( 老面 ) by Chinese bloggers. The pâte fermentée needed only 1 day in the fridge with no 6 day feeding and no discard. In between baking, the pâte fermentée can be frozen until it is called up for ‘active service’.

And so I started the pâte fermentée journey.

Old Dough or pâte fermentée recipe :  

100g bread flour

70g tap water

Pinch of instant yeast

2 g salt

Mix well. Leave on the counter for an hour or until some fermentation takes place.

Fridge it overnight. The pate is ready for use any time after that.

50g pâte fermentée is enough to work through 500g of bread flour. I used half of the above pâte fermentée for my first loaf (any recipe, less the instant yeast) and froze the other half for another bake.

Recipe for using the pâte fermentée will follow in the next couple of posts.

Light Rye Bread (Single Rise)

I know caraway is lacking in this recipe because there was none in the house. In any case, I don’t like chewy bits in my bread. This loaf does not offer the signature caraway taste of rye but if that is what you prefer, add 1 tsp of toasted and crushed caraway together with the flour.

Even with a single rise, the bread has a closed texture and is easy to slice to 1 cm thick.

Time : 3 hours (32C room temperature)

Credits: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/double-light-rye-bread-recipe with modifications.

Ingredients:

1. 240g  Bread flour

2. 100g  Rye flour

3. 15g dry milk powder 

4. 1 tsp  instant yeast

5. 15g caster sugar   

6. 7g pink salt

7. 20g butter

8. 40g honey

9. 200g warm water (38C)

Method:

1. In a mixer, combine bread flour, rye flour, yeast,sugar,salt. 

2. Add butter, honey, water.

3. Use a dough hook, knead until mixture is combined and forms gluten strands.

4. The dough will be sticky and not completely pull away from the walls of the mixer. That is fine.

5. Prepare a medium pullman box. Grease and dust.

6. On a lightly floured surface, remove the sticky dough and roll it on the floured worktop. ( I use 2 pastry spatulas to move the dough until the dough is smooth ) 

7. Transfer the dough to the pullman.

8. Let it rise for 90 minutes.

9. Preheat the oven 10 minutes before timeout.

10. Mist the bread with a water mister.

11. Stick the pullman into the preheated oven.

12. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes.

13. Cool the cooked bread for 10-15 minutes.

14. Remove the bread on a rack and continue cooling until it is no longer warm to the touch.

15. Slice and freeze extras.

30 hours fermentation whole rye bread (No Knead)

I have put off baking for quite a while since I moved to a smaller place. It was a choice of view or space and I chose view. I had forgotten how I loved to bake.

Recently I read Exodus 12 where the Hebrews were told to bake bread without yeast and the baker in me got all fired up. Following that was 2 failed attempts at growing my sourdough starter with artisan bread flour. 

But good old fashioned instant yeast saved me from a baking depression. The first no-knead bread was a successful loaf baked after it was fermented in the fridge for 24 hours. Friends loved the open sourdough texture.

To take another notch up, I bought a medium sized black non-stick pullman. Artisanal shape was not good for hubby's sandwich thus my third pullman in the house. That's a lot for a 2-person household but I am not regretting it.

Since hubby loves rye, I got down to making this. I got this 48 hour recipe from my go-to kingaurthurbaking site. But climate here is warmer so the bread was baked in my fancy black pullman at the 30th hour mark. It was either that or an invasion of a giant dough crawling out of the pan.

The result was excellent. The bread is light, easy to slice (with another shiny bread knife from Phoon Huat for just SGD$3) with a thin crust with closed texture.  Oh, the mist spray bottle costs just as much!

So here goes! 

Credit here with modifications

Makes a medium loaf.

Ingredients:

• 280g King Arthur Flour (Artisan)
• 160g wholemeal rye (Phoon Huat)
• 40g dry milk powder
• 1.5 tsp pink salt
• 1.5 tsp instant yeast
• 2 Tbsp canola oil
• 340g water (lukewarm. Mine was 37 C)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
2. Add oil and water.
3. Stir until no dry bits are left. Some effort is needed as dough thickens.
4. Cover and leave it to ferment for 2 hours outside.
5. Cover with oiled sheet. Send it to the fridge for 24 hours, covered.
6. At the end of the 24 hours, bring out the dough to warm up. It will start to rise again
7. Grease and dust the pullman if using.
8. Lightly dust a worktop. Work on the dough and fold like a letter. 
9. Transfer the dough to the prepared pullman to continue rising, fold edges facing down.
10. While waiting for dough to rise, preheat the oven to 230C.
11. When dough is 2 cm from the surface of the pan, mist and score the dough. I prefer to score then mist.
12. Cover with the pullman cover if so wished. Remember to grease the inside of the cover. Alternatively, bake uncovered.
13. Bake covered at 230C for 25 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for another 10 minutes.
14. If the bread is baked uncovered, bake at 200C for 4 minute. 
15. Remvoe the bread and cool it on the rack.

When totally cool, slice. 

Remarks : the bread has potential to rise more so a standard pullman may be good for a more open texture.

Quiche Lorraine

One of Dr Seuss' books I read was 'A Cat in the Hat". In that story, the Cat went through a series of trouble to solve what was potentially a small problem.

I was given a tub of Crisco and that spawned a series of bakes on a what was supposed to be a quiet Sunday. I was like, might as well bake some cookies with it ... and then maybe a quiche while I am at it as well. I should have a picture of the things to wash in my sink to proof my 'Cat in the Hat' situation.

The result was a very rich quiche using some leftover Lancashire cheese. But quiches are a fail safe dish and I am sure any of your favorite cheese will please the crowd.

Credits: bbcgoodfood with modifications

Ingredients:

Pastry :

170g flour

100g Crisco

1 yoke

3 tablespoons water

Filling:

2 egg whites

2 eggs

150 ml of baking cream

70g of Lancashire smoked cheese, chopped

180g bacon bits, fried and drained dry

Logistics:

23cm quiche pan with removable base

Baking beads

Wax paper

Method:

Combine flour, Crisco, yolk and water.

Mix in the mixer or food processor until the dough comes together.

Roll out the dough on floured surface. It should be enough to line the pie pan with some overhang.

Line the pan with the rolled dough. Use a fork to prick holes. It prevents air pockets building up when baking.

Trim off the overhang.

Line with wax paper. Pour the beads on the paper. 

Chill for 15 minutes. This prevents shrinkage when baked.

Bake the pie crust with beads in a preheated oven at 180C for 15 minutes.

Remove the beads.

Bake again for another 5 minutes. This helps dry up the base and less permeable to egg filling poured on it later.

Set aside.

To making the filling, lightly fry the bacon until cooked.

Drain the bacon with a sieve and then on a kitchen towel.

Reserve.

Preheat the oven to 170 C.

In a mixer, mix whites, eggs, cream.

I added a small fist of cut overhang to mix (not to waste the crust. It works as a thickener while baking). 

Line the pie base with the prepared bacon, cheese.

Pour half the egg mixture (whites,eggs,cream) until half full.

Stick the pie pan into the preheated oven.

Carefully pour the rest of the egg mixture. This way the egg mixture does not spill during the transfer to oven and cause the quiche to stick to the pan.

Push the pie gently into oven cavity.

Bake at 170 C for 25 minutes.

Leave the pie to cool in the oven for handling.

Remove pie case and serve.

Verdict : 

The quiche is seriously rich and I only managed to eat 2 pieces out of 6. Goes well with some tart salad.

Hakka Yong Tofu

As far as I can remember, come Chinese New Year, my father would make this signature dish. It requires an entire day's effort since everything was made from scratch. When all the ingredients were ready, father would bring out his iron meat grinder, clamp in to the table edge  and feed the fish meat and pork into the opening with one hand and crank the handle with the other. After some squishy sounds, finely ground wormlike meat would appear from the little holes and drop onto a basin to catch the prepared meat. It was quite disgusting to see the meat squeeze through the holes.

Meanwhile mum would labour over the sink peeling and chopping the water chestnuts. Mum did not have great knife skills and the mountain of water chestnuts was a great deal of work on top of the spring cleaning for the season.

I hated the entire process because father was fastidious about everything, including how the meat should be stuffed in the tofu, bitter gourds and tofu skins.

Oddly enough, making this became a Chinese New Year ritual once I have a home of my own.  Now, I used a food processor to blitz the meat in place of the grinder (long gone to the rags and bone man). Fish paste and minced meat could be bought off the shelf and the tedious task of peeling the water chestnuts was normally left to Pat who has excellent knife skills and patience of a saint.

Then I discovered the piping bag. In place of a mini spatula, the piping bag makes piping of the meat-water chestnut mixture into the tiny cavities of tofu puffs and tofu child's play.

My updated Hakka Yong tofu became my nieces' and daughter's childhood memories....

It is near Chinese New Year again, so it is yong tofu time!

Fish paste is hard to find nowadays so I have to make it from scratch. I have tried making fish paste out of batang though ideally it should be wolf herring (sai toh fish, but there is none at the markets), so the yellow tail will suffice. That was also what my father used because it was easy on the wallet.

Any, this is the recipe for my Hakka YTF:

2 yellowtail, filleted

4 cups of minced pork

4 cups of water chestnuts, smashed to  course bits (I love the crunch)

10 medium sheets of tofu skins, 10 tofu puffs, 2 medium sized tofu

Equipment I used:

Food processor

Mixer

Air fryer

Method:

Preparing the stuffing:

Peel the water chestnuts. Use a hammer and smash the  peeled chestnuts to course pieces. Use a food processor if you wish. Reserve.

Now for the fish; hold a short knife in a vertical position and scrap the meat off the fish skin. Discard skin and bones.

Blitz the fish in a food processor until it is chopped and come together. Reserve.

Season with a generous amount of  pepper and a few dash of sesame oil to the water chestnut-fish-pork mixture. 

In a big bowl, combine fish, pork and water chestnut well (I used the mixer). Reserve the stuffing.

Stuffing the meat:

Transfer the meat to a piping bag.

Make slits on the tofu puffs and pipe the stuffing into it.

Use a spoon to dig out a hole on the tofu. Pipe the stuffing onto the tofu.

On a lightly washed bean skin, pipe the meat on one end of the skin and roll up the meat.

Cooking the meat:

Oil all the items with a brush.

Air fry the items at 200C for 15 minutes or when until each item is brown.

Reserve.

Presenting the dish:

Prepare a pot of chicken stock. Bring to a boil.

Cook the stuffed tofu, puffs in medium heat for 5 minutes.

Blanch some greens. Serve the greens, tofu and puffs in soup. 

Serve the crispy stuffed bean skin separately.