Cloverleaf Rolls

Thanksgiving approaches, that greatest of all cooking and baking holidays, so I thought I’d make this month’s update relevant to this, my favorite of holidays.

With all the food that Thanksgiving entails—turkey, dressing, gravy, veggies, salads, desserts, etc, it’s easy for things like bread to become an afterthought.  To help manage a busy kitchen, frozen or canned rolls or biscuits are often pressed into service to simplify matters.  Baking fresh bread for the holidays just seems so time consuming in an already time-crunched day.  Well, it shouldn’t, ‘cause there’s nothing that puts an accent on your majestic meal like fresh-baked bread.  It fills the house with a savory, mouth-watering scent, it warms to the touch, and, slathered with creamy melted butter, the taste is out of this world. 

So this year, why not take a little extra time (and with this recipe, a little is all you’ll need) and wow ‘em with these wonderful and easy-to-make Cloverleaf Rolls.   Because even though adding fresh-baked bread to your Thanksgiving table can seem time consuming, mainly because of the hours between start to finish, the actual hands-on time is slight (most of the time is allowing the dough to rise), so you can work the prep into your cooking schedule quite easily. 

Cloverleaf Rolls

3 Cups Bread Flour
1 Cup + 1 Ounce Warm Water
1 Tablespoon (or one packet) Active Dry Yeast
1 Large Egg
3 Tablespoons + 1 Tablespoon Melted Butter
3 Tablespoons Powdered Milk
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Teaspoons Salt

Add the flour, powdered milk, salt and sugar to mixing bowl and give a few stirs to incorporate.  Add your dry yeast to the cup of warm water and let sit for a few minutes for the yeast to start working.  Then add the yeast water mixture, egg and 3 tablespoons of the melted butter to the flour mixture and mix, preferably in a mixer with a dough hook, until all is incorporated into a cohesive dough ball.  If necessary, use the extra ounce of water, adding it a little at a time to the mixture if there is not enough moisture to moisten the dough properly.  Only add this if necessary, you don’t want the dough to be too moist...it should have some firmness to it. 

Once the dough ball is incorporated, continue to run the mixer on setting 2 for about seven minutes, moderately developing the glutens in the dough. 

Next, place the dough in an oiled container, cover, and let sit for one and a half hours to rise. 

At this time, you’re ready to make the rolls.  Divide off a piece of dough of about 20 grams and roll it into a ball.  If you don’t have a kitchen scale, the amount of dough you need should be enough to make about a 1 inch ball.  

Make two more balls, then place the three into the greased cup of a muffin tin.  

Repeat the process until you’ve used up all your dough. 

This recipe should make about 18 rolls.  Doubling it will give you enough dough to fill three 12-cup muffin tins, just about perfect for a grand holiday gathering. 

Let the unbaked rolls rise again in the muffin tins for at least an hour and a half, but preferably three hours or so.  The longer you go, the better rise you will get, and more flavor with develop.  

After the rise, brush the rolls with melted butter, then bake in a 400F oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.  Remove from oven and, if desired, brush with additional butter.  Serve immediately. 

These rolls are best served hot (with lots of softened butter, of course!), so I usually don’t bake them until right before I’m serving my holiday dinner.  But they bake fast, and can be turned out into a bread basket quickly, so this is never a problem.  I use the convection setting on my oven, which bakes them even faster, usually in around 10 minutes at 350F (Convection Bake)

Until next time,

Bake some bread!

Chris

Chicken Tortilla Soup

This wonderful soup was introduced to me by my friends Jeff and Christy many years ago.  Christy graciously shared her recipe, and I’ve been making the soup ever since.  Over the years, I’ve tasted many tortilla soups in many places, including all over Texas and even in Mexico, but this recipe still makes the best I’ve ever tasted.

Just for giggles, I’ve researched other tortilla soup recipes, and they are as varied as the coral on a Cozumel reef.  All sorts of things, such as black beans, bell peppers, corn, and others that I don’t use show up in some of these recipes, as well as various techniques in cooking the chicken, achieving the broth, etc.  I’ve tried some of those versions, and I will emphatically state that this exact recipe is the best that I have tasted.  While normally I’m a fan of flexibility in cooking, in this instance I feel one should stick to the recipe as exactly as possible.  I’ll try to emphasize some of the reasons for this along the way. 

As to the history of the soup, as near as I can figure, it is a pretty recent addition to the Tex-Mex oeuvre, showing up some time in the seventies or early eighties, when someone, somewhere got the bright idea to top a hearty Mexican chicken soup with crispy tortilla strips and call it ‘tortilla soup.’  Then things went viral.  Tortilla soup is now ubiquitous all over Texas and the Southwest. 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

1 Onion, chopped
2-3 small Jalapenos, seeded and chopped
3 cloves of Garlic, minced
Vegetable or Olive Oil
2 Chicken Breasts, with bones and skin
1 16 oz can Stewed Tomatoes, chopped
1 10 oz can Tomatoes and Green Chiles (Rotel)
2 14 oz cans Beef Broth
2 14 oz cans Chicken Broth
1 10 oz can Tomato Soup
2-3 cups Water
2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Salt
1 bunch Fresh Cilantro
6 Corn Tortillas, cut into strips
Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Sauté onion and jalapenos until soft, about 10-12 minutes with medium heat.  Add garlic and continue to cook for another 3 minutes or so. 

Add the cumin, chili powder and salt, stir, and continue to cook for a minute or so. 

Add chicken breasts. 

Add the broths and then top up with water, adding just enough water until the chicken is covered.  Bring to a boil. 

Make sure you use skin on, bone-in breasts.  This is one of those ‘stick-to-the-recipe” points I’ll be emphasizing.  There is a lot of flavor in the skin and bones of the chicken that will be extracted into the soup, turning those broths you used into much richer ‘stock.’  Don’t worry, you’ll discard the skin and bones later. 

Cook the chicken at a boil for 30 minutes, then remove the breasts and let them cool for a minute or two.  Slip the skin off of ‘em and discard.  Then, shred the meat from the bones and add it back into the soup.  Discard the bones. 

Try to achieve bite-sized pieces with the chicken as you shred.  The chicken meat will still be quite hot, so I usually use a knife and disposable food service gloves when I shred to make it easier and keep from burning my fingertips. 

Add the tomatoes & green chiles, tomato soup and stewed tomatoes (note, these usually come whole in the can, so I chop them before I add them), and cook another 30 minutes. 

While soup is cooking, slice the corn tortillas in strips...

...and bake them at 400 degrees F for about 10 minutes, or until crispy.  Try to get the best quality tortillas you can get, preferably from an authentic Mexican tortillaria.  And make sure to use corn tortillas, and not flour.  I know, the picture above looks like flour tortillas, but those are actually corn tortillas, made with white corn.  

Chop the cilantro...

...and add about half of it to the soup and turn off the heat.  

Don’t do it any earlier, or you’ll boil away all the delicate flavor and aroma elements of the fresh cilantro.  Also, note, using dried cilantro (or coriander, as it is sometimes called) won’t give you the full range of flavors that you get with fresh, so make sure you track down the fresh cilantro.  Reserve the rest that you chopped for garnishing individual bowls of the soup. 

Garnish the soup with the crispy tortilla strips and serve immediately.

Serve plenty of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and additional cilantro for your guests to garnish.  In my opinion, this is all that is needed, but I have seen tortilla soup garnished additionally with avocado, diced red onion, sour cream, etc, but I urge you to try it simply, as prepared, with only additional cilantro and the cheese, first, so you can appreciate this delicious soup in its most perfect, unadulterated form. 

Until next time,

¡Buen apetito!

Chris

Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

I recently made a sojourn to Chicago, where I made a point to sample several examples of the famed ‘Deep Dish’ variety of pizza that the city is known for.  Now, I’ve always been more of a New York style pizza guy, but after sampling some pies at places like Giordanos and Lou Malnati’s, I have to say the Chicagoans have something wonderful and tasty going on.  It is very different from New York style, particularly in the sauce and even more so in the crust, and at this point, I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite between NY and Chicago.  But hey, why choose?  Enjoy both styles.    Choosing one is like choosing between apples and oranges...they just ain’t the same thing.

Anyway, back home in Texas, I couldn’t help but try to make an attempt to clone this wonderful style of pizza here in my own kitchen.   After doing some research over at the extremely informative Pizza Forum, I was ready to attempt to master this baby.

Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

Dough:

4 Cups All Purpose Flour
3 oz Semolina Flour
4 tablespoons Butter
4 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 tablespoon Salt
1 tablespoon Active Dry Yeast
8 oz Water

Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the fats.  In a small bowl, warm a little bit of your water (about an ounce or two) to around 105F and stir in the yeast.  Let this sit for about five minutes, then add it, along with the rest of the water, to the flour mixture and knead, either by hand or with a mixer with a dough hook, until all the ingredients are incorporated, then continue to knead for just under a minute.  Place the dough in a covered bowl and place that in the refrigerator overnight, or for up to 24 hours. 

A few hours before you are going to bake your pizza, take the dough out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature.  It should also rise a little bit during this time. 

When you are ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 500F (you’ll lower the temp before you bake) and roll out your dough.   Roll it out to about a 14 inch round, then transfer it to an extremely well-oiled (olive or vegetable oil) 12 inch diameter deep dish pizza pan.  Press the dough with your fingers to make sure it is evenly distributed in the pan, then press the dough up the sides of the pan until it forms walls about 1.5 to 2 inches deep. 

Now, you must fill your pizza.  Start by layering slices of mozzarella at the bottom.  

I suppose you could use shredded cheese as well, but the sliced is traditional.  Then layer the rest of your ingredients on top of the mozzarella.  The traditional meat for a Chicago style deep dish pizza is Italian sausage, torn out of its casing and pressed into a layer or patty on top of the mozzarella.  I may try this one day, but to be honest, I’m just not a sausage on my pizza guy, so I went with my favorite topping, pepperoni. 

Finally, spoon your sauce over the top.  

Note, in a Chicago style pizza, the ingredients are sort of reversed from NY and other American styles, which put the sauce on first and the cheese on last.  I’ve surmised that the Chicago style does this because the pies bake for a much longer time than a thinner NY style, and if you didn’t reverse the order, the cheese would burn.  Also note, Chicago style pizza sauce is not a thin puree of tomatoes like on a NY pizza, but is made with large chunks of tomatoes, which cook in your hot over on top of the pizza to form wonderfully rich flavors.  Here’s my simple sauce recipe:

Sauce: 

Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Chopped Tomatoes, drained:  3 cans (42 oz)
Dried Oregano:  1 tablespoon
Granulated Garlic:  1 tablespoon

Try to find the best quality tomatoes you can get.  The Pizza Forum guys recommend a brand called 6-in-1 tomatoes, but I couldn’t find any, so I went to Central Market and got the Muir Glen.  (I’ve since ordered some 6-in-1’s via mail order.  I will try them and report back)  Drain the tomatoes (otherwise you’ll get soggy pizza) and then stir in the oregano and garlic.   

Lower your oven to 450F, then pop the pizza in.  If you have a pizza stone, feel free to use it.  Let the pizza cook for 20 minutes, then open the oven and turn it a half turn.  At this point you can throw on some last minute toppings, such as the black olives I’ve used here.   Let it cook for 15 more minutes.

At this point, the crust on the sides should be crisp, golden-brown, and slightly pulled away from the sides.  Let the pizza rest five minutes or so, then slice and serve. 

 Right out of the oven.

Ready to slice!

First slice.

The crust is golden brown and crispy on the bottom, tender and flaky in the middle.  Mmmm, delish!

Until next time, 

When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's Amore!

Chris

Smoked Corn and Sausage Soup

I love to smoke, and not just my cigars.  I’m talking about the barbecue variety, which here in Texas means cooking low and slow over a wood and charcoal fire to both tenderly cook your food and flavor it with the wonderful taste and essence of smoke. 

When one thinks of smoking foods, hearty, meaty dishes like brisket, ribs or pulled pork come to mind.  But here is a dish that captures the subtle side of the smoke flavor, using the vehicle of a tangy, creamy and tasty soup.

So, how do you smoke soup?  Don’t worry, you won’t need any elaborate smoke distillation system or a water pump.  In this dish, we impart our smoke flavor by smoking some of the ingredients, in this case, corn and Italian sausage, and then add them to the mix.  Both the corn and the sausage pick up different aspects of the smoke flavor and bring it with them to the soup, creating a mélange of flavor that is out of this world. 

Smoked Corn and Sausage Soup

4 medium to large ears of corn, husks and silk removed
4 uncooked Italian sausages, or a spicy sausage of your choice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups chicken stock
1.5 cups half and half or heavy cream
¼ cup minced fresh basil
Salt to taste

Try to get the best quality and freshest corn you can get.  If you have access to a farmers market or similar, make the extra effort to get good corn.  Also, fresh-made sausages from places like Whole Foods or Central Market will really give a boost to the recipe versus using prepackaged supermarket variety sausage. 

Fire up your smoker to cook low and slow with a nice, light wood, for instance maple or any of the fruit woods.  

I use maple for this recipe, as it has a nice, light, slightly sugary flavor and aroma that pairs well with the soup.  Avoid mesquite with this recipe, as it is too harsh for the delicate flavors of the soup, and if you use hickory, use about half as much wood as normal. 

Here I’ve set up the dampers on my Weber kettle so it will function as a smoker, with the temperature topping out around 225 degrees F.  Try to keep your smoker in the 200-250F range. 

Place the corn and sausage in the smoker...

...and smoke for thirty minutes, then rotate the corn a half turn.  Smoke another thirty minutes, and it should look like this.

Turn the sausage over, remove the corn and reserve.  Smoke the sausage another hour (two hours total) until they are well-smoked and done.

When the corn is cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife and cut the kernels from the ears.  

Reserve the kernels and cobs separately. 

While the sausages are finishing their second hour of smoke, you can start on the soup.  In a large, heavy stock pot, warm the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the bell pepper and sauté for a few minutes until it begins to soften.  

Add the garlic and cook a minute more.   Pour in the stock, add three of the reserved corn cobs, and simmer for twenty minutes.  

There’s a lot of good, corn flavor in those cobs.  This will extract it.  Then, using tongs or similar, remove the corn cobs and discard. 

Try to time the above procedure so that the cobs finish simmering when your sausage is ready to come out of the smoker. 

Halve the sausage lengthwise, then slice into quarter-inch half-rounds.  

Drain the sausages on paper towels if they are greasy.

After you have removed the corn cobs from the stock, stir in the sausage along with the corn kernels, half-and-half, basil and salt to taste.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer for an additional ten minutes. 

Serve immediately.

Until next time, 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, 

Chris

Tangy Shish Kabab Bread

A while back I came across an intriguing recipe for vegetarian kebabs that included feta cheese, bell peppers, tomatoes, and...bread.  Yes, bread, marinated along with the cheese and veggies and grilled over charcoal.  I was intrigued, so I made the kebabs.

The problem I found is the same one that I find with all kebab recipes—different foods cook at different rates.  When you skewer up alternating cuts of meat, veggies, and whatever, sure it makes a nice presentation, but you usually end up with either some of the food overcooked or some of the food undercooked. 

The solution, of course, is to put each food item on its own skewer, so that they can be turned and removed from the grill individually, as each becomes ready.  I now do this with all kebab recipes, then just slide everything off the skewers and platter it up to serve. 

So, back to the bread.  I do like the combo of the bread with the feta, tomato and pepper, but as I made this kebab again and again, I found myself making lots more of the bread than I did of the cheese and veggies.  The reason...the bread is just dynamite!  It absorbs lots of the flavorful marinade and then gets a nice browning from the hot charcoal fire.  It makes a great side dish or bread course for lots of grilled foods.  And the light, tangy marinade is so tasty you'd swear the bread had been brushed with high-fat butter.   I now often make this bread solo, to go with steaks or a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern dish. 

Mediterranean Grilled Bread

Ingredients

1 baguette

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 Teasoon lemon zest
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons basil, chopped

1 tablespoon chives, chopped

1/4 teaspoon Salt

Slice the baguette into ¾ to 1 inch thick slices.  Mix all the other ingredients together.  Dip the bread slices in the marinade, then arrange on skewers.  It’s best to skewer them parallel to the slice, so that the skewer goes through the crust, as in the picture below. 

Grill the bread over a charcoal fire for a minute or two a side.  Watch it closely, the bread will char quickly.  You just want to get it nice and golden brown. 

Serve and enjoy.  You’ll be surprised how great this bread it—and with no butter to boot!   It’s a very light way to enjoy bread that is tangy, savory and delicious. 

Give it a try.

Chris

Chicken Satay

Satay is a common ‘street meat’ in Thailand, Indonesia, and several other Asian countries.  It’s simple, easy and fun to make and has a nice, exotic taste that will delight time after time.  I fell in love with it at a local Thai restaurant, but now I generally make it at home on my grill.  Here’s how.

Chicken Satay

2 Large Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, cut into strips. 

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Sugar

2 Tablespoons Curry Powder

½ Cup Coconut Milk

Bamboo or other type of Wooden Skewers, soaked for several hours in water

First, cut your chicken into strips. 

I usually get five strips out of a breast, but if you want to make sure your Satay is nice, thick and juicy, you might just go with four strips per breast.

Next, make your marinade.  Mix the salt, sugar, curry powder and coconut milk in a small bowl.  

Make sure to use a good curry powder.  I’m fond of Ship Brand Madras Curry Powder.

If you don’t regularly keep curry powder on hand, I’d recommend seeking out a can of Ship Brand at your local Indian grocery.  It’s really flavorful, and will inspire you to flights of all sorts of culinary experimentation. 

Once you’ve mixed up the marinade, dredge the chicken strips in it, then lay them out on a tray.  

Cover them with any leftover marinade, then refrigerate for a few hours to let the marinade work in. 

When you’re ready to cook, light a medium-hot fire on your charcoal grill.  This will best replicate the way the street vendors cook Satay in Asia.  While your charcoal is getting going, skewer the chicken on the wooden skewers, one or two strips to a stick.  When the charcoal is ready, lay them out on the grill.  I usually grill them with the lid off of the grill, as this better replicates the technique used by the Asian street vendors.  To protect the ends of the skewers, I’ll lay a little foil under them on the grill. 

After a few minutes, flip the Satay.  It should have a nice char on the cooked side.  

Let the second side cook for a few more minutes, then it should be ready to go.  If you want, test a piece by pulling it apart to make sure the chicken is cooked all the way through. 

Serve with some white rice and a side of Thai Peanut Sauce.  Definitely don’t skip the Peanut Sauce (recipe here on last month’s An Eatin’ Man).  It makes the dish.