Yeast

2007-01-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

Hello there nobody,

I think i found out nobody looks on your blog if you don't publish it, i will, but only after i'll do my third post, remmember that.

Anyway, yeast.

Yeast is a kind of funghi, it's a living creatures, really are. read carefully it will help you understand more next time you make bread or dinner rolls of sticky buns or italien pannetone made with sourdough like i'll explain to you another day.

So like i said when you put yeast in your dough recipe in fact you put in small creatures that were elevated in a laboratory and put down to sleep so they can keep longer. when you add water and some sugar(not necceserily pure sugar, different grains have lots of sugars, in fact any carbohydrates is a form of sugar) the yeast, the creatures start to wake up so at this point they start to break the forms of the materials wither pure or in a form of starch and then they start to consume it. at this point they have another action, they produce gaz co2, and that's the bubbles that makes the bread lite and airy.

So as i said it gives us two things, breaking the starch in the flour to sugars(which if we learn how to keep well we'll have nice coloring and flavors of sugar and caramel in the final product since the sugar carmalise in the hot oven, and that's what gives the nice color of baked goods and the complexity of flavors) and co2 that help us to make nicer breads than in ancient times when the bread was heavier and not as lite as today.

So why not to put sugar to help the proccess of sweetnes and make the caramelisation and airy bread?

Look, when you make a dough that is rich with eggs, butter, milk and many other stuff, ok.
but when you want to have pure bread with complexity of flavors that doesnt come from this stuff, not because it's bad it's great, i love brioche and any other baked goods, but this products (butter, eggs, sugar and so on...) influence the final product. they will give you nice breads, but not this rustic breads full with complex flavors and crunch that's crispy like this, and chewy full of intresting flavors of crumb. it's just not the same product that's all and here i wanna talk about the kind of breads that are all natural, let's go on...

Ok so we started like i said with yeast, flour and water, and at this point they(the creatures) give us sugars and gaz, don't forget it's not endless, at a certain point the sugars are finished and that's when the dough starts to be a little bit gouwy and smells a little like acid or vinegar, that's because they tend to consume them selves once they don't have anymore sugars and then they die. we want to avoid this point.

But that's not all. we want to keep as much of the sugars before they eat all of it, because of the goos flavors they give to the final product. on the other hand they need it to produce gaz that gives us liter bread or any other baked good. so how can we keep more of the sugars but still have an airy bread?

At this point we have the advantage of the fridge. why? because when it's cold just like us, because they are alive, they get sleepy and they don't eat as much, but they still produce the sugars. because they need to break the starches. so basically we'll make the dough let the yeast get back from their sleepy state they have put them it the laboratory and then put them in the fridge. this means at the end we'll have better, sweeter bread but it will take longer, so with anticipation and patience we'll have better product(believe me it worth waiting).

So after about a night we take out of the fridge a dough that's is sweeter but not as light, doesnt matter, it wont take them that much to get the right amount of gaz.

So we give them like two hours, then we don't flatten the dough, but we do work it a little and we wanna reshape it. why not to bake it directly, because the multiply and that's gives you more guys to do the work of breaking the starch and gaz. it's all about the right moment and timing too much or too less gives different resultsm just as you understood that temperature also influences alot. so we are trying to get the best out of all. there is no black and white, sorry.

but why to rework the dough? we don't wanna keep the nice air they've made?

Yes we do but if we'll exagerate they will break the gluten strands by over streching it and that will give you that cracks in the surface of the dough you see some times if it over puffed, and if it's too much the dough will fall down because it looses it's strength. try to avoid it, it's not always too late(sometimes it is if you let it sit too long, really too long) but it will make it weeker and then it's too late. in fact when we reshape the dough we give it more strength because we have more yeasts but also a strong dough(strands of gluten, a kind of proteins that exists in some starches, especially wheat and rye).

For that same reason we wont bake the dough when it completly risen, because it losses it's strength, it will be better to give it some space to rise because the heat makes the yeasts go mad and we want to get as much as we can from them before they die in the oven. if we let the bread over rise, it might fall a little because the gluten get's weak from being too streched, so usually it's 3/4 of the maximum size it sould be at the end, to put it in the oven.

so we said:

1. pure starch no sugar or other products but flour, water, yeast and salt to get the rustic bread.

2. slow, low temperature rising to get complexity of flavors.

3. enough time for the dough to get more yeasty guys to make the god, but on the other habd not too much time to consume the sugars that give flavor or over strech the gluten that keeps the strength of the dough, it's shape.

4. not to cook the dough when fully rised so it will have the space to expand and not to tear the gluten or make it fall before the starches set from the heat of the oven(it take 30 to 50 minutes usually)

What left to cover?(I'm tired huh.. another time)

-Ratios of ingredients and why.
-Direct method and indirect
-How to shape the dough and how it influences the final product(does it worth kneading by hand?? yes)
-Baking temperatures and cooling down(don't eat the bread 5 or 10 minutes after it came out of the oven, i don't care it's hot, fresh and smells like heaven!!!!)
-Sourdough, what's that? What's the difference if i have yeast it quicker and gives the same thing, no? (Does it?)

Friends, i'm on a diet, but I LOVE baked good, it's just so goooooooood.

Next post i'll post everywhere this blog!!!

Potatos

2007-01-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

It's the first blog i'm putting. I'ts been a while i'm looking for it.
I didn't find yet a food blog concentrated on practical molecular gastronomy,
An information that need to be shared. I'ts a term to describe a new way we look now on things in the kitchen.
My name is Eldad, I'm a cook who lives in paris. Here is the place to pose names in this category, subjects you want to talk,
share or ask.

So.. I decided to have potatos as the first subject, since there is so much to talk about them.
I will not cover not even the tip of the subject, because it's impossible and also because in this area you don't close things that fast and you take everything with suspisions!!

Floury potatos. I noticed that even in this category of potatos nothing is absolute, examples:

Gnocchi, bread, pasta doughs(like kreplakh), puree, etc.
You need the cooked product to be dry and floury to give u good results, but the cooking can change dramatically, but again not absolute.
Gnocchi for an example needs a floury potato, usually cooked on a bad of kosher salt in the oven, to make it really dry, then mixed with eggs or just yolks, salt and flour, which we dont over work so both the gluten in the flour and the starches in the potatos will change the dough to be sticky and chewy.

On the otherhand i can do the same for a bread which will give a nice taste of potatos to the final product and wont make it hard to work with the dough.. but, 2 years ago i remmember cooking not the right potato for a mash and also peeled it and cooked in water. I passed it through a "moulin" and then made the dough, which i gave less yeast and long rise to have better complex flavor and texture(Another subject, so leave it for now). It was a wet dough that was hard to work with, but, the final product was amazing, nicly carmelised crust, very crispy, chewy interieur, very tasty, not the regular potato bread!!

More, Puree.
How many of us know it's better to use floury potatos or it all get messy and gluey, yuck. try to ieat it...
ave you ever had the famous puree Joel Robouchon?
Well, he uses Ratte, which will give you this results if you do it the traditional way, but try to cook it in water with salt, till soft and then when still hot peel and pass through a "moulin" ONE BY ONE over a big bowl so it will not mash what is underneath it. do not touch the mash too much. Wheigh it, put in a pot the puree, and the same amount of cold butter, cut to small pieces, DONT MIX, with a wooden spoon sowly cut through the mass you will see the butter starts to get inside, if it seperates add a sprinkle of hot milk, but never mix.tou will have an amazing flavour puree (don't eat too much, did you see how much butter.
Robouchon then passes it through a drum sieve to get rid of the small particals, slices of Tarttufo di Alba and you're in heaven.

There is a lot to talk about puree and ways to make it, they all great, but another time, let's go on.

Chips and it's friends.. We all know it's better be starchy, but even there there is more and less, so which one for which kind of fries, there is so much and every country is different, normally. so, for an example, have you ever tried to pour hot water on thinly sliced ratte and then drain, then fry?
What about potatos? Two cooking, the second in hot oil, but the first? In oil or water?
Have you tried Heston Blumental's Three Stages Potatos?
And fries? Thin, cooked directly in the hot oil, A little bit more thick, then two cooking first low temperature, second high, but which kind of cooking and what kind of potatos?
Example: "Bintje" cooked first in 130-140 for like 10 minutes then in 180-190, both in oil.
"Agria" cooked first in salted water(startinf with cold water!), then once boiled, drain and dry, deepfry in 190 degrees oil.
nice results, huh?

That it for now.
My next missions: Heston's potatos and Gnocchi made from not starchy potatos.

Molecular Gastronomy Exchanges

Yeast

Potatos