Posts Tagged ‘pizza blogs’

Bumble Bee Stuffed Ciabatta

To be an interesting baker these days takes a little thought, some digging for ingredients, a little technical knowledge and a lot of denial! That last part comes in handy at three a.m. when you shout loudly, channeling the Talking Heads, “This is not my beautiful bread, what have I done here?”

 

The natural progression of my wee-hours-baking-thoughts start like this; “Damn this was stupid!”,  to “It’s not as bad as I thought!”‘,  to “Wow, that baked up well!”, to “I meant to do that!”, as I gloat at the finished product and get bolted out of bakers ego-stroke by a burning fougasse or baguette I have forgotten about.

Luckily, this wasn’t the case last week when I made some killer Bumble-Bee ciabatta.

 

I got this idea from the pasta class that I had just finished at the Athens Farmers Market. It’s a great class called “Junior Chefs School” and Jacob Seidel, Joel Fair and myself made some squid ink pasta.

 

 

These kids were the best chefs I’ve worked with…quiet…no attitude…lacking in guttural vocabulary… and they said “Eeeeewwwwwww” with the perfect amount of authentic distain when I brought out the mushroom stuffing for ravioli and tortellini.

 

First, I took some squid ink that I found whilst visiting Boston and kneaded it into some 80-something hydrated dough. Then cut it into alternating strips with some equally wet dough that I had kneaded white onions roasted with aromatic saffron.

I thought an interesting stuffing for this would be a roasted garlic pudding with ricotta and parmesan and a hint of mascarpone paired with some great local cheddar. My plans were almost waylaid by a broken rib, (or ribs-it’s hard to tell…) brought on by holding a metal sheet-pan, rib high and walking really fast into the corner of my Lincoln triple-stack conveyor pizza ovens….crack goes the weasel.

Well, here are some videos of this grand event. I pounded the initial oven rise with steam under 530 degrees then took it down to 420 to cook the guts, then down for a dry finish with doors and vents open at 320 degrees.

Okay guys here are four small videos of making this great bread.

1. The mix…Very down and dirty. Yes, I am used to having highly hydrated dough on my hands but this blackened color drove me nuts!

 Then into the wee hours just after breaking my riblet…

Now stuffing the proofed dough strips with garlic pudding.

The final cut. Showing off the crumb of this wonderful squid ink and saffron ciabatta stuffed with wonderful garlic pudding and cheddar!

The Morel Bombe!

 

What do you do with two huge morel mushrooms? A few weeks ago, I was confronted with this awesome dilemma but luckily I had some five-day old pizza dough lingering in cold fermentation, with Fontina cheese, local Integration Acres chevre, Parmigiano Reggiano, local ramps and a beautiful haunch of smoked red waddle ham from Arcadian Acres and some King Family Farm crispy chicken skin with just a hint of caraway, (gotta have that with any morels)!

This was gonna be….The Bombe! (Yes, the ‘e’ at the end makes it more cultured and European). Lets go and mimic a “turdunkin” with these two monsters of the mushroom world.


 

Here is a video of the finished product.

Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Set aside a 15 ounce dough ball from the Easy Dough recipe on this blog

Ingredients:

Two giant morel mushrooms

One tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

One half cup grated Fontina cheese

One golfball size chunk of chevre

One four-ounce chunk of smoked red waddle ham cut into small dice

Five spring ramps chopped

One tablespoon Parmigiano Reggiano

Two crisp chicken skins from two roasted chickens

One teaspoon of caraway seed

Egg wash

Process of Preparation:

                        

 First cut the stem off of each morel and rough chop them, Add to a saute pan on high heat and saute for one minute. (above, I just ran them through my conveyor pizza oven at 475 for a few minutes.)

                       

Put the chevre, fontina, ramps, Parmigiano, caraway and diced ham in a bowl and mix until incorporated into a messy little ball of goo. Stuff the morel caps with the mixture and wrap the stuffed caps with the chicken skin.

   

Form a round, pizza shape with the dough. Place the two stuffed, chicken wrapped blobs side-by-side in the middle and add the rest of the cheese mix in front of the stuffed caps. Fold the top of the dough over first, then the bottom. (Note, do not use too much flour as the dough will not stick.) Turn the whole batard over and place on a parchment covered tray and form the ends in a torpedo shape. Using a sharp knife, cut a vent hole in the middle and one small vent on each end to let moisture excape.

  

Eggwash the batard and let proof, (hold between 70 and 80 degreese  for at least 15 minutes.) Bake at 450 degrees for 15 to 18 minutes. It will take alot of care to pull the batard out at the right time. Internal temperature should be above 180 degrees and the outside should have a nice golden-brown color.

Pull the batard from the oven and let rest for 10 to 12 minutes before cutting.