Croque Madame

From Dish Rachelle:

I love brunch but on a chilly January Sunday, sometimes I love lounging in my sweatpants even more. What’s a Dish to do?

The answer’s surprisingly obvious: if you can’t bring the people to the croque madame, bring the croque madame to the people. To be honest, this isn’t my go-to brunch order (I’m more of an omelette or pancakes kind of girl) but I recently saw two internet recipes that inspired me to give this gourmet ham, egg and cheese another shot.

The first is this breakfast sandwich post from Ideas in Food, one of my husband’s favorite cooking blogs. He sent it to me because he knows there’s a special place in my heart for “Egg in the Bread” aka “Toad in the Hole” because my parents used to make it for me when I was little and I still cook it for us every once in a while.

The second is Ruth Reichl’s grilled cheese recipe from her How to Make it Better series for Gilt Taste. I incorporated many of her suggestions here and as promised, my sandwich was better for it.

I’m not going to get overly precise in my measurements here because seriously, it’s brunch – if we can’t be laid-back before noon on a Sunday, then really, when can we be?

Also: do you know how to make ANYTHING better? Add cats.

Ingredients (serves two)

4 slices country bread

butter for spreading

shredded gruyere cheese (start with about a cup – if you need more, go for it)

1-1 ½ tablespoons chopped shallot

black pepper

2 slices of ham

mayo for spreading

more butter for cooking

2 eggs

Diet food, this isn’t:

Start by layering one slice of bread on top of another and creating a hole in the center using a cookie cutter. Extra points if it’s cat-shaped. Repeat for second sandwich.

Mix together the grated gruyere with the chopped shallots and a few grinds of fresh black pepper.

Butter the inside of each slice of bread. If the butter’s too cold and/or the bread’s too delicate, warm it in the microwave for 15 seconds.

Butter side up, sprinkle a healthy amount of the cheese mixture on two slices of bread (one for each sandwich). Avoid the hole in the center.

Cover the cheese with a slice of ham, tearing it into pieces if necessary to arrange it around the cat.

Sprinkle just a bit more cheese over the ham and then close the sandwich, lining up the holes. Spread a thin layer of mayo on the outside of the bread and flip, carefully, to repeat on the other side.

Once both sandwiches are closed, melt a tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Carefully place your sandwiches in the hot butter and crack an egg in the center of each one.

Cook on one side until golden brown, about 4 minutes, and then flip. Cook until bottom side is golden brown and the egg has reached a desired level of doneness.

Serve immediately, with a nice helping of dressed greens, Brooklyn brunch style.

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English Muffins

From Dish Paige:

Hello and welcome back to Saucy Little Dish! While we’ve been on summer hiatus, I started culinary school and have been very busy making my way through my International Baking and Pastry program. I figured, since I’ve already learned so many new things, I should share a few of them with everybody here.

I just finished a bread course, and one of the things we learned was that bread loves to ferment at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, in 80 percent humidity. Which, if you live in the Northeast, is exactly the temperature outside (and inside if you don’t have central air like me). I know you’re all thinking, “but it’s 80 degrees and 80 percent humidity in my apartment, why would I also turn on the oven?” Well, that’s the beauty of this formula (I call recipes for baking “formulas” now, it’s a professional thing *wink), the English Muffins are cooked on the stovetop!

Ok, so now it’s time to get super technical on you all. There are ten steps to yeast bread production. If you follow these steps, you will get bread. Great bread. Delicious bread. All formulas follow these ten steps. Follow the steps. Follow them and apply them to future bread endeavors:

1. Scaling/Measuring
2. Mixing/Kneading
3. Fermenting
4. Punching
5. Portioning
6. Rounding/Benching
7. Make-up/Shaping
8. Proofing
9. Baking
10. Cooling/Storing

Let’s go!

INGREDIENTS:
Milk – 9.25 fl. oz.
Active dry yeast 0.4 oz.
Pastry or cake flour – 1 lb.
Bread flour – 1 lb.
Baking powder – 0.4 oz.
Granulated sugar – 1.25 oz.
Salt – 0.25 oz.
Unsalted butter, room temperature 1.5 oz.
Water – room temperature 9.25 fl. oz.
Cornmeal – as needed for dusting

This formula uses the “sponge” method, which basically means that we are going to create a mini little starter (kinda like a sourdough) and let that get going a little bit before we mix everything together. Let’s go step by step:

1. SCALING/MEASURING:
Scale out all of your ingredients. Measuring by weight is the most accurate, so here you go.

Now make the sponge: Heat the milk until just scalded. Stir in the active dry yeast, then mix it with the pastry flour. Cover and let ferment about 15 minutes.

2. MIXING:
Once your sponge has fermented, mix together the rest of the flours, baking powder, sugar, salt, butter and water and add the sponge. You can use your hands or a mixer fitted with a doug hook. Mix for about 3 minutes, then begin kneading for about 7 minutes until the dough is soft and somewhat sticky.

3. FERMENTING
Cover and let your dough sit for 20 minutes wherever it is 80 degrees and humid. The dough should double in size and slowly spring back when poked with your finger.

4. PUNCHING
You can literally punch your dough, or if you want to be nice, fold the outsides of the dough in on itself a few times in order to equalize the temperature. Let the dough rest again, covered, for another 10 minutes.

5. PORTIONING
Here, with other doughs, you would divide it into however many loaves or rolls or whatever you have, keeping the section you’re not working with covered while you work on the rest. With this dough, we’re going to roll out it out to a 1 inch thickness.

6. ROUNDING/BENCHING
Again, with other doughs, you would now take the portioned dough, roll it into a smooth ball and then let it take a nap for about 10 mins, covered. For the English muffins, cover them and let the rolled out dough relax just for a few minutes to relax the gluten strands. Otherwise, you’re going to cut out the shapes and they will shrink on you.

7. MAKE-UP/SHAPING
Shape the portioned doughs. For the muffins, cut them into the desired size. You can use biscuit cutters, or something circular that’s close to the size you want and trace it with a paring knife. I used a coffee mug for the small ones, and the top of a Chinese soup take-out container for large, sandwich size ones. Place them on a baking sheet that has been lightly dusted with cornmeal and cover.

8. PROOFING
Let your dough take another nap, covered, until doubled in size.

9. BAKING
Bake, or in the case of English muffins, cook on a skillet or in a pan until golden brown, about 3-7 minutes per side. The inside of your bread should be in the temperature range of 190-210 degrees.


10. COOLING/STORING
You don’t want to put your hot breads in a plastic bag or aluminum foil because they will sweat. Use parchment to wrap them when warm. Once they are cool, use whatever you want! Just remember, bread you make at home will go bad way faster than what you buy at the store, so keep your English muffins in the refrigerator or freeze them for longer storage.

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Moving Day Bread

From Dish Jodi:

Are you guys sick of seeing the top of my clothes dryer in all my Saucy pics? I am. Are you tired of pitying me and my 22 inch stove top and oven? I know I am tired of not being able to have more than two things bubbling on the stove at once, or an oven that JUST FITS a half sheet pan. It’s the end of an era. We’re moving this weekend.

The next time you see me, I will have a new kitchen – brand new – even all the appliances. Well actually, you will probably see me mid-reno – just using the bathroom sink and the grill outside – but THEN I will have a brand new kitchen!

But this week it’s all about packing our house, supervising the workers putting in new lights, floor, paint and getting the RENTAL UNIT ready to go. Yes, we are crazy and bought a duplex. We’ll live in the back and rent out the three bedroom front unit to help cover our mortgage. (I am starting to document this adventure here: http://soweboughtaduplex.blogspot.com/.  EEPS!

My amazing parents came this week to help us out and it’s been wonderful to have them finishing tasks, being around for deliveries and helping us pack. Last night, my mom and I did a big Fridge Clean Out Dinner – We made a mushroom, onion and broccoli fritatta, Neal made a crisp arugula salad and we decided to use up as much of the random crap in our cupboards for dessert. This turned into a quick bread packed with yummy things that may not have had a home in our new place. This was the combo we used – you can put in any stuff you want – chocolate chips? craisins? Other nuts? Use the dry ingredients, eggs and bananas as your base.


We also found a 4-year-old can of Four Loko we bought to try and have been too scared. It’s probably a collectors item. It’s from before they deemed the mix of caffeeine, alcohol, energy drink and what must be liquid plumber illegal. Why not throw that in too?

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Three old bananas that have been in your freezer for months
2 eggs
4 T butter, melted
One can of contraband Four Loko
One bloop of almond oil because it was in your cupboard and why not
1/2 C of chopped pecans so you can wash that cute glass jar and pack it
1/2 C of toasted coconut from Oliver’s 2nd Birthday Dinosaur cake you made last September
1 C of chopped strawberries that are almost bad after you bought 2 pounds of them on sale this weekend

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a loaf pan. Take a swig of Four Loko. Combine all the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Mash up the banana in a smaller bowl and mix with eggs, butter and oil. Combine wet and dry and mix until just combined.


Rinse that effort down with a big drink of Four Loko. The fold in the nuts, coconut and berries until evenly distributed.

Put in loaf pan and bake for an hour while you pack 10 boxes or until a toothpick poked in the middle comes out dry or your can of Four Loko is more than halfway gone.

Let cool for 15 minutes or so, then turn out and let cool the rest of the way. Keep snagging slices between trips lugging boxes out to the garage. Probably don’t sleep well because you are so hopped up on Four Loko.

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