Saturday, January 23, 2010

Jan 23rd - Carmelized Stuffed Crêpes and Homemade Pizza

Sauteed Apples

2 large fuji apples sliced
2 T butter
2 T sugar/brown sugar
1/2 cinnamon

Melt butter in a small pan. Toss in the apples and sprinkle over the sugar and cinnamon. Toss every once in a while until the apples cook through and the sugar is slightly carmelised.

We are stuffing these in to crepes this morning. Actually, it's all a bit of an experiment. D wants the apples soft and I want them toffeed. He's cooking so they'll be soft.

Basic Crêpes

1 c Flour
1/4 t salt
2T sugar (opt)
1 c Milk (you can substitue some water in a pinch)
1 zested orange (washed)
2 eggs
1 T melted butter for batter and more for the pan.

Mix all the ingredients and let rest for half an hour.

Melt butter in a small bowl and have a silicon brush ready.
gently coat the pan with butter (D is not using the brush, he smears)

Pour 1/4 cup of batter or 1cm under the level of a typical soup ladel into the pan which you are holding up at an angle. Start to spin the pan gently to spread the batter evenly and thinly. Do not worry abou the first one. The first one is always a mess and resembles America's map. Shimmy it around. When it moves, use your fingers and check that it's slightly brown. Flip.

After watching Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food, I feel I need to specify. Slightly brown means not as light as the original batter so like the colour of the crust of a baguette. I used my fingers. You can use a rubber spatula. I say rubber only because I use a non stick pan and I don't want to scratch it.Pâte à Pizza aka D's Pizza Dough

15 g dry yeast or 2 pouches (standard packs usually come in 8g)
250 ml or 1 c warm water
1 pinch of sugar (1/4 t)
1 t salt
350 - 450 g of flour work flour in until you get a light, not sticky but not tough dough. So this will vary depending on the humidity in your area.

Warm up up the mixing bowl with warm water and then empty the bowl (this is not the ingredient water)

Put the yeast in the bowl and add the warm water. Add the sugar and mix lightly and leave for 5 -10 minutes.

Using the dough hook on your mixer, incorporate the salt and the first 1/3rd of the flour. Use a wooden spoon if you don't have a mixer. Do no use a hand mixer. Slowly add the rest of the flour. Let the mixer knead the dough until it pulls away from the sides and forms a ball. You will want to stop the mixter and pull the dough down if it starts to climb the hook. If you're doing this by hand, you'll want to flour a surface and knead the dough by hand once most of the flour is in.

Knead for 10 minutes until the dough is elastic and forms a smooth ball.

Oil the mixing bowl, don't worry about the little dough bits. Holding the dough ball in one hand, swirl the ball around the bowl so it is oiled and place in the bowl with the oily side up. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for an hour.

Punch down the dough and knead for a couple of minutes. Cut into two or three balls. If you are using it right away, let it rest for 15 minutes. It is quite 'worked up' at the moment and will not roll out without a fight. If you're not using it right away, you can wrap in plastic and store in the fridge or freezer until you need it.

(When you do take it out from storage in the fridge or freezer, bring to room temparature.)

If you've accidentally over worked it will trying to roll out out and it starts to spring back and refuses to stretch out, you can trick it by rolling in some ground pepper to break up some of the gluten strands.

Bake with topping at 455F for 35-40 minutes. We spread this out on a cookie sheet

I am making: Goat Cheese, Marinated Red Peppers, Artichoke Hearts, Eggplant strips and Anchovies

D is making: Green Bell Peppers, Red Onion, Tofuroni, Mushrooms and Mozzarella

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