Back to business.

One would be hard pressed to find a favourite morsel more ubiquitous than the ever-sacred Choc-Chip-Cookie. Glorified by our american cousins, this ensemble of butter, sugar, flour and chocolate is something many of us remember making as children. Even if we feel we have never indulged in food culture, everyone can appreciate the appeal of a warm, gooey cookie. And as such everyone has their personal favourite recipe.

In the spirit of sharing, I’ve decided to expose my cookie recipe, the only recipe I’ve ever considered vaguely secret.  In the interests of avoiding plagiarism (ingrained deeply by University), the photocopied and scribbled-upon recipe I have declares that this originally comes from Jeffrey Steingarten’s It Must Have Been Something I Ate. However it seems to have been edited heavily, both by myself and the nameless food writer from The Age that I cut this from so I’m not sure how closely it resembles the original.

This cookie recipe is not for the pallid, tasteless cousins you can find with their miniscule chocolate chips, and visibly crystallised sugar. This recipe results in soft, buttery cookies with huge hunks of rich dark chocolate and uses no less than three types of sugar, at different grades of refinement. So do not buy chocolate chips. Buy a slab of your favourite chocolate (white or milk chocolate can be substituted, but I wouldn’t recommend it) and hack away my friends. And DON’T (as a friend of mine actually once did) refrain from adding the salt to make the cookies “sweeter”. It may seem unintuitive, but salt is in fact, a sweetener. Many methods of exacerbating flavours in cooking involves adding a counterpoint. By adding salt you give something for the sugar to contrast with.

Now a word of warning, I have found that whilst when prepared correctly these cookies are pure heaven, they can be sensitive to different ingredient brands or types of oven. This is why I’ve given below a range of acceptable flour proportions. Too little and they melt into a large puddle, too much and they remain in dough-ball shapes. I’ve found in Australia, in most ovens two cups is sufficient. However when I attempted to bake them during my stay in Japan, the different grades of ingredients there resulted an awful mess. You know you have gotten the amounts accurate when they melt enough to form small circular mounds, but do not spread into each other.

“The Ultimate Choc-Chip-Cookie”

Ingredients:

500g  dark chocolate

2-2.5 cups plain flour

1tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking Powder

250g softened unsalted butter

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2/3 cup granulated white sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

- Preheat the oven to 190C. Roughly chop the chocolate into large, delicious hunks, 1 cm or bigger, feel free to sample. After “natural wastage” you will have 400g of chocolate, reserve this.

-Sift together the flour salt and baking powder into a bowl.

Literally snapped our wooden spoon!

-In a separate large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and three types of sugar. Add the vanilla extract water and egg. Beat together and then add the flour mixture.

-After this is well combined mix in the chocolate hunks, the mixture will be quite stiff, so be wary of damaging cookware!

-Drop heavily heaped spoons of the mixture on to baking trays covered with baking paper and bake for about 10 mins or until golden.

- At this point my recipe advises me to eat some immediately, whilst this is an excellent idea, I find they are often too gooey to eat for a few minutes, so let them rest. But do enjoy them warm, it is an experience worth risking a few stray molten gobs of dough.

-Cam-

PS: A preview of a few upcoming posts!

-A Week of Onions

- Jelly Baby Vodka

- Cupcake Battle

And MUCH More!

At the moment I’ve linked the Tummy Rumbles blog – this blog has lots of links to other Melbourne food blogs and you should go check it out if you have some time. I also linked this useful breakfast blog which covers a number of suburbs and metropolitan Melbourne. You can keep your cursor over the link to see a picture of it and a useful/cryptic/lame description I have of it.

Otherwise, please do leave suggestions under the comments for this post if you think there are some things I should do to improve the website. Also, do do do subscribe to this blog, the button is right to the right side. I want to be able to reach a point where I no longer have to suggest visiting this blog through facebook, so instead my status updates can be about far more mediocre aspects of my life.

Thanks heaps,

Hsiang

128 Hopkins St
Footscray

Phở (pronounced like ‘duh’ rather than ‘toe’) is a Vietnamese noodle soup, with rice noodles and sliced beef/chicken/meat in a clear broth, served with assorted items such as chillies, Thai basil, lemon wedges, and bean sprouts.

When me, Cam, and our housemates moved to the west-inner-city, I griped a little at the inconvenience of taking public transportation to the Queen Victoria market to do our fruit and veg shopping. However, we discovered that if we rode the 402 bus (which we normally take to and from uni) to the very end of line, we arrive at the suburb of Footscray. I was extremely pleased to discover that Footscray not only had it’s own farmer’s market, it also had a large population of Filipinos (meaning I could thus buy some products which I miss from back home), as well as a large population of Vietnamese people (for the phở.)

My current favourite phở restaurant is in Footscray, called Phở Hung Vuong, and is just around the corner from both the Footscray train station and the end of the 402 bus line. Phở places are, in fact, not that different from one another. There is not a whole lot of variation to the phở dish. So why have I (and the Cheap Eats Guide 2009) singled out Phở Hung Vuong? Because their broth is absolutely delicious and the price which they charge for it makes my wallet happy.

This place gets completely packed during meal times

Sizes come in baby, small, medium, and omg-my-stomach-cannot-possibly-fit-all-that-but-it-cost-less-than-10-dollars-so-I-thought-it-wouldn’t-be-that large. The different phở choices only vary in what sort of meat is used. Word to the wise: Beef Combo might sound like a great idea for someone who can’t decide on what to get, but just stick with the simple sliced beef unless you like tripe and random meat balls. Make sure you squeeze some lemon juice as well as put in some thai basil (the leaves that smell vaguely minty.) And go nuts with the beansprouts.

Clockwise from top left: baby size, small size, a drink with crushed ice and sweet beans, items to put into your soup, and medium size.

I’ve always been a bit of a big eater. That said, I’d like to take this opportunity to discourage overeating, as it causes a rise in the insulin your body produces, which has been correlated to a shorter life span, among other complications (if you’re a pragmatist, it’s being too fat, if you’re religious, it’s burning in hell.) Anyway, I thought I would order a large bowl. Here’s a picture of the bowl in comparison with a standard tea cup.

Large size vs tea cup

Phở Hung Vuong, delicious broth in overly large bowls. Yum. I hope that if you’re ever in the general inner west Melbourne vicinity that you’ll have a try of this place

~~Hsiang~~

P.S: If you are a University of Melbourne student and have never had phở before, do go to Saigon Noodles at Union House and have some. It’s what got me started on phở in the first place and I hope it will generate a similar interest for you.

P.S.S: Another hotspot for great phở is the suburb Richmond. Will let you know about it when I get around to eating there. But if you’re really hungry for phở and you’re in the middle of the CBD, go to Mekong Noodles on Swanston st.

My family has always loved Christmas and is one of the biggest events of the year in our household. And Hsiang joined us for the first time last year! Our Christmas typically involves a 3-day celebration, largely due to the merging of the typical Western Christmas with that of  Kūčios (Pronounced Koo-Chios), a Lithuanian tradition that we celebrate. This comes from my Grandmother, whose family left Lithuania in the 1940s to escape persecution by the Soviet occupation in WWII.

Now Kūčios as a tradition has an interesting history, as I found out once I had done a little research. Like many Christian Holidays it initially began as a pagan celebration, and in this case for the Winter Solstice. It is a meal with family on Christmas eve, consisting of (at least) twelve dishes and void of any red meat or dairy. This means that most of the food is fish, vegetables or pickled goods, such that might be available in the middle of winter without the aid of modern preserving techniques. This is common to many of the Baltic States but Lithuania has a few subtle differences. Each family largely has their own traditions, like any holiday, but I shall do my best to outline what Kucios entails.

Kūčios is traditionally a very important family event, with family members expected to make every effort to come home. People are only absent during exceptional circumstances. If a family member has died in the past year, a place is still set for them, for it is assumed that they still participate in spirit.

Preparations for Kūčios usually takes an entire day. The dishes are prepared, the house cleaned last minute ingredients are bought and the best room in the house is set for the meal. The Kūčios table table is set with a white tablecloth over hay laden with at least 12 dishes, one for each month of the year. The table is also decorated with traditional pagan symbols of life, such as candles and fir sprigs. During the meal one must traditionally eat some of at least 12 dishes, as it is considered very bad luck to eat less. Each dish is seen to sustain one throughout the year, and not having 12 may mean you won’t survive to see the next Kūčios.

The meal begins with the woman of the house breaking bread with each member of the family. wishing them a merry Christmas and happy new year before the meal begins. Usually at this point it is also customary to reminisce on events of the year both good and bad, especially to honor any family members that may have passed on.

Apparently in my reading I have found that the meal is supposed to be eaten solemnly, although I must admit this is not something that we have been known to follow! Kūčios in our family has always been about retelling favourite family stories, most humourous about each other, and much laughter ensues. Another unique family tradition is to roast the pickled cucumbers in the flames of the candles, which apparently my dad began with his cousins when they were younger… much to the dismay of his own Grandmother!

Today Kūčios is largely a Christian celebration in Lithuania due to the influence of the Catholic church, but many non-religious families including my own do not observe the Christian aspects, although the differences are subtle. The event itself is much the same, but the interpretations different. In the Christian Kūčios the twelve dishes represent the apostles, and the hay the stable in which baby Jesus was born, not a symbol of fertile crops.

After the main meal is finished, traditionally, one of the major differences that Lithuanian twelve dish Christmas contains is the ending of the meal with a Poppy-seed Milk.

Now I had known about the existence of this seemingly vital tradition, but not its importance. Kūčiukai or šližikai (bite-sized hard biscuits) with agounų pienas or aguonpienis (a poppy-seed “milk”) is apparently very Lithuanian, and we had largely left it out of our festivities due to an ignorance of how it was made (The only attempt we had left us picking poppy-seeds out of our teeth for the entire new year period). This season, armed with the knowledge of its importance I rushed into action.

On Christmas eve itself I had this revelation, along with the realisation that Hsiang would not be able to eat the customary 12 dishes, as he was allergic to one of tem. Not wanting to have anything less than a truly Lithuanian Kūčios, nor for Hsiang to die before the next Christmas eve, I dragged Hsiang into the kitchen for some last-minute cooking. With Hsiang giving me exasperated looks I piled him with vegetables and ordered him around, supervising him towards whipping up a last-minute Borscht (a very Baltic/ Russian beetroot soup). With him shanghai-ed (I’m sure there’s a very bad pun there I could make) into slaving over a soup, I set about the difficult task of making poppy-seed milk in a couple of hours.

Usually the method for the milk takes at least a week, because there is no dairy at Kūčios you need tease out the poppy flavour into water, which , if you do it right gives it a milky appearance. After a quick research session on the internet I managed a passable sweetened poppy seed milk using nothing but water, sugar, poppy-seeds and excessive use of a mortar and pestle and food processor. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, but maybe next year I shall invest more time in making the milk a more traditional way and give it a whole blog of its own.

Kūčios is but one night in our family’s Christmas, with the traditional Chrismas lunch the next day and another with the other side of the family on Boxing Day. Add in to our future family a Chinese New Year and it becomes one MASSIVE time of year!

–Cam–

PS: If anyone would like to read more on Kūčios here is the Wikipedia entry on the subject! :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kucios

The other day while I was having new year eve’s sangria at a friend’s house, someone put the new decade into perspective for me – at the dawn of 2010, I will have lived in a total of 4 decades. Eeep. I used to think that the “Noughties” (2000-2009) would have been that decade where I have to step out into the ‘real world.’ But by landing myself back in uni immediately after graduating from it, I have managed to avoid this real world business. So yeah, there are a lot of scary and yet exciting years ahead for me, as I’m sure there are for you as well.

But onto more pleasant matters. Summer! More specifically, summer in Melbourne. Which could only mean one thing… Heat stroke! Well, that and the Suzuki Night Market at the Queen Victoria Market is on! I’m not exactly uncovering a secret by telling you about this (and when you are jostled by thousands of strangers as you await one small plate of Dutch pancakes, you will understand what I mean when I say it isn’t a secret), but if you have been in the dark, are new to Melbourne, or haven’t been in a while and need a refresher, here’s a quick introduction.

Cam and I love the Queen Vic market. If you can be bothered, buying vegetables and meat there is the cheaper and fresher alternative than buying things from the supermarket. If you do go to the Queen Vic market, do hop over to their deli section and buy a little of everything. But I digress – the night market! Every year, starting about sometime in November up to about March, on every Wednesday night, the vegetable stalls are all packed away, the plastic chairs and tables are brought out, and the night market comes to life. Alongside stages where performers are playing all night, and vendors who sell everything from hats to soaps to turkish delight to novelty aprons to jewelry to palm readings, there is a long row of food stalls that smack you in the face with the full force of Melbourne’s diverse culture.

Oh my god the food stalls. I will try to name as many things as I can off the top of my head in one gigantic, delicious, grammatically-nonchalant paragraph. Paella dutchpancakes honeydumplings dumplings wonton lemonade sangria wine eggtarts crocodile kangaroo emu burgers cupcakes churros ethiopian food which I can’t remember the name of tacos nachos curry of all sorts gumbo. Yeah, okay this is too much of an effort to remember and list it all, and it’s making me far too hungry.

The point is, GO THERE. My suggestion, withdraw anywhere from about 30 to 100 dollars (and do it BEFORE you go there, the queues at the ATM machines are ridiculous.) Bring a friend/s. Then, go get a cup of sangria (I really like sangria…), and wander the whole lane of the food stalls, keeping in mind all the interesting things. Divide up the stalls between you and your friend and start queuing. The lines are long, especially at about 7 to 8 o’clock, and there are far too few tables to seat the amount of people. Don’t eat entire dishes by yourself, split many many dishes between you and your friends so everyone can have a bit of everything. My personal suggestions: eat kangaroo burger if you have never had kangaroo, drink sangria (it’s like a punch made with red wine infused with fruit/spices), try some ethiopian food (the lines are shorter because people don’t like trying new things, but it is amazing), and buy one of those beautifully designed cupcakes before they sell out (and they always do).

Suzuki night market. It’s not cheap, and it’s not like it’s amazing gourmet food or anything, but there are so many things to try. Definitely go if you haven’t already.

And have a great decade!

~~Hsiang~~

295 Drummond Street
Carlton

Living at a residential college at the University of Melbourne was a great experience. College has its own standards, its own language, its own culture and its own heartbeat. Unfortunately, it also has its own food. When Cam and I were living there, the college was being catered by a company called Sodexho – Sodexho who also caters fine penal establishments.

Granted, the 3 meals a day would have been extremely welcome during some of our more hectic days, days which we now just buy takeout or order in because we either don’t have time to prepare food, or we are just too damn lazy that day. It’s an odd sort of nostalgia, remembering how towards the end of the semester when the college’s food budget started drying up, our staple diet was the colour brown. It’s amazing how they tried to pass the same brown sludge as casserole, curry, rogan josh, stew, and (by adding tater tots on top) moussaka. Oh and we still fondly recall that one time, for lunch, we were given a boiled potato.

So you can imagine how often we trotted off, seeking better eating arrangements. And the place to chow, due to its proximity to the university, was Lygon Street. This street has an overabundant number of restaurants, gelati stops, cafe’s, and other random goodies. Most of these restaurants serve Italian Food, and specialize in pizza, their dish of choice. And while I do recommend eating around to find your favourite pizza joints, do stop by and try one of mine – D.O.C.

D.O.C. stands for something which is too long for me to remember, and it serves the most amazing pizza, which uses delicious mozzarella cheese from its own mozzarella bar. It’s not exactly right on Lygon Street, but I’m sure google maps will assist you in this matter. I went here with some med friends recently and when they finally stopped gawking at our ‘hot’ waiter (I thought there were hotter ones) ordered some of the pizza:

Med friend of mine says he orders this every single time he goes to D.O.C

How to describe the pizza… The pizza is thin crust but soft and springy, instead of the crispy crusts that thin crusts seem to gravitate towards. The toppings do not crowd the pizza – most pizzas are simple with few high quality toppings such as prosciutto or lumps of mozzarella. One of my med friends said that D.O.C’s pizzas are the most authentic (i.e., most similar to the ones she had while in Italy) pizzas she’s had in Melbourne.

The only downside to D.O.C. is that it’s not somewhere to go if you’re on a tight budget – most of the other places at Lygon will be cheaper than eating at D.O.C. A pizza here, easily eaten by a single person (not large), would cost between 18 to 22 dollars, whereas at other pizza places you can buy a pizza that you could eat for dinner and take home the leftovers for even cheaper than the pizzas at D.O.C. But this is a definite must try if you have a little bit of extra cash to spend.

Addendum:
On a tighter budget, I like going to Cafe Coretto.
For dessert, try either Koko Black (chocolate!!!), or walk into the southern part of Lygon Street to find Il Dolce Freddo for awesome gelati.
When inebriated, Intersection Cafe delivers.

Shameless plug:
Have you told your friends about this blog? Please do.
Have you subscribed to our blog? Please do. (Button is to the right side of the page)

~~Hsiang~~

The very morning after this blog began I was walking down Racecourse Rd in Flemington with Hsiang and my parents in tow when we came across The Social Roasting Company. As I regularly frequent this restaurant strip I was somewhat confused at how I’d missed its inviting open door, complete with the characteristic rattle of an enthusiastic barista, as I have a weakness for cafe culture. When I examined the door, my confusion lifted. The Social Roasting Company closes at 4pm, and my presence on Racecourse Rd is usually during a hunt for dinner.

Middle Eastern twist on traditional brunch satisfies immensely.

Step inside and you are greeted with the familiar. A smiling barista and a varied clientele, seated down to an obviously fulfilling brunch. A blackboard wall, classically scribed with the menu and a Polaroid collage of photos, presumably of staff shenanigans, all serve to reinforce the appeal of the true Melbourne cafe.

The surprise is in the food. After having a quick surf, many reviews exclaim over their coffee, and culture of the cafe. I found that  what impressed me most was the original way in which brunch was approached. It became immediately apparent that those in charge of the menu had embraced the cultural surrounds of diverse Flemington. Traditionally European food had an enigmatic Middle-eastern twist.

Pancakes came with honey labne, the poached eggs with dukkha and porridge with rosewater, cardamom compote, pistachios and honey. Thoroughly impressed with the menu we spent an excessive amount of time deciding what we should get.

Eventually, having made our decision we ordered and settled down to our food. Initially ordered out of curiosity my Spiced Lentil Dhal with Poached Egg turned out to be perfectly paired. I never would have imagined it but the egg mixed deliciously with the dhal, flavoursome and fulfilling. My father quickly devoured a Za’atar Spiced Eggplant burger filled with humus, haloumi and capsicum, while my mother tucked in to a baked egg covered in goodies. Hsiang himself went for a less exotic but by no means any less tasty Beef and Bacon Burger with Fries.

Spiced Lentil Dhal with Poached Egg

Baked Egg with Chorizo, Parmesean Cheese and other goodies.

Unlike many other establishments I have visited that attempts food with a twist, it is not the least bit gimmicky. No mention was made anywhere that I could see to the cultural influence in their food, and as such it was left to stand for itself. Which is did on its own extremely sturdy legs. Each element in the dishes themselves could have been served separate, without comment, as the egg in on my lentils was as nicely poached as the Dhal was spiced.

Indeed there was only one true criticism I could make of the SRC. Whilst the food, coffee and decor were complete, even to the point of a cosy courtyard out the back, I felt a little disappointed on reading a pamphlet upon leaving.

While waiting for a packet of freshly ground house-roasted coffee, I read about how it was organic, fairtrade, environmentally friendly it all was. Admirable qualities to be sure, but the shiny leaflets left me feeling as though they were also hinting that it was self-cleaning and would solve world hunger. The SRC has a few branches around Melbourne apparently, and each supposedly employ the homeless and needy. They go so far to say that they do not ” put an emphasis on young, attractive people” and will employ people who don’t have relevant experience giving people a leg up. It all seems to cry out to indignant students who feel hard-done by, or think that their **Arts Degrees have actually given them a realistic insight into society’s difficulties.

Now I have nothing whatsoever against the practice of fairtrade and support for the disadvantaged. It is this sort of self-deprecation however which does on occasion irritate me. It all gives of a vibe of indie pretentiousness that can infect many a homely cafe with dreadlocked vegans who sit there smug in the knowledge of how much better they are for consuming something that does not destroy the world.

I understand the necessities of the business world that requires one to extol your virtues far and wide, the advertising equivalent of a mating call. I still feel however that one should be able to allow ones morals to stand for themselves somewhat. I don’t pass out shiny postcards detailing how many more morality points I have than you during a first meeting, and you would think me a prick if I did. Actions speak louder than words, and to be honest whenever I see acts of moral exaltation it is difficult me to hear anything other than “wank wank wank wankity wank”.

At this point I put down the pamphlet and gave a quick glance around, but crowd remained the same, deliciously varied and multicultural, without a hint of yuppie superiority. In my suspicious books this particular place is free of infestation, but as I saw their other branches are in the city and, heaven forbid, Prahran, I only hope that in time it does not succumb. Despite my fears, I feel this has become a new favourite of mine, and recommend it thoroughly. Drop in, you may see me there, fearfully watching for signs of yuppie metastasis, in this otherwise socially healthy strip.

-Cam-

** I have nothing against people in Arts Degrees. Many of my friends are Arts students, and I also used to be. I found it wasn’t for me however and switched to Science.

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I’m Hsiang, the other half of ‘We Masticate Together.’ You can thank me for the pseudo-double-entendre that is our blog title. (Waits for applause to die down.) Since Cam already stole the introductory paragraph and waxed poetic all over it, and since I do not possess the Arts degree background he does… I will go straight to writing about a recipe that is frequently used in our household.

Bread.

More specifically, a bread recipe that requires NO KNEADING. That’s right. Low in effort, high in taste, and very good for bragging rights. Bread that, with the right amount of supervision, a ten year old child could make. An amazing place to start if you’ve never baked before.

In other words, the perfect kind of bread for someone like me. I grew up in south-east Asia, in the Philippines, where I led a sheltered life.

A sheltered Asian life, where baked goods were bought at the nearby bakery and where I never ever touched an oven. Hence my first experience using the oven only happened a few years ago when I moved here to pursue by undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne. That, coupled with the fact that I’m extremely lazy and would abhor any sort of kneading, makes this bread recipe perfect for my needs.

This bread recipe was initially taught to us by Cam’s mother (the apprentice chef), who told us about this video she saw on youtube.com. Basically, there’s this bakery in the states called the Sullivan Street Bakery and they pioneered this recipe. That’s a picture of their book. Basically, the book goes through a bunch of variations of the same recipe.

THE BASIC NO-KNEAD BREAD RECIPE:

Special equipment needed:
A large oven-safe pot. Like a big casserole dish. It must have a lid. – MUST be able to withstand high temp (ours is gradually shedding its glaze because we did not check this).
Gladwrap
A towel

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 1/3 cup water
1 1/4 teaspoons table salt
1/4 teaspoon of instant/active dry yeast

For coating the bread and making a crust:
A bit of wheatgerm or semolina or something similar.

NOTE: You will need to let the bread sit for about 12-18 hours, so don’t make this bread in the afternoon thinking to serve it to dinner guests.

Yep. That’s all the ingredients and equipment you need. Plus measuring cups, mixing bowl, measuring spoons, an oven, of course. Cam and I have a gas powered oven at our place, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with an electric oven.

Start by preheating the oven to a high temperature. I’ve cooked from everywhere between 180 degrees Celsius (me forgetting to turn up the heat) to 250 degrees Celsius / 475 degrees Fahrenheit (which is the smelly American way of saying about 250 degrees Celsius.) The pot and its lid in which you will cook the bread in should be left in the oven while it is heating up, because it needs to be very hot when you put your dough in.

Next, get the mixing bowl and put in all the dry ingredients except the wheatgerm/semolina/etc. (in case you haven’t baked before, that means, don’t put the water in yet.)

For the flour, you can use either wholemeal or plain white flour, but do NOT use self raising flour. As a med student, I will stress on the health benefits of using wholemeal flour. You get heaps more vitamins and fiber by using wholemeal flour. In fact, plain white flour is so much more appetising to us because it’s practically just a different form of sugar. I suggest making the switch today to wholemeal bread, wholemeal flour, and even wholemeal pasta. Sure, some people find the taste and texture a bit off-putting at first, but like any other acquired taste, you will grow to enjoy it. We use a mix of wholemeal and white flour depending on what kind of bread we want. For example, white flour tends to make a slightly lighter bread, and is more suited for certain dishes, whereas 100% wholemeal bread provides a far less guilty snack. The book suggest using 50% wholemeal and 50% white flour, but that’s entirely up to you.

Stir up all the dry ingredients with your hands (they’ll get messy soon anyway), and then you can add the water. Mix it all up and the entire mixture should look like a big lump of goopy mess. Note that at this point you CAN choose to put in some other stuff to make the bread more interesting (the book has heaps of ideas). We’ve tried cheese, bacon, and olives. It’s okay sitting out with your bread overnight. Cover up the mixing bowl with gladwrap and place it in a warm-ish location for 12 to 18 hours.

After that time it should look something like this:

It will look different depending on what kind of flour you used, how long you left it alone, what temperature you left it at, and if you did stupid mistakes like adding too much yeast because you weren’t paying attention (like I did with the bread above.) It’s okay if it looks disgusting and goopy (white flour in particular makes it look more goopy.) Give it a shot anyway and see how it turns out, so you’ll know where you went wrong for the next time.

Next, you find a nice clean counter spot and spread a thin layer of flour onto it to prevent the bread from sticking to it. Rub some flour into your hands as well while you’re at it. Take the bread out of the mixing bowl and put it onto the counter top. Pat it down gently so it forms a flat-ish round-ish surface, but don’t pat too hard that all the air is knocked out of the dough. Now grab the left and right ends and fold it across the bread, like so:

That done, you fold over the other top and bottom sides like so:

And now, you take out the towel, place it on the counter, and line the towel with your wheatgerm/semolina/poppyseeds/whatever. We’ve used all sorts of stuff and we save up the leftovers from each time we do this and so for this bread I just used leftover stuff. You place the bread the lumpy side facing DOWN in the middle of the towel, and your aim is to cover up as much of the bread with the wheatgerm. You can use the towel to sort of fold the wheatgerm into the bread, and you can keep the bread covered until your oven is heated up. This is how it should look:

Now once your oven is at the right temperature, chuck your bread in lumpy side UP this time (remember your pot is really hot, so be careful), and cover it up with the lid.

This should cook for about 30 minutes. After this time, take the lid off, put it somewhere where it won’t hurt anybody or anything, and cook for another 15 minutes (this is to get the bread nice and crusty.)

AND THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO IT!

Delicious bread that you can show off to your friends, with the knowledge that is was pretty piss-easy to make. For all of you who hated the way I wrote this bread recipe, I’ve tracked down the video that Cam’s mother learned the recipe from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU

Good luck and don’t burn yourselves!

~~Hsiang~~

]]> http://wemasticatetogether.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/no-knead-for-bread/feed/ 3 studiousfoodies My Bread - written by Jim Lahey, of the Sullivan Street Bakery After 12-18 hours Folded over 4 Folded Sides Covered in wheatgerm etc Finished product http://wemasticatetogether.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/unoriginal-indifferent/ http://wemasticatetogether.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/unoriginal-indifferent/#comments Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:51:27 +0000 studiousfoodies http://wemasticatetogether.wordpress.com/?p=11 ]]> Another food blog. They are all the rage in recent years. Julie & Julia itself sashayed onto the big screen mere months ago, popularizing self-proclaimed “foodies” spreading their gastronomical opinions across the blogosphere. Food is popular. We are no longer few and far between we foodies. We are no longer above the masses, deploring the abysmal dominance of fast food. Slow food is indeed in vogue.

This makes me feel particularly self-conscious about my desire to share my own dabbling in the culinary.  I (again like many others) am loathe to be too readily associated with anything so common as popular culture. However, I am as scornful of those who avoid the popular as those who follow mindlessly. In my opinion they are both sheep, just of a different flock. Thus I at once defy and embrace the modern love of cooking. It is as it should be. We SHOULD live in a culture where lovingly crafted meals are something to be supported and recognized by society. Healthy and joyful eating is indeed one of life’s pleasures that should be savored above most else. (Says he who is now finished exams and now has the time and energy to think such things.)

And so it came to be that, over dinner, I said to my boyfriend I would love to write such a blog if only it would not feel so cheap and unoriginal, a Julie Powell wannabe. After a brief discussion he quickly reminded me how I viewed the sheep of the other flock, and suggested we venture forth indifferent to the approval of popular culture. I guess it all comes down to whether you feel you have something to say.

With a seldom used storage of VCE vocabulary force-fed to me, and a habit of eating out too much, I feel I do have something to say. Friends are often asking us where to eat, and taking cakes, biscuits and even borscht off my hands when I have gotten carried away. I have knowledge to share and a passion for food instilled in my by a family food culture and a mother who, having read life’s manual backwards, waited to get married and have four kids before she began her chef’s apprenticeship. And so we begin. Perhaps, having stolen our shining debut, I shall let my other half introduce himself in the next post. But who knows, I am a wordy bastard. (I have even managed to be told that I talk to much by my Japanese friends, when I was on exchange and only had a fragile grasp on the language at best.)

I imagine that this shall be a space, not only to report on our own meandering experiences of food locales in Melbourne, but a general glimpse as to how we approach food. I as believe this a central part of life’s majesty then I dare say that “food experiences” shall be defined loosely at best. Dinner events/markets/restaurants/kitchenware. All is fair game. Food is a tumultuous and exhilarating ride, one day you can be having a table full of  friends around a hotpot, and the next you can be at a Uni barbecue on South Lawn. Each is as special and unique as that over-quoted snowflake. I intend to share it all.

And it starts.

Read. Eat. And enjoy!

- Cameron -