Author: AJ

Another Simple (3 Hour) Focaccia

by A.J. Coltrane

Served at this tomato tasting. Most recent Rosemary Focaccia here.

I’ve gradually been dialing back the amount of oil that I’ve been putting into focaccias…

Background:  When I started making focaccia I always measured the oil by volume. At some point I decided that seemed like a silly way to do it — if I already had the scale out, why dirty another measuring cup? My starting point for “oil by weight” was 10%+, as well as a pretty generous dose on top. The link above uses 8% oil. The focaccia below used only 4% with a very, very light drizzle of oil on top.

To go even further off track for a moment — I’m intending to do a post about how different bread types are related to each other based upon their contents. The thing is, I’m not entirely sure anymore what exactly I’m “making”. I have a starting idea, but that’s about it. Though I guess it really doesn’t matter so long as it tastes good.

The bread below uses 100% hydration — the weight of the water is equal to the weight of the flour. That’s among the highest hydration doughs that I’ve posted. This Berenbaum recipe used 113% hydration, but that’s (I think) the highest hydration dough I’ve done (and it uses 9% oil).

I was hoping to achieve a relatively spongy texture — lots and lots of little, fairly uniform holes. The ingredients:

Ingredient Measure Baker’s %
Bread Flour 520 g
Water 520 g 100
Salt 11 g 2
Olive Oil 20 g 4
Instant Yeast 1.5 tsp

Recipe:

1.  Combine all ingredients in a mixer and combine on low speed for 12 minutes. Lightly oil a parchment lined sheet tray.

2.  Let the dough rest for 20 minutes, then pour it into the sheet tray, gently coaxing the dough towards the edges of the pan. Cover and let rest 1.5 hours.

3.  Preheat oven to 425F.

4.  When the oven is hot, drizzle a small amount of oil on top of the dough.

5.  Bake for 15 minutes, turn the tray 180 degrees and bake for another 10 minutes.

That’s it. It’s seriously simple. The only “trick” is make sure that all of the flour incorporates into the dough — it will tend to want to stay on the sides of the mixing bowl. I used a spatula to scrape down the sides a couple of times during the mixing, then aggressively combined the remaining raw flour after removing the bowl from the mixer.140818 focaccia

Postmortem:  I feel like this one came out about as well as it could have for a 3-hour dough. Using bread flour rather than AP flour was (I believe) the right choice. Adding toppings (salt, herbs, or onion) might have made it more interesting, but the object was to complement the tomato tasting, and in that respect it was basically what I had targeted.

Multiple thumbs up.

Container Garden Update — August 19, 2014

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

Silly August 18, 2013 post here. (Includes two cat pics and must have been written on very little sleep.)

The plants continue to look more and more haggard as the fruit production ramps up. There’s now mold on the zucchini leaves, some of the tomato plants, and the Brussels Sprouts (of all things). SeattleAuthor shared the hypothesis that the mold may be partly due to the humidity we’ve been seeing. That’s possible — there’s a small holly tree start across the yard that is covered in mold too.

But the production is going gangbusters:

Monday the 11th:

140811 harvest

Thursday the 14th:

Continue reading “Container Garden Update — August 19, 2014” →

Pesto Naan Gone Wrong

by A.J. Coltrane

Cedar’s on Brooklyn has an awesome Pesto Naan. Really, everything there is tasty and very reasonably priced. Try anything from the tandoori oven, but don’t go when it’s dinnertime. To quote Yogi Berra: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

I thought I’d try to replicate their Pesto Naan, only without the tandoori oven. I selected the Joy of Cooking recipe as a jumping off point and came up with this:

Ingredient Weight Volume Baker’s %
Bread Flour 400g ~3 cups 100
Greek Yogurt 264g ~1-1/3 cups 66
Kosher Salt 8g 2
Instant Yeast 1 tsp
Additional Water as needed

The Joy recipe calls for adding 1-2 tablespoons of water as necessary to make the dough come together. I added 2-3 tablespoons.

I kneaded the dough on low speed for 8 minutes, then set it aside to rest for 1-1/2 hours. While the dough was resting I made a simple pesto. So far so good. Time to preheat the oven to 450F.

I divided the dough into two pieces and rolled each piece out thinly. I then spread the pesto over one round, topped it with the other round and sealed the package.

It sealed ok, but then I decided *that* wasn’t good enough. I tried rolling out the package at little more and managed to irreparably split the seam. Bad idea #1.

At that point I said “Ok screw it. Let’s put it in the oven and see what happens.”

Unfortunately I selected the perforated pizza pan that I like so much. Unfortunately as the pesto heated up it exuded a bunch of oil. Unfortunately that oil leaked out the sides of the naan and caught fire on the bottom of the oven.

“That’s a lot of smoke.”

“Where’s the fire extinguisher?!”

It wasn’t a *big* fire, but it was big enough to be a concern. I grabbed the nearest towel and yanked the mostly cooked dough out of the oven. No sense feeding more fuel into the fire. Plus, I’d put some energy into the naan! I was torn between dosing the fire extinguisher into the oven or just riding it out. I couldn’t figure out how to work the fire extinguisher, which was just as well. The fire burned itself out in 3 or 4 minutes.

“Well heck, the fire is out. I’ll leave the oven turned off and put the naan back into the oven to finish cooking — on a sheet tray this time.”

140725 pesto naan

The bottom was a little too dark, but overall it was a winner.

As an added bonus I’d managed to throw a piece of orange plastic into the oven as part of the rush to yank out the naan during the fire. Chiseling melted plastic out of the oven is so much fun!

Note to self:  No perforated pans next time.

DeAndre Yedlin Is Fast

by A.J. Coltrane

Here’s a link to a post about Andre Yedlin and what it says about the future of US soccer. [ESPN/Grantland]

What got my attention was this paragraph:

Today, it’s easy to look at Yedlin — 5-foot-8 and thick-chested, and able to outrun the best soccer players in the world — and imagine him on an NFL roster. He could be Darren Sproles, leaving linebackers grasping at air, or he could be Tyrann Mathieu, another Mohawked terror with a knack for separating offensive players from the ball. In college, Yedlin was clocked at about 4.2 seconds in the 40-yard dash. And, says his college coach, Caleb Porter, “It’s about a lot more than top-end speed. It’s his burst, his ability to go from a jog to a sprint before you even realize what has just happened.” His athleticism, Porter says, “is truly world-class.”

(Emphasis mine.)

If he really ran a 4.2 it’d make him about as fast as anyone in the NFL. That’s fringe Olympic sprinter speed. The top combine times since 2009:

Time Name Height Weight Year
4.24 Rondel Melendez 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) 192 lb (87 kg) 1999
4.24 Chris Johnson 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) 192 lb (87 kg) 2008
4.25 Tavon Austin 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) 178 lb (81 kg) 2013
4.26 Jerome Mathis 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) 184 lb (83 kg) 2005
4.26 Dri Archer 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) 173 lb (78 kg) 2014
4.27 Stanford Routt 6 ft 2 in (188 cm) 193 lb (88 kg) 2005
4.27 Marquise Goodwin 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) 181 lb (82 kg) 2013
4.28 Champ Bailey 6 ft 0 in (183 cm) 192 lb (87 kg) 1999
4.28 Jacoby Ford 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) 190 lb (86 kg) 2010
4.28 DeMarcus Van Dyke 6 ft 1 in (185 cm) 187 lb (85 kg) 2011
4.29 Fabian Washington 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) 188 lb (85 kg) 2005
4.29 Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie 6 ft 2 in (188 cm) 184 lb (83 kg) 2008
4.29 Josh Robinson 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) 199 lb (90 kg) 2012
4.3 Darrent Williams 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) 176 lb (80 kg) 2005
4.3 Tye Hill 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) 185 lb (84 kg) 2006
4.3 Yamon Figurs 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) 174 lb (79 kg) 2007
4.3 Darrius Heyward-Bey[12] 6 ft 2 in (188 cm) 210 lb (95 kg) 2009

Not many of those guys are very tall, though on average they outweigh Yedlin by around 20 or 30 pounds.

The other line I thought was interesting was this one:

Some have suggested that Yedlin move full time to midfield. But his skill set, built on quickness and speed more than creativity and technique, would have a defined ceiling if he moved farther upfield. “Could he be a winger? Yeah, sure,” Porter says. “But when you look at the top wingers, he’s never going to be more technical and more clever off the dribble and in his combination and movement than those guys are. He just doesn’t have that. But at right back? With his athleticism, bombing forward, going box to box? Right now, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, he obviously already looks like the right back of the future for our national team. Beyond that, he can be a Champions League right back. He can be that good.” The difference, says Porter: At age 21, it may already be too late to master the finer points of midfield technique. But defending? “Yeah,” Porter says, “that can definitely be taught.”

Is that the next wave of US Soccer? Kids who either started too old or are just generally underskilled but who have terrific athleticism. In that context they’re still useable as marauding defenders, striking up the sidelines and running past the opposing defenders.

Works for me.

——–

The Yedlin to Tottenham deal is finally official. (As of 6 hours ago.) The details, and a picture of Yedlin holding a Tottenham jersey are at SI.com. That makes sense, he was held out of Sunday’s game and it was obvious why.

Container Garden Update — August 10, 2014

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. August 11, 2013 post here.

The cucumber box fell over on Friday. The Ultomato framework is overwhelmed — parts of it came off during the tumble. I harvested five pounds cucumbers, put the framework back together as much as possible, then propped the box up against a beam that holds up the deck:

140810 cucumber

Continue reading “Container Garden Update — August 10, 2014” →

Container Garden Update — August 3, 2014

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. August 4, 2013 post here. The August 4 post includes the popular-on-Google picture “Girl Cat And Ziplocks Full Of Green Leaves”. It’s basil of course, but I’d guess it made the rounds as a picture of something other than basil. Why else would it be popular?

Onward. Here’s the veg from the last couple of days posing together:

140803 harvest

Continue reading “Container Garden Update — August 3, 2014” →

M’s at the Trade Deadline

By Blaidd Drwg

Congratulations to the Mariners for pulling of the single most underwhelming trade of today so far in getting a 34 year old replacement level outfielder to add to their collection of replacement level OFers in exchange for a 24 year old replacement level OF and a spare part MILB Pitcher. At least Denorfia hits right handed. This trade does nothing to improve the team other than adding a RH bat to the bench. Of course, I can almost guarantee that McClendon is going to give Denorfia regular playing time instead of platooning him.

Hall of Fame Eligibility

By Blaidd Drwg

The BBWAA is changing the procedure for voting for the Hall of Fame. Once you are on the ballot, you are now only eligible for 10 years rather than 15. This is going to create a bigger mess because of the mess that the BBWAA has already created.

Because there are a large number of idiots in the BBWAA who feel like they need to make a point about the sanctity of the game with their votes, there is a massive log jam of guys who should be inducted but haven’t been. How bad is it? For the guys still on the ballot that you can make a legitimate case for election, we have: Biggio, Piazza, Bagwell, Raines, Clemens, Bonds, Lee Smith, Schilling, Edgar Martinez, Trammell, Mussina, McGwire, Larry Walker and Sosa. That doesn’t count Rafael Palmeiro who is no longer eligible or newbies for 2015 Sheffield, Smoltz, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. Steroids aside, that is 18 potential candidates on a ballot that can have a maximum of 10 names on it. It is only going to get worse and it probably won’t be until the 2019-2020 ballots that we don’t have a significant number of good new candidates joining each year. That means that there are guys that are going to miss out on enshrinement that absolutely deserve to be.

I also had a friend make the argument that a guy is a first ballot HOFer or not. My counter to that was, steroid issues aside, what do you do when you have 11 qualified candidates and only 10 spots on your ballot? If you figure we add 2-3 players a year to the Hall and 3-4 more qualified candidates to the ballot, how long before the backlog actually clears? This assumes that every ballot has 10 names on it anyway.

Besides this, have you ever seen the list of guys that were not “first ballot HOFers”? Here are some highlights with the number of years it took them to get elected:

Cy Young (2)

Rogers Hornsby (5)

Mel Ott (3)

Jimmy Foxx (7) – interesting side note, when Foxx retired, he was second on the all-time home run list behind Babe Ruth. It would be nearly 25 years before Willie Mays passed him.

Joe Dimaggio (3) – yep. The Yankee Clipper only drew 44.3% of the vote in his first year.

Roy Campanella (5)

Yogi Berra (2)

Robin Roberts (7)

Edie Mathews (5)

Juan Marichal (3)

Carlton Fisk (2)

Robby Alomar (2)