StevenGould
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Ciabatta and BLOATers
🕑 Added 2021-02-23 00:08:00 +0000 UTCMeans slipper in Italian. This version I make only has 4 ingredients (bread flour, yeast, water, kosher salt.) Apparently the original version has olive oil as well. It is a "high-hydration" dough, which means it is wet as a swamp, but I think that actually makes it easier to make.
I make sandwich-sized rolls (like above) or two big loaves, depending on my mood.
It makes unbelievably good Bacon, Lettuce, Onion, Avocado, and Tomato sandwiches (which I call BLOATers, though, technically, that is a form of ungutted cold-smoked herring*.) It also makes fantastic toast or a great bread to sop up pasta sauce and I also cube it to make croutons for salad or homemade tomato soup.
Though I've been buying ciabatta for years, I found it odd that it actually just dates back to 1982 when an Italian baker named Arnaldo Cavallari was looking for something to compete with French baguettes and, after trial and error with many traditional bread types, created ciabatta polesana, named after Polesine, the area he lived in.
I learned how to make it from this video by a retired chef in the north of England. The ingredients and amounts are still the same, but I've adjusted it a bit.
Would people be interested in seeing me cook it in a moderately short video?
Also, what have you guys learned to cook during lockdown?
* I first encountered bloaters in the Edward Gorey classic illustrated book, The Unstrung Harp, or Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel. In that book, which is one of the most scathing and accurate descriptions of what it is like to be a novelist, Mr. Earbrass, while going through a used bookstore, finds one of his earlier novels which he has signed to someone (who subsequently sold it.) The inscription reads: "For Angus — will we ever forget the bloaters?" Mr. Earbrass' immediate thoughts are, Angus? Bloaters?
I presume that the bloaters referred to therein are the version which is ungutted, whole, cold-smoked herring. I really doubt it refers to Bacon Lettuce Onion Avocado and Tomato sandwiches. By the way, bloaters is one version of prepared herring. You have almost certainly heard of kippers, which are cold smoked herrings which have been gutted and split. But have you heard of bucklings? Bucklings are whole, ungutted herrings which have been hot smoked.
A quick search on the netz has informed me that the "buckler" in "swashbuckler" refers to a small round shield but I feel strongly that a case should be made that the "buckling" in "swashbuckling" could refer to waving a hot smoked herring around in a blustering, swaggering manner.
Comments
Elizabeth Bennefeld
Yeah, I'm not much into sweets. Lot of thawed, fresh-frozen whole fruits with plain Greek yogurt is one of my meals, either breakfast or lunch. And blueberries turn the scrambled eggs an...interesting color. The apricots, I have not eaten them since childhood, but I can imagine the preserves would be good in/on an omelette. I will investigate that when I eventually get back to a store. (I have a little/growing list.)
Zellyn Hunter
I've been making Tartine Sourdough Bread — classic quarantine cliche: my son named our starter "Tina" … as in "Quarantina". I might have to try smaller rolls and see how they turn out…
Steven Gould
One of my favorite omelettes (more of a desert omelette, actually) is one with apricot preserves and dusted lightly with powdered sugar. I definitely make it on the moist side and eat it with toast to mop up the sweet, fruity residue. (For my waistline's sake I don't have it too often.)
Elizabeth Bennefeld
I liked the video you linked to. Interesting to me in part because I have not made any but bread-machine, gluten-free loaves (no longer on my diet). Kippers are a mainstay, here, and eggs. I have been trying different ways to make omelettes and scrambled eggs so that they turn out moist and with more taste to them. I do a nice frying pan-cooked brussel sprouts omelette. [My most favorite of your books are Wildside and Impulse.]
