On air on bayfm 99.9 community radio on February 18, 2013

 

That sounds like a good little breakfast doesn’t it?  Apples, jam and excellent bread.  We certainly had lots of tips, tricks and loving explanations about how to make sure you don’t kill your mother (as in the sourdough starter) from Rhonda, who feels like “The queen of the world” when she pulls a successful loaf out of the oven.  Thank you very much Sister Deanna for bringing Rhonda on the show.

Sister D and Sister T had a good rave about little apples…big apples, beautiful apples, all around us in their glory at the moment.  And Sister T will remember in future that it is very hard to read a song of praise for apples just after chomping on a mouthful of almonds, but you try talking about food for two hours at lunchtime without getting very very very hungry!

Kulcha Jam however is not something for your bread, it is a great place on the Byron Arts and Industry Estate, do check out the website or drop in,  Techa Beaumont has created a place that is aiming at a rich and joyous version of sustainable living, that includes creativity and inputs from many cultures.  Adam Collett turned up at Kulcha Jam one day and it quickly became a big part of his life, thank you Adam for the beautiful live song.  Food (of course of course) has always been a big part of  Techa’s vision, and a food co-op will start in May for anyone who can contribute a couple of hours a month.  The co-op will be open every Thursday, mostly providing below retail wholegrain foods and some fresh produce.

It is meat free week this week, an interesting initiative to get us all thinking about where it comes from, supported by many good Australian chefs and Voiceless, the animal rights organisation.  See here.  I just finally read Jonathan Safran Foer’s  “Eating Animals”, really excellent, on factory farming in the USA mostly, but many practices are not that different here.

 

 

 

RHONDA’S SOURDOUGH BREAD – recipe courtesy of the fabulous Bourke Street Bakery Cookbook

405g starter – which you have nurtured for at least 1 month

765g strong bread flour

400ml water – cool boiled water

20g sea salt

Mix the starter, flour and water in a large bowl. When the mixture is combined, turn the dough on to a clean work surface and knead the ball for approximately 10 minutes. Or mix for 4 minutes on low and then 3 minutes on medium in an electric mixer with a dough hook. Cover it with cling film and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Remove the cling film, sprinkle the dough with the salt and knead by hand again for a further 20 minutes (or 1 minute low and then 7 minutes medium in electric mixer). You can test the dough’s ready by taking a small ball of the dough and stretching it out to make a window. The dough is ready for the next stage if you can stretch the dough in to a transparent window. If it tears, keep kneading.

Use a thermometer to test the temperature of the dough – if it is sitting between 25 and 27 C, it’s ready. If it is cooler, leave it to prove in a warm area until it warms up. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with cling film and leave it to prove in a warm spot for an hour. (The Bourke Street Bakery Cookbook suggests an ambient room temperature of 20C.

The knock back stage follows – turn the dough out onto a clean lightly floured surface and shape the dough into a simple rectangle. Fold the dough into the centre by a third at each end. Turn the dough a quarter turn and repeat the folds by a third back into the centre. Place the dough back in the lightly oiled bowl and prove for a further hour in the same warm spot.

Divide the dough into two or three even portions ( depends on your preference – I like to make 2 big loaves) . Take one portion of dough and shape it into a familiar loaf shape. Repeat for the remaining two portions. You can put them in a banetton basket or a loaf tin or just on a baking tray.

Place the loaves on a lined baking tray, with the seam facing downward. Place the loaves loosely in a clean plastic bag and place the tray in the fridge for 8-12 hours.

Remove the loaves from the fridge and plastic and let them come to room temperature in a warm humid place. This could take between 1 and 4 hours, depending on the temperature of the room and the season. I put them in a closed cupboard with a big bowl of hot water. The loaves should grow by about two thirds. If you gently press a loaf and it springs back it is OK; if it doesn’t spring back it is over-proved and should be cooked straight away.

It is important to score the loaves with a razor blade before baking – this allows steam to release from the loaf without splitting or tearing through, ruining the shape of the loaf. Immediately prior to placing the loaves in the oven, spray the walls with water. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the loaves around and bake for a further 10 minutes. When the bread is baked, tap the base of the loaf – it should sound hollow.

It really helps to go to a professional sourdough class to get started– we went to the Black Pearl cooking school in Brisbane.

Also, for invaluable ideas, online demo videos and advice from other home bakers around the world, look at the Sourdough Companion website.

Good luck!

Rhonda

 

APPLES

Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.   A truly wonderful line from the Song of Solomon, the most beautiful, or at least the most sensual bit of the Judeo-Christian bible.   Plenty of gorgeous tempting apples all around us right now.

Apples have almost twice as many genes as humans according to Wikipedia, which maybe explains why they come in so many colours & types,about 7 to 8 000 varieties. The first sour little apples came from the middle East at least 4000 years ago, & there are probably more myths about them than any other fruit, partly because the word apple was used for a lot of fruits in ancient times. An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but it will bring you love. From the Mediterranean to Scandinavia they were linked to love and fertility. In Greece, you could throw an apple at somebody to declare your love, and if the somebody caught it that meant yes please. We all know what happened when Adam said yes to Eve’s apple, and the city of Troy ended up burned to the ground when a jealous goddess wasn’t given an apple. A Nordic goddess dropped an apple on a queen’s lap, the queen had a 6 year pregnancy and gave birth to a hero. A powerful, dangerous, seductive fruit. So it’s a bit odd that a lot of us are bored with apples. Or maybe it’s just another fruit that doesn’t taste as it used to. If we can find good apples, they are also good for our health, for our circulation, lungs and memory.

For thousands of years they have been used with fatty meats and fish. Pork and apple sauce, apples & sausages, or try apple slices fried in butter with mackerel. Monsieur Larousse recommends apples with roast poultry, red cabbage, walnuts, so locally try pecans, in salads with celery, raisins, or beetroot. A lot of apples become cider, which is also good used in cooking those apple loving meats & fish, & a few apples become the beautiful liqueur Calvados, from Normandy. I often like to soak apples in a little Calvados before using them. Classic sweets include apples stuffed, covered in pastry and baked, strudel, & of course all manner of apple pies.

Apple pie is Sister Deanna’s favourite thing to bake, and that is really saying a lot.  I love a tarte tatin, the upside down apple tart.  Last night I tried it with some macadamia nuts in the shortcrust dough, which works very well.  I also cooked the apples a little in the oven before dropping the dough on top, which also worked well.  And we keep talking about apple pie but it looks like we don’t have Deanna’s recipe on the belly site yet, coming soooon.

 

BELLY BULLETIN

 

Aspiring fracker Metgasco announced last Wednesday that it would suspend gas exploration in our area. The retreat from Doubtful Creek came among jubilation and more arrests of protesters. Meantime Dart Energy has recently acquired an exploration licence that covers a third of Tweed Shire, all in areas that have declared themselves Gasfield Free. So the battle to protect our prime food growing land continues.

And aspiring fried chicken entrepreneurs have had their proposal for a KFC franchise in the centre of Byron Bay rejected by council, following staff recommendations that car parking was insufficient. The proposal attracted 350 individual submissions, only 2 of those were pro-KFC. And resident Simon Seven, who obviously believes that one man can make a difference, organised a petition with more than 4,000 signatures opposing the fast food store. Objections included the large signage, lack of toilets, and contrast with Byron’s healthy image. Details of the “stormy” council meeting are on last Friday’s edition of the Echo online.

Last Tuesday, the NSW state government decided to allow beach based recreational fishing in our marine parks. This includes many sanctuary areas within the Cape Byron Marine Park. Fiona Maxwell, campaigner for the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said : “Allowing recreational fishing in sanctuary zones flies against the fundamental principles of marine sanctuaries being safe havens for our marine life and goes against years of scientific evidence that show they work.” Critics also say that the NSW government is misrepresenting a study into marine parks that it is using to justify the decision.

Many locals are fearing for their jobs as the Byron Bay Cookie Company attempts to trade out of trouble. It went into voluntary receivership earlier this month, reportedly owing money to suppliers, the tax office, and employees. The company’s products have been a familiar sight for many years on several airlines, and a lot of big city cafe counters. It claims to bake over 60 million cookies a year and sell in 40 countries.

And in Rome there is now a pope who cooks – Pope Francis, born in Argentina from Piemontese migrants – drinks Argentinian mate regularly and Piemontese light red grignolino, but usually cooks for himself and eats by himself, very frugal healthy food: salad, chicken without skin, fruit, but he likes espresso, and maybe occasionally the Piemonte classic bagna cauda, a warm garlic & anchovy dip, with raw veg and polenta, with the nuns.

 

love and chocolate covered apples, Sister T