The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Casatiello

 

One day I was browsing through the web and found The BBA Challenge group at Pinch my Salt. Very interesting, it's kindda like the Daring Bakers but they are following Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

You're suppose to start from the 1st recipe and move your way through all the recipes in the book. I will, I promise, starting from the next bake, for now, I just had to make Casatiello, I had all the ingredients at home, the Italian salami and a wonderful herb-ed Gouda cheese. 


 It takes 1 hour of actual work, cutting, kneading, shaping and putting it in oven; The rest are simply proofing and waiting for the dough to leaven. I baked mine in 8" loaf pan, the book's picture is a round bread which I don't find it convenient.

Look at all the cheese oozing out on the surface!!!

Before I remember to take a cross section picture, we finished both loaf :) 

The bread's texture is pretty much like a normal sandwich bread, not too moist but not dry either, the only thing special is the crunchy crust, maybe it's because of all the butter? With the salami and the herb-bed gouda, the bread by itself is a satisfying breakfast. Next time, I will definitely try it with some other filling (perhaps cheese only with ham instead of the salty and fattening salami?), maybe even make it sweet with some nuts!

勇敢的俺 買了顆豬頭, Cooking a Pig's head, not for the faint of hearts :)

Today I went to the local wholesale market, La Vega, where all of the fruits, veggies, meats, herbs, etc. are at.

Yes I bought enough to feed an army, but I just couldn't stop myself with the cheap price in comparison to local supermarkets. Here's what I bought: 3kg of apple (CLP400/kg), 1kg red grapes (CLP1000/kg), 1kg green grapes, 1.5kg Khaki, green onions (I bought CLP250/bush but a couple of stores further, the prices went down to 200/bush!!! DARN!!!), 4 corns (CLP1000), 1/2kg Hazelnuts (CLP600), 1 bag of oranges (10kg/2500), something more but who can keep track :P

Finally, we went across street to the meat market and I bought a pig's head, yeap, that's right, an entire pig's head. I asked the butcher to break it up into large pieces and take out the brain for me. The brain can get too sticky if trying to handle at home and it's too high of cholesterol for our family.

It took me almost 30min just to wash it clean and separate the ears, tongue and discard some funny parts (nose and fatty tissues). Boiled it for 5min, discarded the water with impurities. Then took out the pieces with washed the pieces again with cool water. Adding 20g of ginger, it's boiled again with enough water to almost cover everything.

After boiling for 40min, the stock is now white and smells soooooo good!!! I took out all the pieces and the meat came right off the bones. Again placed the bones back in to boil for 5 more minutes and turn off the fire. Tomorrow once it cools, I will be able to discard the extra fat solified on top of the stock.

Forgot to take the picture of the head pre-prepared, but here's what's left after removing the bones. Not too much, it's an 8x8in pan

Here's the ears and tongue with some tofu cooked Chinese braising style (滷豬耳,舌頭)

I just hope that my dear husband won't read this blog until after dinner :P He's got a thing about animal parts, once he knows what part it's from, he's not gonna eat it, much less from a strange part!