Measure Twice, Volume 1, number 2, February 1999 Measure Twice There is more stuff trying to get into your kitchen than will ever fit, and it is so easy to fall into the contraption trap when the promise of nosh hangs in the balance. Here are three, no four, useful items with an example of how they could help out on an average day: The bread machine. Dig it, a fresh interesting loaf in four hours, under three if you get your hands involved. The ‘dough’ option, which includes a first rise, is ideal for me, while the automated baking part is hit and miss. Other people are highly successful and some have even perfected the delay feature for breads after work or sweet rolls in the morning. Shaping and baking the bread by hand allows for creative measuring and shaves at least an hour off the total time. The method I use is not different from using a spoon and bowl (or mixer with a dough hook) but has the bonus of a uniformly heated rising chamber and some mess management. Another practical contraption: the pressure cooker, especially the new tame breed with lid and valve in one. Very cool for the chronically unprepared. Because of the high heat achieved, cooking time can be reduced by as much as two thirds, which makes up for any com-promise in quality. It is especially nice to make shredded meat or pot roast or stews and soups without spending all day at it. Rice cookers are super handy. I don’t have one but rice cookers are really great. If you measure correctly and don’t lift the lid, every kind of rice is perfect every time. It doesn’t change the cooking time but no mistakes ever. So, last week I promised Red Beans and Rice to my family and house guest and at 4 o’clock, when I remembered, it was still possible. Bread, too: rosemary and onion. First get after the focaccia. Sauté a coarsely chopped onion in butter until clear, then place entire contents of the pan into the bread hopper with a cup of water. Add several heaping tablespoons of rosemary, a very heaping cup of whole wheat flour, yeast (scant tablespoon), sugar (heaping teaspoon), salt (pinch), and mix in enough unbleached white flour to make a slightly tacky ball. Then walk away for about 90 minutes. With the bread mixed and rising, put a bag of dried beans and water to cover plus about two inches into the pressure cooker. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for heating and sealing; start timing when recommended. After 15 minutes of hissing move the pot off the burner and let it cool until the pressure equalizes. If there’s a huge hurry cook for 18 minutes, then help the pot cool with damp towels or by placing it in a draft. Season the bean mixture and let it simmer until dinner…I put in garlic, molasses, dry mustard, liquid smoke, and the remains of a pork roast, but possibilities are limitless. Try, perhaps, some tomato product, a ham bone, dried or fresh onions, ribs, carrots, salt pork, sausage, or chili powder and a half teaspoon of ground cumin. Fat, be it olive oil, salt pork, butter, lard or the by-product of meat, enhances palatability. Add hot liquid to increase the moisture if necessary. Simmer. When the bread has finished its first rise, flour the counter, flop out the dough, do some cursory kneading to squish out air and work in any additional flour. Hold the dough in one hand and use the other to shape it into a smooth mound by repeatedly tucking the edges into the bottom center. Flatten and place it on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Cover with a towel and let rise somewhere, like on the top of the oven, while it preheats to 350 degrees, for twenty minutes. Start the rice soon. If it’s brown, right away. For white, wait until the end of the shaped rise. Now, brush the bread with olive oil, sprinkle it with coarse salt and bake for twenty minutes. By 6:30, the table can be set, some cheese grated, and the wine opened. No pressure cooker? Open a can, nobody’s telling Martha Stewart. And, what, you ask, if there had been no house guest? Probably the same, it wasn’t hard, but when there’s an actual time crunch we’ve got this other appliance, the spawn of infomercials, the fourth element: Groove to the electric sandwich press. It looks like a waffle iron. In Australia it’s called a Jaffel. You put down some breads, then filling, more breads and then lower the lid. When the light goes off, open to reveal toasty burning hot bread pockets prescored for breaking into triangles. Amy Luick makes bean sandwiches in Ester. | ||
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