Post facto
Mar. 16th, 2009 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI can't really be hungry, for lo: I have had lunch. Ham and mustard on ciabatta, with a pickle on the side.
The ciabatta's good, I think: perhaps as good as what they sell under that name in Fenwick's, tho' certainly not, nowhere near as good as the artisan-baker's at the Cafe Royal. Which is my criterion. Next time I might try a different recipe, if there is a significant variation; I don't know enough to know whether the fall-short is due to recipe or technique or equipment. Experiment will help to pin it down, and I certainly do want to do this again. Despite the truly-awfulness of handling this particular dough.
Meantime, tho': hungry. Bah.
[thinks: my own ciabatta, my own ham. Perhaps I should make my own mustard? I know the principle, I have the seeds. And the pestle and mortar, because where's the fun in a food processor...?]
[ETA: I just found a recipe that says, inter alia, "Stir yeasted water again, then measure one-half teaspoon into the flour mixture. (Throw the rest away; the point of this step is not to proof the yeast but to measure 1/384 teaspoon yeast.)" Heh...]
[ETA 2: Another recipe says "This is one dough that simply can't be kneaded by hand; it's just too sticky." Which is a lovely thing to read, when you have yourself been wondering whether you could bear to do it in a machine next time; but it does at the same time raise the inevitable question, so what did people do before there were machines? Besides, I have proved, it can be kneaded by hand. It's just revolting.]
The ciabatta's good, I think: perhaps as good as what they sell under that name in Fenwick's, tho' certainly not, nowhere near as good as the artisan-baker's at the Cafe Royal. Which is my criterion. Next time I might try a different recipe, if there is a significant variation; I don't know enough to know whether the fall-short is due to recipe or technique or equipment. Experiment will help to pin it down, and I certainly do want to do this again. Despite the truly-awfulness of handling this particular dough.
Meantime, tho': hungry. Bah.
[thinks: my own ciabatta, my own ham. Perhaps I should make my own mustard? I know the principle, I have the seeds. And the pestle and mortar, because where's the fun in a food processor...?]
[ETA: I just found a recipe that says, inter alia, "Stir yeasted water again, then measure one-half teaspoon into the flour mixture. (Throw the rest away; the point of this step is not to proof the yeast but to measure 1/384 teaspoon yeast.)" Heh...]
[ETA 2: Another recipe says "This is one dough that simply can't be kneaded by hand; it's just too sticky." Which is a lovely thing to read, when you have yourself been wondering whether you could bear to do it in a machine next time; but it does at the same time raise the inevitable question, so what did people do before there were machines? Besides, I have proved, it can be kneaded by hand. It's just revolting.]