Tag: sourdough

Homemade Sourdough Bierocks

On By Rob GIn Close to Home, RecipeLeave a comment

For the past few years, I’ve tried to make foods that have components of both teams in the Super Bowl. This year’s teams are San Francisco and Kansas City. I could have gone the easy way and had a steak sandwich on sourdough bread, but I wanted to try something a little bit different. Something that would let me test my cooking skills. I saw that the Kansas City regions (both Kansas and Missouri) have something called bierocks as a popular local dish. They are a yeast dough pastry pocket sandwich filled with savory foods.

Since this was a bread dish, I thought that sourdough would be a good match, since sourdough bread is one of those things I think about when it comes to San Francisco. I looked for raw sourdough bread, but was not able to find any in the grocery stores, so I decided to make my own sourdough starter, which I wrote about yesterday.

One of the tough things with sourdough bread is that it can have a very hard crust. I didn’t think a hard crust would be a good fit for the bierocks, so I had to make adjustments.

Last night, I mixed up 2 cups of my sourdough starter, 3 cups of flour, 1 1/4 cups of water and a pinch of salt. It was a better consistency than my first effort, and I covered it loosely and let it sit on a cookie sheet over night.

I thought about the timing of the food and how it would best be prepared. I had to make the filling and provide it with enough time to cool, so that was the next thing I worked on.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound ground beef

1/2 head cabbage

1/2 large white onion

dash of salt

dash of pepper

Step one was to chop 1/2 head of cabbage and 1/2 of a large white onion.

Next, I browned the ground beef. I used an 85/15 split, so there was some fat but not too much. I added the salt and pepper right before it was all browned.

Next, I added the chopped cabbage and onion and reduced the heat to medium low. I covered with a lid and cooked for 25 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.

I took off the lid, turned the heat up to medium, and cooked for another five minutes. I then set it aside to let it cool. I tried a couple of bites, and it tasted much better than expected.

While the mixture was cooling, it was time to turn my attention to the sourdough. After about 15 hours of sitting, it expanded and got flat. I put some flour on a wooden board and worked the dough a bit.

I could have stopped here and made a bread bowl, but I wanted to make those bierocks. I rolled the dough until it was about two inches around, and then took off two inch portions and made round balls.

They didn’t keep their shape, but that was okay. This batch made 19 dough balls. I let those sit for about 15 minutes, which also gave the filling more time to cool. I didn’t want the filling to be too hot, since it was going to be surrounded by dough.

It was now time to make these stuffed sandwiches. I flattened out the dough balls.

Next, I added in a spoonful of filling.

I sealed it up at the top, and then I rolled it around in my hands to be more rounded.

This is one of the trays. They didn’t keep a round shape, but they still looked good. There were a couple of spots where there was too much filling and it tore through the dough, but I wasn’t looking for perfection. The meat mixture was about twice as much as I needed. I don’t mind the leftovers, since I can use them in the next few days. I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. I did this to let the dough have some more time to rest before getting baked.

I cooked them for 15 minutes, rotated, and then another 16 minutes, and they were done.

It was now time to eat. I know that I made this well before the Super Bowl started, but there was no way I could wait until 6:30 PM to eat food. And prep time would take away from watching the game (and the commercials). Biting into this stuffed sandwich was pretty nice. The top was easy to bite through and was not crunchy like a normal sourdough bread. The bottom was a little more crisp, but still easy to bite through. I think this would be better with the traditional dough, which would be softer and a little more sweet, but this was still good.

The meat mixture had some good flavor to it. I’m not always a big fan of cabbage, but it had a nice consistency to it and it absorbed the flavors of the meat and onions really well. I had one bite that was just cabbage, and it had a velvety consistency and a smooth flavor that pleasantly surprised me. I really enjoyed this meal. It would have been better to have people to share it with, but at least I already have my lunch and dinners prepared for the next week. It’s easy to stay positive when the food you spend time to prepare works out. No matter what happens in the Super Bowl, this has been a great day. Enjoy!

Homemade Sourdough Bread (Including Starter)

On By Rob GIn Close to Home, RecipeLeave a comment

This has been a fun week for me. In preparation for some food that I want to make tomorrow, I decided that I would try my hand at making fresh sourdough bread. This is mainly because I could not find any raw sourdough bread in the grocery stores, so this ended up working out for me. I tried to find if there was a standard recipe for a starter, but there are many variations (some called for a thinner starter, some called for a thicker starter). Some required very precise measurements. When I cook, I am not usually precise, but when I bake, I try to be precise with the main ingredients. Since there were so many variations, I tried to do my best and see what happened.

I started this on Sunday, since most recipes said it would take about 5 or 6 days for the starter to be ready. I used just over 3/4 cups of flour and 1/2 cup of water. Mixed it up, put it in a bowl and loosely covered it with plastic wrap. It seemed to be a bit thick, but I didn’t want to overthink things.

Monday night came and I was ready for phase two. It had set for 24 hours and did not look as thick. There was a little moisture around the outside edges, so my first thought was that I didn’t mix it all the way, but I think this was more just the natural process.

It was feeding time, so I mixed in the same amounts of flour and water as the first day, covered loosely with plastic wrap and let it be.

Tuesday night arrived, and it was looking a little thinner, but there weren’t any bubbles or anything. This is when I was starting to question if I had done it right. Even though the recipes said it could take a couple of days to start seeing bubbles, I had doubt. The recipes also said it should be kept at a temperature of 70-75 degrees. I keep my house between 60-65, and I had it in a glass bowl, which felt even colder. So I was questioning whether or not this would work.

I did another feeding, and had my fingers crossed that something – anything – would happen.

Wednesday evening came along and I was happy. There were a couple of bubbles in there. Not many, but at least some. I had some optimism. It didn’t taste any different, though (I took little tastes every night, just because I’m weird like that).

It was time to feed it again. I had not factored in all of the days I would be adding flour and water, so the original bowl I started with got to be too small. I had to upgrade to a larger bowl (which happened to be plastic). Loosely covered it, and let it go.

Thursday night arrived and I was happy with what I saw. There were quite a few bubbles, and it started to have an “aroma” to it.

I did my evening feeding and let it be for another day.

Friday night came and then came the words. “Feed me, Seymour!”. This was really odd, since my name is not Seymour, and I did not name this Audrey II. For those of you who get the reference, thank you for rolling your eyes. For those of you who did not get the reference, you can roll your eyes later. The aroma had definitely become more distinct. I now understood why they call it sourdough.

I wanted to try to do a test run on Saturday, so I decided to take some of the starter aside. I fed the starter base and let it sit.

I took out one cup of the starter.

I added 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of water and a pinch of salt. I mixed it all together, put a light layer of oil on the top, covered it loosely with plastic wrap, and let it stay in the bowl to sit overnight. It was still a bit sticky, which I think was a mistake on my part.

When I woke up in the morning, there was not much of a change to the dough. I added a little flour to it and turned the oven on to 400.

I put a little bit of flour on a baking sheet and placed the bread on top of it. I then gave it an “X” on the top. There was still another 10 minutes before the oven was ready, and it started to rise a little within that time. That let me know I messed up with how I put this all together. No matter, I put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

The house had a nice sourdough bread smell to it, so I was a happy camper. I checked the temperature with a thermometer (it should be around 210 in the center), and it was ready to cool.

I learned quite a few things with this test run. I should have made the dough a better consistency. It was too sticky, which meant it needed more flour. I think that the additional flour might have helped with the rising. I’m no food scientist, so I could be wrong. Once I had it at the right consistency, I should have given it more time to rise. I also should have baked it on parchment paper or used some cooking spray. It stuck to the pan in a couple of places, and it was not fun when it was time to clean the pan.

As far as the flavor goes, I was happy. The outer crust was hard, but not overly chewy, which is one of the things I don’t really like about sourdough bread. The inner part of the bread had the familiar flavor. Biting into it reminded me of the flavors that I’m used to. It was a bit dense, but that was probably because I did not let it rise properly.

So what I have is a gassy, dense sourdough starter and sourdough bread. Gassy and Dense – just like its dad. Awww. I’m glad that this first batch did not turn out perfectly. I got some of the basics down, but I need to learn. I’ve made different types of bread before and they all worked out. This will just take me some more practice. Trying and failing is better than not trying and regretting. Stay positive!