Non KK cooks

[Troble]

Letting my KK take a breather this weekend and I’m making a few different dishes next few days that I’d like to share 

tonight is seared scallops served with a sweet corn, red onion, orange & yellow bell pepper, applewood smoked bacon,  heavy cream and chive sauce/succotash 

[MacKenzie]

Looking goooood, Troble. 

[Troble]

Local bluefin tuna, soy sauce & siracha 

[jeffshoaf]

I made 10 pizzas using the outdoor gas oven for family a couple of weeks ago. My niece is dating a guy who works at dominoes so had a professional doing the topping; he's about sick of dominoes pizza but he ate plenty of my pseudo-neopolitan pies.

It was the first big use of this oven; baked two at a time with the inside air temp at 850 to 875 degrees F. The floor temp was in the mid to high 900s. I didn't try to time any of the bakes but assume they were in the 90 second range for each pizza. I was very happy with results!

[MacKenzie]

Can you use wood as a fuel instead of gas? Looks like lots of fun. 

[Basher]

Care to share your dough recipe Jeff? Your crusts look to have puffed up nicely


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jeffshoaf]

13 hours ago, MacKenzie said:

Can you use wood as a fuel instead of gas? Looks like lots of fun. 

It's a Fontana Forni oven;  they have wood-burning versions but they recommend not using wood in the gas versions due to concerns about ash blocking the gas burner ports and causing a safety issue. The burner is at the rear and is almost the full width of the oven, resulting in very even heating. I asked if they had considered making a burner cover to address that and they said others had suggested that we will but the Italian manufacturer doesn't seem interested.

This is my 2nd outdoor oven;  the first was convertible between wood and gas but I never used wood;  the gas is just to convenient. I have piped-in natural gas so I don't have to mess with gas canisters. This one is a big upgrade from my original Pizza Party oven and the American distributor is great to work with;  they're a family-owned operation with the level of customer service approaching KK's.

I really wanted a brick oven but I just couldn't justify the cost, especially for one with a gas burner. It would have taken 5 to 6 hours to bring the brick oven up to temperature (and days for it to cool back down) while this stainless oven heats up in 20 to 30  minutes. heavily insulated so it's pretty fuel efficient. All-in-all, I'm happy with the oven.

[jeffshoaf]

4 hours ago, Basher said:

Care to share your dough recipe Jeff? Your crusts look to have puffed up nicely


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I use the PizzaApp+ app to calculate the proportions;  the dough is just Anna 00 flour, water, salt, and instant yeast. 63% hydration, 28 hour room temp ferment. The 850  degree oven temp really helps with the oven spring. When I make just one pizza, I usually use my Breville Piaziolla electric oven;  it only gets to 750  degrees and the crust doesn't puff as much.

Before the pandemic, I was up to 65%  hydration using Anna 00  flour. I'd been using that flour because my usual grocery store stocked it;  I'd stock up when it occasionally went on sale so I had a pretty good inventory of it. My cat passed away and mice got into my my flour stockpile,  then the grocery store ran out of that flour. I had no luck finding 00  flour locally and shipping is pretty expensive for flour, but I tried several other types and never got the results I wanted so I've been ordering larger volumes of Anna from Amazon but I've had to lower the hydration %;  I'm not sure what's changed but the dough at 65% is much more difficult to handle now than it was last year. I rebag and store in the freezer even though I have another cat now keeping the mice under control.

[jeffshoaf]

14 hours ago, MacKenzie said:

Can you use wood as a fuel instead of gas? Looks like lots of fun. 

https://www.fontanaforniusa.com/

[Tyrus]

On 9/11/2021 at 9:22 PM, Troble said:

heavy cream and chive sauce/succotash

Sufferin succotash, that sure looks good

[tekobo]

5 hours ago, jeffshoaf said:

Before the pandemic, I was up to 65%  hydration using Anna 00  flour. I'd been using that flour because my usual grocery store stocked it;  I'd stock up when it occasionally went on sale so I had a pretty good inventory of it. My cat passed away and mice got into my my flour stockpile,  then the grocery store ran out of that flour. I had no luck finding 00  flour locally and shipping is pretty expensive for flour, but I tried several other types and never got the results I wanted so I've been ordering larger volumes of Anna from Amazon but I've had to lower the hydration %;  I'm not sure what's changed but the dough at 65% is much more difficult to handle now than it was last year. I rebag and store in the freezer even though I have another cat now keeping the mice under control.

The pizzas look great and it is lovely to be introduced to your new toy @jeffshoaf.   I have found that, even though I proof my bread dough in a temperature controlled proofer, it does behave differently in the summer to in the winter.  I have reduced hydration by 10% and shortened the proving times to overcome that.  I don't remember where in the US you live but would be interested in knowing if the handling of your dough changes with the seasons.  

I too buy my flour in bulk and had beginner's luck with the first batch and then lost two loads of 00 flour to weevils.  I now store my 00 and plain bread flour in the freezer and the cold flour acts as a nice counter balance to the warmth of my fresh milled whole grain when I mix the two.  Now there's a toy for you - do you have a flour mill already or is that on your Christmas list?

[tekobo]

@Troble I can just taste that tuna, slippery sliding down and then licking the soy sauce of my lips.  Must get me some!

[jeffshoaf]

55 minutes ago, tekobo said:

The pizzas look great and it is lovely to be introduced to your new toy @jeffshoaf.   I have found that, even though I proof my bread dough in a temperature controlled proofer, it does behave differently in the summer to in the winter.  I have reduced hydration by 10% and shortened the proving times to overcome that.  I don't remember where in the US you live but would be interested in knowing if the handling of your dough changes with the seasons.  

I too buy my flour in bulk and had beginner's luck with the first batch and then lost two loads of 00 flour to weevils.  I now store my 00 and plain bread flour in the freezer and the cold flour acts as a nice counter balance to the warmth of my fresh milled whole grain when I mix the two.  Now there's a toy for you - do you have a flour mill already or is that on your Christmas list?

I live in NC. The proofing temp is pretty consistent all year but the humidity certainly varies a lot across the seasons and even during the season so that could be a big part of the difference I'm seeing; I know I worked my way up to 65%  originally but I really don't remember how that time bridge the seasons - my steadfast lack of note taking bites me again! A lot of pizza folks proof in the refrigerator but I've avoided that because I want to have a fairly consistent process across batch sizes and go from one 10  to 12  inch pizza when it's just me up to twelve 12  to 14  inch pizzas for events and I just don't have room for the bigger batches in my refrigerator.

I love bread and considered milling  own flour and thought about using the Vitamix to start with to see if I enjoy it before investing in a more dedicated mill, but I'm not sure I want to go down another rabbit hole. Not sure if I want to try sourcing grain either. I'm not much of a bread baker;  I've had bread machines for over 30 years and used my current one regularly before I went on a diet last year. I made a semi-serious stab at making it manually a few years ago but really didn't enjoy the process much. I was planning on starting sour dough when I retired last year but time got away from me and I went on a diet so I haven't followed through.

[Troble]

@tekobowhen you take your trip here and to Mexico I’ll stuff you full of tuna. The bluefin is $16/lb which is incredible at a sushi restaurant you’ll pay $16 for two pieces of nigiri. It’s one of my favorite parts of living in San Diego having access to super high quality seafood that’s fairly inexpensive. I buy directly from the fisherman so it’s usually 24-48 hours out of being in the sea 

[Troble]

I used to make my own Thai curry pastes but haven’t made it in at least 4 years so I decided to make my red & green curry pastes on Sunday. I go to the Thai market and get all the stuff and every time I go there the lady says “oh is this for your wife?” And I tell her “no it’s for me”. This time she responded by saying “wow you make very traditional curry paste, most foreigners don’t know to use shrimp paste”. I took it as a compliment 

tonight I used the red curry paste to make red curry with flank steak, red, yellow & orange bell peppers, sweet onion, oyster mushroom, mango, pineapple, Thai basil, lime zest & fish sauce. Served over jasmine rice. Pretty tasty and my jar of curry paste will last 3 months+ so super easy to make all kinds of currys quickly once the paste is made 

[tekobo]

17 hours ago, Troble said:

@tekobowhen you take your trip here and to Mexico I’ll stuff you full of tuna. The bluefin is $16/lb which is incredible at a sushi restaurant you’ll pay $16 for two pieces of nigiri. It’s one of my favorite parts of living in San Diego having access to super high quality seafood that’s fairly inexpensive. I buy directly from the fisherman so it’s usually 24-48 hours out of being in the sea 

I'll hold you to that!!

[Troble]

Homemade Green Curry Paste

Green curry with chicken, snow peas, red, yellow & orange bell peppers, sweet onions and oyster mushrooms 

super tasty. Green curry is my standard Thai dish that I judge Thai places by. This is better than my neighborhood Thai restaurants. So easy to make once you have the paste 

[David Chang]

some recent pizza oven cooks while i wait for my kk charcoal basket to be modded..

 

 

[Poochie]

The members of this forum have some incredible cooking talent. Milling your own grain, homemade curry, different pizza and bread cooks. I used to think I could cook...and I've owned a cafe before...but you youngsters put me to shame. Beautiful food on display here.

[C6Bill]

I just saw your pork chops poochie, you don’t take a back seat to anyone lol