Jumping onto the shio pan

Shio pan (塩パン) has been the rage recently. For an unadorned bread roll, there’s sure a lot of interest and I have to check it out.

This bread roll needs an overnight sponge, using yogurt. Salt or ‘shio’ in Japanese is the key to giving it its identity, so make sure to get some fancy salt  instead of the usual table salt.

I usually do a 3 fold type of low-maintenance ciabatta but this requires long kneading to reach the window-pane stage (high stretch). Thankful for my Kitchen Aid doing the hard work.

OK. Let’s get on with it, otherwise I am going to tell you about my long Japanese journey. 

Makes 10 Shio-pan

Credit with adaptations : cookinginchinglish 

Overnight sponge:

100g water (I used full cream milk)

45g yogurt (I used Greek)

¾ tsp instant yeast

150g bread flour

• Mix all the above together.

• Set aside for 1 hour. 

• Stick it in the fridge to form a sponge.

Next day, prepare : (takes about 6 hours, depending on ambient temperature)

150g bread flour

40g cold water

20g sugar

10g softened butter

6 g salt (Cornish) - to be added after the 1st set of kneading.

(1 dish of salt for garnish pre-baking)

Final stage : 

• Remove the overnight sponge. If it has not bulked up at least twice the volume, leave it at room temperature until so.

• Add all the sponge into the ingredients. 

• Do not add the salt yet. 

• Knead until contents come together.

• Now, add the salt.

• Knead the dough for 15 min (I did at low for about 20 min)

• The dough should be able to be  stretched making a thin window-pane. Otherwise knead until so. (I know, it is tedious but necessary because you need a long stretched out dough that does break later)

Don't mind the missing roll. This pic was taken before all were completed

Leave to rise until it doubles in bulk.

Meanwhile, cut out 10 sticks of butter, about 5g each.

FREEZE the butter sticks.

Assembly time!

• On a lightly oiled surface, remove the proofed dough. Cut out 10 equal pieces, about 50g each.

• Fold each portion to a ball.

• Roll out the ball to make a tear shaped dough.

• Flatten the dough and roll it into a ‘long isosceles triangle’, at least 10 cm long. The longer, the better.

• On the wide side, place a frozen butter stick.

• Fold over the dough to cover the butter. Press down the edges to encase the butter.

• Roll to form a mini croissant roll.

• Repeat for all other 9 dough balls.

• Mist the rolls with a spray. 

• Garnish with a scant amount of salt.

Leave to proof until the roll is fluffed up.  

Baking time!

• Place a heatproof container below the baking rack in the oven.

• Preheat the oven to 230C.

• Mist the rolls just before baking.

• Place the rolls in the baking rack.

• Pour water on the tray to create steam. Be careful of the steam.

• Bake at 230C for 12-13min.

Just before you eat:

Remove the buns to cool.

If you fancy a glossier surface, brush with softened butter.

Chai Tow Guay or radish cake

I bought a daikon or radish on a whim. One thing led to another and before I know it, I was making radish cake. 

The outcome was pretty good, judging from the speed by which it was consumed. One of my friends even found out that the radish cake goes well with brie cheese. That option, dear readers, is only for the brave.

If you have these 2 main equipment, a food processor with grating option and an instant pot or rice cooker for steaming, you can be a kitchen diva without the sweat. Plus, the end result can be pretty decent and it may even earn you a fan base :) 

Recipe:

For 6 persons :

A:
250g rice flour

350 ml water

B:
1/3 C dried shrimps
1 medium radish, shredded  
1/2 C dried mushroom slivers, soaked, dried and chopped
1/2 C shallots
Chinese sausage , thinly sliced ( optional )

Prepping the star of the dish - radish :

Grate the radish to coarse bits. 

Salt (2 Tbsp fine salt ) the radish to leech the bitter water.

After 30 mins, squeeze dry the radish.

Set aside.

Note : this step is important to remove the astringent taste. The extra liquid from the radish if left unchecked also may upset the flour to water ratio.

Bringing all the ingredients together sans flour slurry:

Fry the shallots in hot oil. I find that bottled onions are just as good.

Add shrimps, sausages and radish. Fry at medium heat until fragrant and the radish is translucent. 

Add salt and pepper to taste. The radish was previously salted so go easy with the extra sodium chloride. Add MSG for a stronger taste.

Final assembly:

Combine rice flour and water. Add the slurry into the cooked radish mix.

Turn the heat back on to medium. Cook the mixture until it is thick but still pasty.

Transfer the half cooked slurry into an oiled bowl. 

Foil to cover. (I use an aluminum tray because it is actually non-stick)

Steam covered:

Prepare the instant pot with water, enough to steam for 40 minutes. A rice cooker does the job too.

The radish cake is ready when the surface is firm to touch.

Fried option:

After it is cooled completely, cut to thick pieces.

Fry in a non-stick pan. Oil is not optional.

I don't suggest air frying. It dries up the cake without creating a good crust.

Serving and storing:

Cool well before cutting. Cutting it while hot will not yield a clean cut because the structure is unstable.

Cool completely if you intend to fridge it. Otherwise it will grow mouldy from condensation.

And there you have it! The texture is firm and packed of real radish. 

Bread Rolls using old dough (老面) or pate fermentee

Background:

To make the pate or old dough, visit here.

I am on a new baking journey using old dough or pate fermentee for making my loafs. In this case, it is bread rolls. Old dough or pate fermentee saves the hassle of buying instant yeast and is a compromise between instant bread and sourdough.

This recipe took 2 days to do because I wanted  a slower fermentation for better lactic production and a lower sugar content for the end result. It can be made into a loaf in a day but the taste might not be as 'artisanal'.

This recipe is very forgiving and I made the first loaf without a mixer.

Makes 10 slider buns or a medium loaf.

Recipe:

Defrost a batch of old dough or pate fermentee on the counter. It should be about 50g of old dough/pate fermentee.

Ingredients:

310g tap water + 50g old dough

400g bread flour + 100g wholemeal flour

10g Morton salt 

Method:

Day 1-

In a mixer, break up 50g of the old dough with the reserved 310g of water. It might be lumpy but that's ok.

*310g water translates to 310ml since density of water is 1g : 1ml

Add 400g bread flour, 100g wholemeal wheat flour, 10g salt.

Put mixer on 2 and mix for 10 minutes or until dough comes together.

Pinch off 50g of well mixed dough and freeze for another project. This is your pate fermentee or old dough.

Remove the mixing hook. Cover to let it rise for at least 2 hours.

Send it to the fridge to slow ferment overnight.

Day 2-

Ingredients part 2:

1 dish of salt, 1 dish of milk with brush for brushing

First thing in the morning, bring out the mixer bowl with the overnight dough.

Let it come to room temperature.

Allow another couple of hours of fermentation. Dough is ready when it feels airy when poked.

On a lined baking tray, make out 10 equal parts of the dough into balls. Use a scale for this and a calculator if you need to.  

Brush the balls with milk. Sprinkle salt on them, sparingly.

 Leave the dough balls to rise, about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile,preheat the oven to 190C.

Mist the balls just before baking.

Bake at 190C for 20-25 minutes. I did at 23 minutes.

Remove the buns and brush with butter. 

Eat on the same day. 

To keep, freeze immediately.  Air fry at 180C for 10-15 minutes before eating.

If you are making a loaf using a pullman , bake at 230C , covered, for 20 minutes and 200C uncovered for 30 minutes. Loaf cuts very well.

Pâte Fermentée (Old Dough)

A lump of frozen pâte fermentée out from the frozen for its photo shoot 

Ever since I came back from my holiday last year, I never managed to kickstart a new batch of sourdough starter. At least 5 batches died, costing a good 30 days and much waste of rye flour.

In comes pâte fermentée , or called old dough ( 老面 ) by Chinese bloggers. The pâte fermentée needed only 1 day in the fridge with no 6 day feeding and no discard. In between baking, the pâte fermentée can be frozen until it is called up for ‘active service’.

And so I started the pâte fermentée journey.

Old Dough or pâte fermentée recipe :  

100g bread flour

70g tap water

Pinch of instant yeast

2 g salt

Mix well. Leave on the counter for an hour or until some fermentation takes place.

Fridge it overnight. The pate is ready for use any time after that.

50g pâte fermentée is enough to work through 500g of bread flour. I used half of the above pâte fermentée for my first loaf (any recipe, less the instant yeast) and froze the other half for another bake.

Recipe for using the pâte fermentée will follow in the next couple of posts.

Light Rye Bread (Single Rise)

I know caraway is lacking in this recipe because there was none in the house. In any case, I don’t like chewy bits in my bread. This loaf does not offer the signature caraway taste of rye but if that is what you prefer, add 1 tsp of toasted and crushed caraway together with the flour.

Even with a single rise, the bread has a closed texture and is easy to slice to 1 cm thick.

Time : 3 hours (32C room temperature)

Credits: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/double-light-rye-bread-recipe with modifications.

Ingredients:

1. 240g  Bread flour

2. 100g  Rye flour

3. 15g dry milk powder 

4. 1 tsp  instant yeast

5. 15g caster sugar   

6. 7g pink salt

7. 20g butter

8. 40g honey

9. 200g warm water (38C)

Method:

1. In a mixer, combine bread flour, rye flour, yeast,sugar,salt. 

2. Add butter, honey, water.

3. Use a dough hook, knead until mixture is combined and forms gluten strands.

4. The dough will be sticky and not completely pull away from the walls of the mixer. That is fine.

5. Prepare a medium pullman box. Grease and dust.

6. On a lightly floured surface, remove the sticky dough and roll it on the floured worktop. ( I use 2 pastry spatulas to move the dough until the dough is smooth ) 

7. Transfer the dough to the pullman.

8. Let it rise for 90 minutes.

9. Preheat the oven 10 minutes before timeout.

10. Mist the bread with a water mister.

11. Stick the pullman into the preheated oven.

12. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes.

13. Cool the cooked bread for 10-15 minutes.

14. Remove the bread on a rack and continue cooling until it is no longer warm to the touch.

15. Slice and freeze extras.

30 hours fermentation whole rye bread (No Knead)

I have put off baking for quite a while since I moved to a smaller place. It was a choice of view or space and I chose view. I had forgotten how I loved to bake.

Recently I read Exodus 12 where the Hebrews were told to bake bread without yeast and the baker in me got all fired up. Following that was 2 failed attempts at growing my sourdough starter with artisan bread flour. 

But good old fashioned instant yeast saved me from a baking depression. The first no-knead bread was a successful loaf baked after it was fermented in the fridge for 24 hours. Friends loved the open sourdough texture.

To take another notch up, I bought a medium sized black non-stick pullman. Artisanal shape was not good for hubby's sandwich thus my third pullman in the house. That's a lot for a 2-person household but I am not regretting it.

Since hubby loves rye, I got down to making this. I got this 48 hour recipe from my go-to kingaurthurbaking site. But climate here is warmer so the bread was baked in my fancy black pullman at the 30th hour mark. It was either that or an invasion of a giant dough crawling out of the pan.

The result was excellent. The bread is light, easy to slice (with another shiny bread knife from Phoon Huat for just SGD$3) with a thin crust with closed texture.  Oh, the mist spray bottle costs just as much!

So here goes! 

Credit here with modifications

Makes a medium loaf.

Ingredients:

• 280g King Arthur Flour (Artisan)
• 160g wholemeal rye (Phoon Huat)
• 40g dry milk powder
• 1.5 tsp pink salt
• 1.5 tsp instant yeast
• 2 Tbsp canola oil
• 340g water (lukewarm. Mine was 37 C)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
2. Add oil and water.
3. Stir until no dry bits are left. Some effort is needed as dough thickens.
4. Cover and leave it to ferment for 2 hours outside.
5. Cover with oiled sheet. Send it to the fridge for 24 hours, covered.
6. At the end of the 24 hours, bring out the dough to warm up. It will start to rise again
7. Grease and dust the pullman if using.
8. Lightly dust a worktop. Work on the dough and fold like a letter. 
9. Transfer the dough to the prepared pullman to continue rising, fold edges facing down.
10. While waiting for dough to rise, preheat the oven to 230C.
11. When dough is 2 cm from the surface of the pan, mist and score the dough. I prefer to score then mist.
12. Cover with the pullman cover if so wished. Remember to grease the inside of the cover. Alternatively, bake uncovered.
13. Bake covered at 230C for 25 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for another 10 minutes.
14. If the bread is baked uncovered, bake at 200C for 4 minute. 
15. Remvoe the bread and cool it on the rack.

When totally cool, slice. 

Remarks : the bread has potential to rise more so a standard pullman may be good for a more open texture.