Mamaw Durkin's Banana Bread

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts about my cooking of recipes left to me by my grandmother, Ola Durkin (a.k.a. Mamaw).  The first recipe is for her famous banana bread.  The recipe is as follows:

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar

3-4 ripe bananas
1 tsp baking soda

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups AP flour
1/2 - 3/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 325.
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Mash the bananas with the baking soda, add to the butter/sugar mixture and mix in.
Add the eggs one at a time along with the vanilla, incorporating completely between additions.
Add the flour mixture half at a time, mixing in completely after each addition.
Pour the batter in to a greased loaf pan, smooth out the top with a spoon or off-set spatula and bake at 325 degrees for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow the loaf to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then loosen the sides with a knife and turn out to cool on a wire rack.

Mamaw usually gave us a thick slice of the banana bread with a little margarine spread on one side.  This is VERY good toasted!

Cedar Plank Salmon

For our July 4th dinner I decided to make cedar plank salmon instead of the usual burgers of steaks.  The process is pretty easy.  First, we picked up some cedar planks at Dominick's since Costo had sold out.  The planks were soaked for about an hour during which time I trimmed the salmon to fit and pulled together the ingredients I would use.  Once the plank was well soaked I removed it from the water and patted dry.  A generious coating of extra virgin olive oil was applied, the a sprinkling of Mrs. Dash, a few grinds of salt and some sprigs of fresh dill.  The salmon fillet was placed on top of the dill, then more Mrs. Dash, more salt, more sprigs of fresh dill, some very thin slices of lemon shingled on top and finally a squeeze of lemon.  The Weber kettle grill had been prepared with a full chimney of lit coals dumped on one side and spread out so they formed a uniform bed covering 1/2 of the bottom.  There were no coals on the other half.  The plank of salmon was first placed directly over the hot coals until I saw a bit of char on the sides of the plank, then it was moved over to the cool side.  The corn and other vegetables were grilled on the hot side until done, then a handful of soaked cherry wood chips were placed on the fire and the grill lid placed on so the salmon would finish cooking over indirect heat with a little smoke.  It took about 5-8 minutes for the salmon to just get to the point were the flesh was starting to flake.  The results were excellent, very moist salmon with loads of flavor.  It's important to keep a close eye on the fish and remove it just as the flesh will flake when a paring knife is inserted, leave it on too long and you get dry salmon.

Lemon Basil Creme Brulee

I have an Aerogarden, it was given to me as a gift several years ago.  For the most part it has worked out pretty well, although I've had to replace the pump twice and the rear arm once (the metal tabs that send power to the pump corroded away).  Even with the occasional replacement parts needed the garden has been worth it, I usually have more herbs than I can use.  Such is the case with the latest herb kit I ordered, the "Gourmet Herb Seed Kit".  One of the herbs included in the kit, lemon basil, is one that I haven't had much experience with and is growing like gangbusters.  So fast that it will shade out the rest of the herbs if I don't keep it trimmed down.  That means I have a LOT of lemon basil to find a use for.  I had considered using it in several savory applications, but for the Fourth of July menu I was in need of a dessert.  The thing I eventually came up with was a lemon basil creme brulee.

The custard in a creme brulee is your basic creme anglaise, a stirred custard that is often used as a pourable sauce or as the base of french style ice creams.  The recipe I used is...

16 oz heavy cream
1 cup lemon basil
1 tsp fresh lemon zest
pinch salt
1/4 tsp vanilla
5 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar

 First, the basil was cleaned, dried, cut in to strips (chiffonade) and put in a saucepan with the cream and lemon zest.  After being heated to a simmer I used a stick blender to puree the basil in the cream.  Meanwhile, the egg yolks and sugar were whisked together.  The hot cream mixture was tempered in to the yolks and the mixture returned to the sauce pan, then put over a medium low flame.  The custard was stirred constantly with a wooden spoon until it began to thicken, then it was poured through a fine mesh strained in to a quart sized liquid measuring cup.  Some of the basil caught in the strained was forced through using the back of the wooden spoon just because I like having a few specks in the custard.  The custard was poured in to ramekins and cooked in a water bath at 300 degrees (convection) until they just began to set (the center still jiggles).  The custards were removed from the water bath and allowed to cool for 30 minutes before being placed in the refrigerator to cool completely.

Our Fourth of July dinner consisted of porterhouse steaks cooking in my favorite sous-vide method (135 degrees for 2 hours straight from the freezer then cooled, unbagged and seared over a screaming hot charcoal fire on the grill), grilled corn on the cob and roasted beets.  This was my first use of my Mangrate which I heard about on The Morning Stream podcast, ordered and received a few weeks ago  It seemed to work pretty well.

After dinner was over, the custards were removed from the fridge and sprinkled with sugar.  I used a plumbers torch to brulee the sugar on top of the custard.  We then garnished with mint sprigs and a few blueberries. 

 This dessert turned out fantastic, the light green custard had a wonderful lemon flavor with just just a hint of vanilla.  The flavors melded beautifully with the caramelized sugar and blueberries on top.  Definitely one I'll remember and make again.

Homemade pepperoni, homemade italian sausage pizza.

The pepperoni Italian sausage I made were good on their own, but they were made for a pizza!  On Friday I started the process by making my pizza dough.  It consists of...

100 ml beer (I had Sam Adams Boston Lager on hand, so that's what I used) 
250 ml cold water (Beer + water come to about 70% hydration in this formula)
2 - 3 grams instant dry yeast (IDY) (about 0.4% to 0.6% flour weight)
500 - 550 grams bread flour (I used Weisenberger Mills high gluten bread flour)
10 grams salt (2% flour weight)
10 grams extra virgin olive oil (again, 2% flour weight)

The beer and water are added to a mixing bowl and the IDY sprinkled over.  Then the flour goes in followed by the salt.  This is allowed to sit until you see cracks forming in the flour, which means the yeast has started producing carbon dioxide.  The dough is mixed for 2 minutes, then the mixer stopped and the oil added.  Next the half-mixed dough is allowed to sit for 15 - 20 minutes, this is called the autolyse phase.  During this step the flour absorbs all the water and the proteins that will form gluten hydrate, the end result is a shorter mix time and better flavor wheaty in the final crust.  After the autolyse the dough is mixed until it forms a smooth, elastic mass.  The dough is then balled, coated with oil, covered in plastic wrap and allowed to slowly ferment in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours to develop the desired flavor and texture.

The next day I removed a portion of the dough for one crust and allowed it to come to room temperature.  The oven (with pizza stone inside) was heated to 550 degrees for one hour prior to baking.  Once the dough was warmed up I started stretching out the skin until it was about 12 inches in diameter with the nice lip you only get from hand stretching and tossing.  The skin was placed on a piece of parchment and dressed with a simple pizza sauce (canned tomatoes, tomato paste, red wine, olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper) followed by some store bought cheese (four cheese blend by Lucrene), the Italian sausage (cooked) and pepperoni.  The pizza, still on the parchment paper, was slid on the the stone and allowed to cook for about 6-7 minutes until the crust was set.  Then the parchment was removed and the pizza allowed to complete cooking directly on the stone.  Once removed from the oven, a little extra virgin olive oil was drizzled on the pie, since the homemade pepperoni and sausage were pretty low in their own fat.  This is the result...

I was very pleased with both the pizza and the toppings.  The pepperoni, which was fairly dry and firm when eaten by itself, seemed to soften when cooked on the pizza.  This is also my go-to formula for crust, it has a nice yeasty flavor and good texture with lots of large holes inside the lip.  Great for dipping in garlic butter or ranch dressing.  Making the pepperoni and sausage at home may have taken a little extra time, but it was worth it in the end!