Fuck this shit. Fuck it sideways, with sugar on top
Month: October 2022
[recipe] Custard-filled brioche buns
For the dough:
260g all-purpose flour, plus a few tablespoons if needed
260g bread flour
100g sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
170g unsalted butter, divided (115g, 55g)
1 packet (7 gr) active dry yeast
zest of 1 orange
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
235 ml milk, warm
For the cream:
350 ml whole milk, warm
50g sugar
30g (3 tbsp) corn starch
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
Make the dough:
In a stand mixer fitted with dough hook, add the all-purpose and bread flour, sugar, salt, 115g butter (at room temperature and cut in pieces), yeast, eggs, orange zest and vanilla extract. Start mixing.
Warm up the milk and add some at a time while mixing. Add enough so the dough comes together. Knead for several minutes until smooth and elastic. Add more milk if too hard to knead.
Make into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and kitchen towel and let rest in a draft free space for at least 3-4 hours.
Make the custard:
In a medium size pan, whisk the egg yolks with sugar, vanilla extract, and corn starch until smooth and fluffy. Add a little bit of the warm milk to the egg mixture, whisking well so that no lumps form. Whisk in the rest of the milk.
Place the pan over medium heat and stir continuously until it reaches a slow boil. The cream will thicken, so be careful not to let it stick to the bottom. Cook for a couple of more minutes, until you reach the desire thickness.
Pour the custard in a bowl and let it cook down. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
2nd dough proofing:
Sprinkle the counter with flour. Roll out the dough into a rectangle about 15×10 inches.
Melt 55g of butter and brush the dough (use half of the melted butter). Fold in three parts to create layers – you should end up with a 5×10 rectangle.
Turn the folded dough around by 90 degrees and start rolling out again. Repeat the steps: Brush once more with butter and fold in three parts again. Let the dough rest for at least half hour.
Prepare the rolls:
Turn 90 degrees, roll out again in a thin rectangle. Cover with a thin layer of custard. Roll up the dough on the longer side (you should end up with a roll that’s about 20 inches long).
Cover an 11-inch round baking pan with parchment paper or grease with butter. Cut the log into 8 equal parts.
Place them cut side down on a baking pan.
Cover with kitchen towel and let the rolls rise for at least one hour.
Bake:
Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.
Brush the top of the rolls with egg wash or milk. Bake on the lower third part of the oven for about 35-40 minutes or until golden on top.
This sounds like so many of the vision/mission meetings I’ve been involved in
Lettuce outlasts Liz Truss
Coup, assassination, abdication, suicide and illness – all have contributed to history’s shortest serving leaderships though none, in the literal sense at least, can be said to apply to Liz Truss.
But at just 45 days, she faces the ignominy of being the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister by some degree. The announcement of fer resination, made by Truss outside Downing Street, follows the near-complete evaporation of her political authority which has seen her crash the markets, get publicly rebuked by the IMF, lose two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs. Truss’s resignation will set another unwanted record, by making her the first prime minister in recent history not to call the UK’s devolved leaders at any point while in office.
Keir Starmer said: “After 12 years of Tory failure, the British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos. In the last few years, the Tories have set record-high taxation, trashed our institutions and created a cost-of-living crisis. […] The damage they have done will take years to fix.”
Purchased at a Tesco grocery store for 60 pence, the lettuce became a caricature of the Conservative leader’s flailing hold on power, pitted against the prime minister by The Daily Star. “Will Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?” the newspaper asked in a live video that has been running since Oct. 14, attracting bounds of viewers and comments on social media. The lettuce gag was inspired by The Economist, which noted on Oct. 11 that between a near-immediate political implosion at the beginning of her tenure and the 10 days of mourning after Queen Elizabeth II died, her grip on power amounted to seven days, or “roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce.” In the end, the lettuce emerged victorious after Truss resigned.
[gallery] Peppone
Peppone is a 50 year old artist living near Aix en Provence.
“Basically, my universe is made up solely of references to childhood in the broad sense. Everything starts with a digital drawing on the model of the clear line, dear to Hergé and according to precise specifications where I mix my childhood characters in the heart of a referring situation which must immediately awaken the memories of the spectator. Without excessive intellectualization, I invite him to immerse himself in his own general culture to identify the “ref” at the risk of seeing his interest in my work dull. Then, I let him interpret the “second degree of reading” of the staging of the two parameters, situation and characters.
From Pop-Art I borrow the popular, encounters with large paintings during visits to museums, cinema, TV series, music but also from sports victories, historical moments, advertisements and even iconic brands. In short, everything that gave a link to my youthful years in the 80s and 90s.
From the world of Street Art I borrow spray paint, stencils and paintmarkers. Then I want my viewer to have the impression of appropriating a piece of wall, as some did when the Berlin Wall fell, with the idea of tearing off a piece of himself.”
Peppone explains that man is the only living being who knows he is going to die and that, to escape his condition, he reproduces, communicates and dreams; a kind of cyclical link between past, present and future.
[recipe] buttermilk pancakes
1⅓ cups (160g) all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
2 large eggs
1¼ cups (300ml) buttermilk
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil (for griddle)
Maple syrup (for serving)
[recipe] Porchetta
1 whole skin-on pork belly, 5-7kg
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
1 tablespoon chii flakes
Zest from 2 oranges
1/4 cup orange juice, squeezed from 1/2 an orange
1/4 cup olive oil, divided
1/4 cup chopped coriander
2 tablespoons sea salt, divided
1 tablespoon each: minced rosemary, thyme, sage, and black pepper
Start with the pork belly skin side down and roll it into a long log. Using the tip of a sharp knife, mark where the skin overlaps. Now flip the pork belly skin side up and remove the small bit of skin that overlaps. We do this as skin that gets wrapped in the meat becomes gummy and chewy and doesn’t crispy nicely.
Take a pairing knife and spend several minutes stabbing the skin all over. You want to absolutely cover it with small holes. Try your best only stab holes in the skin and not all the way into to the fat or meat.
Flip the belly over so it’s skin side down. If parts of it are thicker than others, you can use a rubber mallet to pound the meat so that’s it’s roughly even in thickness. Then, cut the meat in diagonal lines to create a cross-hatch pattern. Make sure to only cut the meat and not go through to the fat layer.
Grind the fennel and chili flakes until coarsley ground – a small blender or food process works well for this. A mortar and pestle is another good option. Mix the ground fennel with the rest of the herbs, spices, oil, and orange zest & juice to make a thick paste. Spread this paste onto the meat using your fingers to work it into all the cuts you made.
Roll the belly into a tight log and tie it up. Use butcher twine and tie it at 1-inch intervals Once you’ve rolled the porchetta it will be a long, unwieldy log. To make it easier to bake and serve, we cut it in half. At this point, you can wrap and freeze one of the logs if you’d like.
Oil and salt the skin liberally then place the porchetta on a cooling rack placed over a baking dish. Put it into your fridge (uncovered) for 24-72 hours.
Remove the prepared porchetta from your fridge and let it rest on your counter while your oven preheats to 300F/150C.
Liberally oil the skin then put it into your oven and let it roast for 3-4 hours. It will be finished cooking when it reaches an internal temperature of 165F/75C.
Remove the porchetta from the oven and crank the temperature up to broil. Drain the fat from the baking dish into a bowl – there will be quite a bit. When your oven comes up to temperature, brush some of the fat you drained from the pan over the skin then put the porchetta back into the oven.
Turn the porchetta very 5-10 minutes so that it crisps all over. The temperature ovens broil varies widely so keep a close eye on it so that the skin doesn’t burn. Once the skin is dark brown and has bubbles all over it is ready!
[recipe] Orange gingerbread loaf
1/3c (80ml) molasses
1/3c (80ml) very warm water
1 1/2c (180g) cake flour
1/2c (60g) all purpose flour
1 tsp (5g) baking soda
2 1/2 tsp (5g) ground ginger
1 1 /2 tsp (3g) ground cinnamon
1 tsp (2g) ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2/3c (135g) light or dark brown sugar
1 tsp orange zest (about one orange)
1/2 c (118ml) olive oil
1 large egg, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c (118ml) buttermilk, room temperature
citrus glaze
1 c (120g) powdered sugar (sifted)
2-3 tbsp (30-45ml) freshly squeezed orange juice
Preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Line a 9X5 loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving 1-2″ excess along the longer sides of the pan. This helps with removal once the loaf has baked.
Heat water to very warm (about 100F/40C) in a heat proof container. Pour molasses into the water. Mix well to combine.
In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk together the cake flour, all purpose flour, baking soda, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground nutmeg and salt.
Using an electric mixer, whisk the orange zest and sugar together until the sugar somewhat resembles wet sand. This is from the oils releasing and incorporating into the sugar. If this doesn’t happen, or you want more orange flavor, add 1/2 tsp orange extract and repeat.
Whisk together the sugar and oil until well combined. Whisk in the egg and vanilla, and thinned out molasses. Mix until well combined.
Stir in the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the wet, alternating. Leave a few flour or milk streaks before adding the next. If needed, switch to a wooden spoon or spatula for this step.
Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Smooth the top of the batter.
Bake for 45-55 minutes. Around 40 minutes, do the first check of the cake. Check to make sure the top isn’t burning.
If the top is browning too much, place a tent foil over the top for the remainder of the time. Bake an additional 5-7 minutes before checking for doneness. The edges of the cake will have pulled slighly from the pan and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
If the toothpick comes out wet or “gummy,” the cake will most likely need an addtional 10-20 minutes from that point. Check every 5-10 until done.
Remove the loaf cake from the oven to cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan after about 20 minutes. Cool to room temperature on the cooling rack.
Make the glaze by whisking together the powdered sugar and the orange juice.
Pour the glaze on the gingerbread loaf while still slightly warm or at room temperature. Cool the glazed cake an additional 30-45 minutes on the cooling rack.
[recipe] Citrus habanero olive oil
60 g fresh habanero chillies sliced in half (about 4 peppers)
500 ml cold-pressed rapeseed oil or fruity olive oil
1 lemon
1 lime
Wash and scrub the lemon and lime. With a peeler or sharp knife, peel the citrus and scrape off/remove as much of the white pith as possible.
Add all the ingredients to a medium pan. Heat gently to 150F/65C – you do not want the oil to bubble – for about an hour. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Strain out the chillies and peel.
Transfer to a cool, sterilised jar (you can run it through a dishwasher or boil it for about 5 minutes).
Store in the fridge.
The cat is an asshole… part whatever
