All about yeast-leavened doughs
Tiny kitchen adventures continue (and abound!)
Hi friends!
It’s hard to believe that we’ve just passed the first day of spring—the Bay Area has been soaking wet over the last few days, so I’m looking forward to a bit more regular sunshine.
I realized I hadn’t quite synced up my video and newsletter schedule, so I had to wait one extra week to publish more videos in time for this week’s installment. (Thanks for your patience!)
Here’s a summary of the latest videos (and a few more that will go up):
How to make tahini at home — not about bread dough, but since I needed to make tahini for some vegan chocolate pots, I thought it would be fun to make a quick tutorial for homemade tahini. Two ingredients, less than $5 for ingredients and utilities…it’s so economical that I’ve stopped buying tahini. Also, I talk more about the vegan chocolate pots in the next section!
The difference between active dry and instant yeast — they’re both commercial yeasts (as opposed to fresh yeast), but they differ in how you prep them and how they work. Not included in the video: since instant yeast contains more live cells (without the outer coating), they work faster than active dry yeast. The downside of speed, though, is that you lose out on some of that nice yeasty flavor. So if you want more flavor in your dough, you can use instant yeast but do a slow fermentation (my go-to method) or use active dry yeast. After years of using instant yeast, I’ve found I prefer it much more to active dry yeast (wayyyy more convenient).
The secret to keeping homemade bread softer for longer — I use an Asian technique that is most commonly used for Japanese milk bread. It applies to any bread recipe…I recently modified a vegan cinnamon roll recipe to incorporate this special method.
To be published: this is an appliance that kneads dough well (but people don’t realize this!)
To be published: what is a sourdough starter?
To be published: why I never refrigerate homemade bread
The latest from my tiny kitchen
I’ve been making a lot more interesting recipes of late, experimenting with some vegan things and also generally trying to be more creative with various ingredients. Over the last month or so, I’ve done a lot of skincare and wellness research, and now I feel even more strongly about adhering to a plant-based diet. So you’ll likely see more colorful foods in this section in future newsletters. 🌈 (For those wondering, I don’t think I will convert to being a vegetarian or vegan, but I will forever advocate eating more fruits and veg.)
Back to the tahini, I recently made Yotam Ottolenghi’s vegan chocolate pots with tahini caramel. Super easy and tasty, especially with some coffee and cacao powder sprinkled on top. I’ve also become slightly obsessed with dates because of this recipe.
So this broccoli and date salad completely blew my expectations out of the water. I was skeptical of the raving reviews—especially since my husband and I don’t like raw broccoli—but I can confidently say that this recipe lives up to the hype. It was so good that my husband asked me to make it a second time the day after. It’s got warming spices (a Moroccan spice blend called ras-el-hanout that you can make at home), sweetness from the dates, tanginess from the lemon juice and vinegar, and earthiness from the toasted pine nuts and za’atar (my personal touches to the salad). I also added shredded carrots for extra crunch and vitamin A.
Za’atar has been my latest obsession (as evidenced above haha), so per a friend’s recommendation, I tried out this za’atar cacio e pepe recipe by Ottolenghi. Also a flavor hit. I halved the amount of black pepper and also drizzled lemon juice for more brightness. One thing I should stress is that when adding the cheese, you should do it on low temperature to prevent the cheese from separating. Or you can try this double boiler method from the Serious Eats carbonara recipe. (Btw, za’atar is amazing on bagels with a schmear!) 😍
Turmeric has also been my latest obsession. My friend introduced me to these frozen immunity cubes that I now drink every morning with oat milk. If you don’t have an orange, you can throw in a couple of strawberries (or any other fruit with lots of vitamin C) instead. 💯 For a savory recipe, I revisited an old favorite turmeric-black pepper chicken with asparagus. If you don’t have asparagus, you can make it with any other thinly cut vegetable (I did broccoli), and if you don’t eat chicken, firm tofu would be really good here. I made this recipe with some store-bought paratha (a South Asian flatbread similar to roti)…this combination is absolutely delicious. The turmeric gives the sauce a curry-like quality that I love dipping the paratha into. I’m probably going to make a second batch soon because it was that good.
Some noteworthy reads
Something new I learned about the tangzhong method!
This year, I’ve slowly gone back to my love of all things fashion and have started following the publications I used to enjoy reading. Harper’s Bazaar just did a feature on Brie Larson, who was amazing in Room and has a wonderful, healthy take on her acting success. (Side note: if anybody wants to talk beauty/fashion and films with me, let me know!)
I recently discovered a Substack newsletter called Brain Health Kitchen, which talks about topics that are near and dear to my heart since I did neuroscience research and worked for companies tackling the Alzheimer’s disease crisis. One of the things I hope that my readers/audience take away from my work is that science is very much a part of daily life, and I think this newsletter is great if you’re interested in learning how to take care of your brain through a healthful, evidence-based diet.
Thanks for spending your Saturday with me! I’m hoping to have another monthly supper club in early April, so stay tuned for the next cooking adventure.
To entertain yourself, try this puzzle from Wine Enthusiast:
(I’ll set up a Substack chat thread for anybody who wants to play and share their answers!)
Enjoy your weekend and see you in a couple of weeks. 😎