Legacy Recipes, Part 1: First Courses

Contributed by Song Stott (NAI Event and Conferences Manager)

Bread. The smell... the crunch of the crust... the fluffy and chewy interior. Bread is a staple in most cultures, yet most of us do not bake our own bread. Too much time. Need fancy kitchen tools. It's too technical. Nope! You are not too busy to make healthy, homemade baguettes! In just 5 minutes of working time, 4 ingredients, and no fancy equipment, you can make homemade baguettes!

I call this the “The Gateway Bread Recipe,” as it takes out all the complicated jargon and mastery out of bread making. It's so fast and easy, I actually did this as a demonstration for my CIG course :). You can make this in the time it takes to listen to one song on your playlist.

I hope you try this recipe and share your bread with your friends and family.

Ingredients

• 3 3/4 cups bread flour (fluff your flour with a whisk or butter knife prior to measuring)
• 1/2 teaspoon active try yeast
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 3/4 cups filtered lukewarm water

Directions

Add yeast to flour. Mix well in a bowl. Add salt. Mix.

Add water and mix with spatula until the dough just comes together in a ball. This whole process should allow you to listen to Bohemian Rhapsody from start to finish. If you’re fast, you can be done before the jammin’ last bit of the song. Cover and let sit at room temp or in a cold oven for 6-10 hours. Night night dough.

Pre-heat your oven to 480 degrees. Your dough should have doubled in size, and gone from solid ball to fluffy marshmallow vibes. Gently scrape dough out of the bowl. Use a scraper and be careful not to deflate the dough—your yeast just pulled an all-nighter, and has put in a lot of work to create those precious bubbles! Turn dough out onto a generously floured surface. Sprinkle the top of dough with more flour. Gently press into a more oval/rectangular shape. Add more flour on top if necessary. Cut the dough into 3 equal long pieces. Gently place each strip onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Gently stretch and mold into more of a baguette shape. As therapeutic as it is, do not handle dough too much, it will deflate. Score your baguettes with a sharp knife or razor blade. About 4-5 diagonal cuts should do it. You can also snip at a 45 degree angle 5-6 times with kitchen scissors. Score with confidence, you want the scores to be about ¼” deep.

Add 1 ½ - 2 cups boiling water to an oven-proof container next to baguettes or on the oven floor (a bread loaf pan or cake pan works great!). Bake baguettes for about 25 min. Halfway through bake time, take out the boiling water container (be sooooo careful not to burn yo’self!) and turn the baguette around for more evenly browning.

This is the ASMR part of the process. Sound is as important as smell… your baguettes should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool baguettes completely. (This is the hardest part! Resist cutting into your baguette until completely cooled. Allowing the bread to completely cool will result in a better, fluffier interior.) Then squeeze your baguette. Listen to that crunch! Eat. Yumbo.

Notes: You can use all-purpose flour, but the texture will be more dense. Steam is essential for that classic baguette crust "crunch." You can bake without steam: it will just be a very soft crust. If your baguettes are cooking too fast, your oven might be too hot. Try it again with the oven at 475 or 480 degrees. If you're at sea level, you may want to reduce the water by 1/4 cup!

Contributed by Jason Neumann (NAI Author)

Just as in field interpretation, when we cook with wild foods, the attempt is to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Since many people have tried a North American pawpaw fruit (Asimina triloba), I’m always looking for ways to upscale our pawpaw experience at Cincinnati Nature Center. Making pawpaw crepes elevates the fruit and pulls visitors into a new experience. When you make the dish in front of visitors or—better yet—pull them in to help, the cooking becomes part of the fun and the experience flavors the food.

Ingredients

• Crepes
• Pawpaw
• Lemon Juice
• Powdered Sugar

Directions

Find your favorite recipe for crepes (thin pancakes) and secure crepe ingredients and equipment.

Using a slightly firm (but ripe) pawpaw, remove skin and seeds and, as best you can, cube up the pawpaw. Note: use pawpaw pulp right away…it’ll oxidize and turn bitter if it sits around.

In a medium heat pan, briefly saute the pawpaw pulp, with a squeeze of lemon juice, until just warmed.

Transfer pulp to your hot crepe, roll it up, and dust with powdered sugar.

Serve hot.