I'll admit to being a little bit disappointed: but not too badly so. Here is an overview:
First, as I said, there were problems with the dough before I put it in the oven, and of course for those I take full credit. I mean blame.
Second, the texture was strange: the insides seemed like it might have needed another ten minutes of cooking time (and given how thirsty the dough seemed when making it, that isn't such a surprise). The crumb is not particularly open (not that I have ever achieved that with a wholegrain loaf!) but it is fairly elastic, in a way not usually associated with wholewheat.
Third: the flavour: sort of halfway between wholewheat and white with a half cup of wholewheat flour added: neither one nor the other: a little nuttiness to it: next time I'll try adding molasses to it, to give it a richness, a darkness, a sweetness, a hint of the forbidden, to see if that improves things.
On the plus side, while it was baking, I threw together a pot of chili for this evening, and by the time that the bread was cool enough to try, the chili was ready too: so I had a thin slice of bread schmeared with a little chili: and that was a good combination. And while the chili is not exceptionally healthy (it has meat in) it does have a good number of beans in, so both the chili and the bread are high in fibre!
Here's the chili recipe:
2 medium onions
1 red bell pepper
5 cloves garlic
4 stalks celery
10-12 ounces mushrooms
2 lbs beef (I know it shouldn't be ground beef. I use ground beef. Don't eat it if it upsets you!)
Tomatoes, diced (fresh if you have them, 28 oz canned if you don't):
8 oz or so of beer (I used Sam Adams Cream Stout, 4 oz or so for the chef)
2 cans garbonzo beans
1 can red beans
1 can black beans
1 can dark kidney beans
Ancho chili powder
Chipotle chili powder
Storebrand chili powder
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Salt, pepper
1/4 ounce or so of dark chocolate (do *not* over do this!)
I browned the onion in a little fat from frying some bratwurst up: this adds a ton of flavour, and since much of the chili is going to be frozen, and it will provide us with perhaps four or five meals, a little fat is permissible. Note that there is nothing there to add serious heat: we have a three year old and a four year old
and we hope that they will eat it too.
Yours, whole-ly
N.
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3 comments:
Sounds like a fantastic recipe, I'm going to have to write it down and give it a go. I'm not sure we can get the various types of chili powder over here though (usually just the one type)and I would probably have to make a chocolate-free version, as choc. makes me ill. (btw, I've never thought of adding chocolate to a savoury meal before, out of interest: how does that work?).
A low-level of heat would make a pleasant change from ET's well-known creation that we've called "chilli-bang-bang"!
RT: you might be able to find some interesting chili peppers in a can too: use those sparingly. I'd imagine that there would be a variety of powdered chili peppers available in a good supermarket these days in the UK -- it might be something that has to wait for a trip to a larger town.
You should not be able to taste the chocolate: I used a very small quarter square from a chocolate bar for a pot of chili which will give at least 16 servings. It just rounds out the edges on the spiciness slightly, in a manner akin to the way a little sugar helps the acidity of tomatoes in a sauce. You might try a little (again, very very little) molasses or golden syrup instead (this is just guesswork on my part here!)
Construction order matters a little: saute the onions, then the celery, peppers, add the garlic, then the powdered chilis and the chili powder, cumin and coriander, salt and pepper.
Now brown the meat (in a separate pan if you are worried about the animal fat content, and spoon off the rendered fat) in with the vegetables: add the tomatoes, the beer, and simmer: taste for seasoning, adjust. Add the beans.
Simmer, adjust the seasoning.
The reason to adjust the seasoning twice, is that after the beans are added you'll probably want to add more seasoning, but it is better to get it underseasoned first than to put too much in and try to get the seasoning out afterwards!
N.
Man, that sounds AWESOME! I'm going to try it this weekend, thanks! Hi, Michele sent me :-)
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