Well, I spoke too soon. I'm going to do some serious web-scouring research before undertaking this again, because sourdough is maybe not as straightforward as I thought. I was dissuaded from moving to phase 3 on Thursday night after realizing that the description it had to match was "active and bubbling" (whereas I only really had bubbly starter), and by means of Youtube I confirmed that active starter actually bubbles up and moves continually like a little swamp in a bowl. Alas, that was the last I saw of any bubbly action, because for the past four days I've been nursing a very flat and bubble-less mess, pinching my nose through the awful smell (it went from pleasantly acidic to filling much of the house with a sewage-like odor), to no avail. Once I can get that smell out of my memory (and fully out of the kitchen), perhaps I will try again, with the pineapple juice this time and a very clear idea of what kind of "activity" I need to be looking for.
On a happier note, M's birthday is this weekend, and I gave him a choice of "menus" for a nice meal. He chose the least adventurous (i.e. no cuts of meat I've never even purchased before), perhaps wisely. :P I guess the unifying theme would be French-inspired? For apps, gougères (Michael Ruhlman's ratio); first course, a summer tomato salad probably with green goddess dressing; filet mignon with a red wine pan sauce, sides of blue cheese baked potato fans (they sound a little kitschy but it's an ATK recipe and looks worth trying) and braised leeks (ATK). For dessert he just wanted a classic yellow birthday cake (Smitten Kitchen's, I've used this for cupcakes before and it was excellent) with CI's foolproof chocolate frosting and perhaps also vanilla ice cream. Since cupcakes apparently aren't manly enough, I will halve the cake recipe and slice one layer horizontally so it's still a layer cake, but more reasonable for two people. It remains to be seen whether I can pull all this off at once: I have at least made the pâte à choux, steak, and leeks before. I've also made a few cakes in my day, so no problems there as long as we don't have any unreasonable expectations as to the appearance... Should be fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment