Bacon cheese bread loaf (no-knead)

Lovely crackly crust

Jim Lahey's no-knead pancetta bread has become one of my tried-and-tested standbys for brunches, parties, and snacking. I usually make it as small bite-size crusty rolls (which I've written about before), but I also like making this recipe in larger loaves. 

While Jim Lahey's original recipe calls for baking it in a Dutch oven, I've found that if you split the dough into two medium-size loaves, you can do away with the Dutch oven, requiring less anxiety and less to clean up! It's a nice compromise between the smaller rolls and full-sized bread loaf, and you still get a beautifully-risen loaf with crackly crust and light crumb.

One of two loaves that I made yesterday

The loaf this time reminded me of the fat koi fish in my dad's pond. Perhaps it's because of the (cheese) moustache on the loaf? 

Loaves of bread and fish?

I made this bacon bread to go with the fromage fort I made with some leftover cheese from a holiday party. I don't have a food processor so I roughly mashed the cheese with chives, herbs, mashed garlic, heavy cream, and a generous splash of brandy. It ended up being like a very rustic Boursin :). Together, the bread and cheese went well with a beer tasting of Mikkeller craft beers that we recently got in from Denmark.

Bacon cheese bread (no-knead method)

Recently I've been dabbling with making bread, mostly with the water roux (tangzhong) method to make soft, fluffy, Japanese-style bread (more on this in another post), but this no-knead bacon cheese bread came out so well, it was devoured by during a craft beer tasting that we had last night in Hong Kong.

It's a crusty, chewy country bread that has a hit of salt from the bacon and cheese, and a hint of zing from the herbs and flaked red pepper. I adapted the recipe from Jim Lahey's book My Bread (of Sullivan Street Bakery and New York Times' Mark Bittman no-knead bread recipe fame). His recipe is itself inspired by traditional Italian lard/ciccioli bread. (Lard might sound scary, but it really makes for a lighter crumb and richer bread, similar as to the use of lard in pie crusts.)

This strong-tasting bread goes well with beers or ales. Recommended with North Coast Pranqster (a Belgian-style golden ale) or Baird Beer Numazu Lager.

Side note: Both of these beers were at the beer tasting I attended, and if you're in Hong Kong, you can get these beers and more through Hop Leaf, the new craft beer distributor that I'm involved in. (end promo!)

A few people have asked me for the recipe for this bread - I guess the combination of bacon and cheese is always a winner. If you're vegetarian (but not vegan), simply omit the bacon to make an equally delicious cheese bread. In the same vein, if you're lactose-intolerant, you can omit the cheese and keep the bacon.

Here's the recipe. It sounds a bit convoluted and troublesome, but if you break it down into steps, it's actually extremely simple and there's very little actual work involved. Mostly it's just waiting, as it uses the long-rise/no-knead method.

Checking in (and a tuna Niçoise recipe)

I'm alive! *dusts off blog* Whew, it's been a while since I've posted, hasn't it?

Fried cheese curds at Bastille Days in Milwaukee

Work and a lot of travel has kept me crazy-busy. Since my last post, I went to New York for a week and a half, Vancouver for a few days (including a crazy YVR-San Francisco - Tokyo - HK return flight due to the Fly America Act and missing my flight because of delays), Bangkok again in June, and Jon and I just returned a few days ago from three weeks in the US. (It looks like there's going to be another New York trip as well as Shanghai trip in early September too -- I like NY, but I'm at the point where I just want to stay home for now and don't want to travel for work!)

We went on a pilgrimage to New Glarus Brewing Co in New Glarus, Wisconsin (which is a mock-Swiss chalet town)

But let me think about happier things - like the great vacation I just had :). We spent three weeks visiting Jon's family and friends in Madison & Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (or, to be more accurate, Jon was the one who drove), where we eat a lot of good fresh food and drank even more fantastic craft beer (we squeezed in trips to two breweries - New Glarus and Lakefront). We also went to the Packers Hall of Fame at Lambeau Field in Green Bay (it's an NFL American football thing, but it was pretty neat to see the Lombardi Trophy and Aaron Rodger's Superbowl ring).

It's funny, because I used to be such a geographical snob -- growing up, my family lived in Vancouver (Pacific Northwest) and I went to college in upstate New York, or having a transfer flight at O'hare airport, I didn't know much about the mid-West ("the fly-over" states?!) The only time I had been in the Mid-West was during a crazy 3-week road trip from Vancouver to Prince Edward Island and back (West to East Coast was through Canada; East to West was through the US on the I-90), where we ate Chinese food almost every night, thanks to my dad's need to eat rice with every meal. But that's another story for another time.

Cattle prices on the Agricultural reports on the TV news

What I want to say was I found myself really, really liking Wisconsin and the U.P. -- the commitment to sustainable local produce, the appreciation for the good things in life (cheese curds, sausages, beers, frozen custard!) and the friendliness and lack of pretentiousness that people had. It's very different from big-city Hong Kong or New York city, where I get tired about all the prattling about brand names and money and showing off. 

Jesse works for Alterra Coffee, which has awesome coffee and baked yummies. Their graphic designer is really talented - I love my Alterra T-shirts! :)

Here's one meal that Jon's sister Jesse and I made one sweaty evening in Milwaukee during that heat wave where it was in the 90s (Fahrenheit, which is about 32 C or so -- but in a place where they don't have air cons!).

Tuna Niçoise

Jesse bought the tuna steak from Trader Joe's. The fingerling potatoes and green beans we bought from the local farmer's market (not really a market, more like a cluster of stands on a street corner) in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee where she lives. The lettuce were grown by Jesse in planter pots on her deck.  It was one of the best meals I've had in a long time -- the potatoes were fresh and sweet, and the beans were crisp and tasted of sunshine and good things.

Gougères (Cheese puffs)

I first had gougères at Caprice, the 3-star Michelin French restaurant at the Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong (you can read my review of that meal here). My first bite of hot cheesy puffiness and I was in love...

I tried to recreate the same feelings at home, with some success. It's all about the cheesy puffy holes (like a cheesy savory choux puff). Best served warm.


This Alain Ducasse recipe works wonderfully - my local supermarket doesn't carry Gruyère so I used Parmesan instead, but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. This type of pastry is called pâte à choux/choux pastry - similar to that used in éclairs, cream puffs, profiterôles, etc.

After making these a few times, I do have a few suggestions if you want to use this recipe:

• Sift the flour before using (actually, do this for EVERY recipe that calls for flour)
• Bring butter and eggs to room temperature before using. It really makes a difference.
  
• Don't be tempted to use more cheese in the dough than the recipe calls for. (Otherwise your puffs may be a bit too heavy and the holes won't be nice and large and airy.)
• I think any of your favourite semi-dry/firm cheeses would work here, not just Gruyère - I've used both Parmesan and Comté with success.
  

• When heating the milk, butter and salt in the pan, dice the butter first so it melts quickly and evenly. Don't let the mixture foam up.
• Dump the flour all in at once and stir with brisk motion until you don't see any white bits of flour any more and it becomes a drier dough in the shape of a ball (it comes away from the sides of the pan). There may be a white film on the bottom of the pan - don't scrape it in. The drier the dough, the puffier your gougères will be.
• This cooked dough is called a panade.
• When adding eggs, don't worry if it doesn't combine with the dough at first and looks like it "curdles" - just keep stirring.
• From personal experience: do NOT hold pastry bag in one hand and try to transfer hot dough from bowl using spatula/spoon with other hand. Recipe for disaster: spillage of hot dough on countertop, fingers, etc. guaranteed. After losing a batch of dough this way (and almost breaking out in tears from trying to force the sticky dough into the bag), the magic of Google showed me that you can place the pastry bag upright in a tall glass and then spoon the dough in. Definitely going to try this next time! Also tying the other end of the bag is a MUST..
• Careful cooling of the puffs is important otherwise they might deflate. I would open the oven door to let the moisture escape, then leave it open as you allow the puffs to cool slowly (the point is for any remaining moisture to dry off, otherwise you get an eggy, soggy interior).
• Careful storing. If serving immediately, do NOT store in plastic/ziploc bags (it traps moisture and makes the puffs deflate/go soggy). Put in a paper bag. When completely cooled, you can store in fridge or freezer (plastic bags OK here): reheat before serving.

Cafe des Negociants (Geneva, Switzerland)

Cafe des Negociants
Carouge, Geneva, Switzerland