Saturday, December 13, 2008

Sour Dough and Pot Roast

Dinner at the Anchovy's


It's been a while since I've had a sour dough monster growing around the house, but yesterday Spicecat gave me some of hers, so I hatched a plan...make sour dough bread, make a little pot roast. Enjoy hot pot roast sandwiches on warm just out of the oven sour dough.

Spicecat also passed on the suggestion that I bake the bread in a dutch oven, something I've never done before. The idea is that you preheat the dutch oven then drop in the dough, and keep it covered for the first 20 minutes of baking. The dutch oven maintains steam and that makes for really excellent crust. Most recipes that suggest this are of the "no knead' variety, which suggest a very wet dough and rising times of 18+ hours. I can be a patient man, but I didn't want to wait 18+ hours for my sandwiches. So I'll fess up; I kneaded my dough.

The result was a fantastic loaf with a crunchy crust and nice open crumb. And did I mention tasty?

For the pot roast, I recalled this morning I had half a cross-rib roast in the freezer, so I took it out early to thaw in the fridge. I browned the sides, and deglazed the pan with beer. I added a chopped up onion and a carrot, and some salt and pepper and a splash of Worchestershire sauce, then poured in the rest of the beer and a splash of stock and let it simmer for 3.5 hours.

I enjoyed dinner with a cold beer.

3 comments:

A said...

MAN that sounds good!

(Word verification: "dogrity.")

Wandering Coyote said...

Oh, the dutch oven trick is the greatest thing I've learned this year! And you MUST try the no-knead bread sometime; it's THE BOMB! It's the one I make most frequently now...Which reminds me...I should go and start my dough right now...

mister anchovy said...

A - if I figure out what dogrity means, I'll add it to my lexicon.

WC, you know I'll get around to trying the no-knead bread at some point. Yesterday's loaf was very very good though...and it's good to have a monster growing in the house again.