The Frugal Gourmet P2 French & Italian Breads Jeff Smith Cooking HD

Here’s one that’s easy and it’s very elaborate this is a stick you see a twig isn’t he beautiful show how it’s done so easy and so much fun to play with classic French dough take that’s too low so take half of the batch of dough and

Roll it into us and give some room here roll it into a long snake don’t handle French dough tenderly for heaven’s sakes there’s no reason to it can take it I promise well that’s too much dough I think you need about 1/3 of the whole batch here

There we go try and keep your sleeves out of the dough yeah it isn’t necessary to put your sleeves in here okay now see what I’ve got I’m gonna take a pair of scissors now and I’m simply gonna make a few cuts here now one and another one

Down this side and on this side and on this side you better do this on the tray because you’ll never be able to transfer this rascal if you don’t then you just pull them over on the opposite sides you see and you get this kind of leafy twig

Effect isn’t that fun they’re supposed to be a cut there somewhere where did it go this dough is so gluttonous you’ll see that it it sticks to itself right away there we go let this rise and you can blaze it or you can flower it i floured mine I really prefer the flower

Now then my Big E this is my Big E here’s my finale you ready at least for the French dough in southern France they decorate a loaf and yes I did make this one they decorate a loke loaf with with the the grapes of the church you see

Bread and wine the church lives on bread and wine and you do this simply by rolling out little bitty snakes of of dough and making your vine and rolling little bitty balls to make the grapes and the leaves are cut by pressing the dough flat on the board and then cutting

Them out with a razor blade and pressing them on the loaf don’t flour the loaf until after you’re done let it rise and you’ve got a heavenly thing I was very highly complimented when I was baking like mad I did all of this late yesterday afternoon and last night

Before you came as he and my friend who’s also my producer came running in and looked at my loaf sitting on the rack there and he said all those are gorgeous where you buy them I was really insulted also complimented you can do this you’ll

Just take some time one be sure and let the dough turn to gluten that’s how you gonna get a good crust and two don’t hustle the process it’s great fun it’ll take some time you know it takes it half the day to do this but at the end of the

Day when you to come to the table with with great rolls or big loaves of fancy bread you know you can write people’s names on the loaf for it for a holiday you see for a birthday or something or you can do fancy decorations you can

Even outline your house and one of these things anything for kicks and bring it to the table and everyone will be marvelously happy know that you’ll have a good time I promise there it is we got to talk about the history of bread in the church you know that’s a bread biblically the

Staff of life and all is is terribly important it’s to the point in in biblical times we had so much bread that bread was a sign of life the line give us this day our daily bread has nothing to do with just bread but was the whole

Everything you ate you see and bread was your the most common thing in your whole diet bread it was and during the 1700s in England let me show you this article have a marvelous book for you bread was terribly important in desperate times that’s what we lived on

Here’s an article published in England in 1758 this is a reproduction of course it’s by a dr. H Jackson a chemist and it’s an essay in which he discusses the methods of testing bread to find out whether or not the baker has loaded it with lime chalk whiting or burnt bones

Can you imagine what went on in those times to common bread which was terribly important to us bread is still important to us and we’ve forgotten all about it because you and I live on on those little puffy collapsible rolls you know you breathed on the thing and it dies

Off there’s no body to it this bread has body you know what the term companion means it’s Latin for the word come with bread Tana it means the person with whom I break my bread that’s the companion and that’s what you and I should be cooking now let

Me show you a more flamboyant loaf and this one is from Italy and it’s called focaccia bread it’s just gorgeous oh I know where it is let me get started with a clean bowl here oh this is gonna be this is gonna be murder to clean off

My paddle maybe I’m not gonna start with a clean bowl oh well in go the hands gang let’s let’s face it no other way to do this for this loaf I want you to prepare a one cup of water and we’re gonna use three cups of

Flour and it’s not so important to to weigh this one out because we’re not worrying about a cross this is kind of a it’s almost a pizza bread I think I’m stuck to this remember the old Laurel and Hardy routine they couldn’t get rid of something that kept going back and

Forth with it I think that’s what we’re gonna have here alright I have some extra bowls for my ears for my mixer that it works very well now we’re gonna add to our Bowl one cup of water and then we want one package of yeast nothing to it one package of yeast is

About that much already we’ll let that soak for about five minutes and then blend into it three cups of sugar plum flower and let me show the other liquids we want to put in this in addition to this we want to add 1/4 of a cup

It’s very rich stuff of olive oil so pour it right into the flour before we get started here 1/4 of a cup of olive oil fo cacio is very rich then we want a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt 1 and 1 you get the idea that we’re

Making something rich huh there’s the sugar I always keep a little sugar in the counter in a you know in a small bottle like this you see so that I can measure in a hurry in my hands there it goes alright now then let’s add the

Flour we need 3 cups you can do this with a regular mix master for the first cup or so to blend in the oil and the goodies you see otherwise you’re gonna have trouble if you got the recipe now three cups of flour blend it into one

Cup of water and two cakes of yeast 1/4 of a cup of olive oil teaspoon of sugar and the teaspoon of salt they see this is really gonna take a lot of work you see what’s happening that tuffet is already and I’ve got a whole cup of

Flour to go well I’ll show you what you get because I won’t I want you to see the whole process here it’s just a delicious dish see if I can find it which bowl is it under haha I haven’t watch oh here he is now I want to move

Over there will you another loaf coming up here what you do is to press this out let it rise first you see let it rise once then we’re gonna press it out into a big pizza affair but I want it rectangular because I want to cook this

In a in a pan I don’t want to work there it is I don’t want to cook it on a tray this is gonna be a very thick loaf much thicker than a pizza I’ve got a beautiful marble rolling pin here I just love to use it it’s just weighs a ton

One of my friends it helps me in the morning pick this thing up this morning and she said oh my god well maybe a little heavy but you don’t have to work so hard and that’s about the size I want huh that should fit my pan alright now

Remember this has already been raised once then you punch it down spread it out let me get a pan here for us and into it very oily pan what do they do with the olive oil here it is lots of olive oil in this one you all

Lit up isn’t this a kick now I’m gonna put it right in here come to me and just push it around until you get what you want now let that rise till it’s not quite double in bulk let’s get that wrinkle out of the way

Here there we go let that rise that was not quite double in bulk and then you take after it with a fork you really give it the works and thusly okay now we’re ready to go with some garlic where’d I put my garlic crisps here he is garlic on bread of course we’re

Making an Italian bread put some garlic on this one clove will be fine and I want to add some pepper too there we go we’ll just rub this in with our fingers pepper garlic there we go just rub the old garlic all around you don’t have to have

Perfect shape on this but it’s easier if you can just keep banging around as it rises remember now this is risen once and then I punched it down with a fork got that and I’ve added the garlic and the pepper now I’m gonna brush it with a very rich

Paste tomato paste of course okay and then we’ll top this off with some oregano and some chopped green onions and we come up with an onion bread from the South the southern part of Italy you know tomatoes weren’t common in the north did you know that that’s not

Coming in Italian cooking at all just in the south okay who’s got the onions here they are there we go and a shot of oregano we’re gonna bake this in a 375-degree oven for about 25 minutes and you come up with something that’s just heavenly the kids will go

Berserk just berserk there we go enjoy you want to see what you wind up with here it is folk at you from Italy you see and that a lovely thing it’s thick enough so that let me transfer to the board now I’ll show you how it’s cut and

Then we want to review proper baking methods because I haven’t told you how to steam your french bread and that’s the only way you’re gonna get a crust I’ll show how to do it quickly and easily but I want you to get a view of this beautiful focaccia oh it’s just a

Lovely bread okay you cut it in the big squares like this there we go and then again something like so you know I’m making this for you thought it was for you this is not for you this is for my son Jason whom we affectionately call starch mouth in our house he’s he’s

Much older now but from the time he was a baby Jason ate starch above anything else now you see you cut this in the middle this is how they do it in San Francisco there’s a joint called the a la Cantina on Union Street and he makes a sandwich

Out of this beautiful bread and puts salami on this and a little lettuce and then he pours olive oil dressing all over it it comes to the table so rich a little bit of trouble only hanging off the sides it’s so rich you’re gonna hardly stand it but

I order one every time I get near his place for cacio from Italy now the French bread let’s review that we’ve got two pounds three ounces of flour blended into exactly two and a half cups of tepid water two cakes of yeast and we’ve been in four cups of the flour first

Whip it around like mad until it turns to gluten gluten gluten gluten gluten you want goo remember that it’s important then you add the teaspoon of salt mix with the teaspoon of water and then knead in the rest of your flour and the recipe is complete you see let that

Rise once on a counter with a covered covered with a bowl punch it down let it rise a second time punch it down again and then you’re ready to start molding now when you move the loaves and put them on the pan please understand that

You want to use a bit of cornmeal and I keep my white cornmeal right out here I put some on the bottom of the bread and I also put some right on the board then we I don’t have to use a lot of oil you see white cornmeal is great you can use

Yellow if you prefer it doesn’t matter then that goes into a 450 degree oven after the dough has raised goes into 450 degree oven and in the bottom of the oven I’ve got another bread in it I have a pan full of hot water hot water will

Keep the oven steaming all of the time you must remember the hot water goes right in the bottom the other full of water when you start your baking process and after 25 minutes check it and you’ll wind up with gorgeous treasures remember the steam and gluten will give you the

Kind of crust you want and you want crustiness you want a bread that’s just gonna crack when you eat it so that everybody can enjoy themselves that’s how I make bread and this is for my son Jason who is my bread freak when you go to the table next time then and you

Reach for a loaf of bread please grab something with some body bread is an ancient food product and it’s just support us it’s not addenda on the table nor is it goo that’s supposed to stick in your teeth it’s to have some body do that use this recipe you’ll enjoy I’m

Glad we could be together today you are my companion and I hope someday we can eat together until that time this is the frugal gourmet I bid you peace bye-bye by [Laughter]