Braised boneless pork ribs with barley and mung beans

A tasty meal, brown the pork ribs throughly in oil, add sliced white onion, grated turmeric root, several small fresh  tomato and ground pepper(s) a pinch of curry  spices. Also added some oregano, and thyme.

When everything is fragrant, and the onion wilted, add hot stock to the pan, simmer covered. Add additional hot stock during the process if necessary. Just before the pork is tender, again,  bring up the level of the liquid, add the barley and mung bean (a dried packaged mix), cover simmer 10 minutes, move from the flame, keep covered for about 10 more minutes. Serve. The barley tender, the mung bean firm.

What was left in the pan after serving………

Malted barley sourdough bread

Linking through several gravitars, lead me this site , The Zero Waste Chef(Link)https://zerowastechef.com/2015/09/17/sourdough-bread/

Recent reading on sourdough technics gave way to this loaf. Milling grains for beer, or more accurately crushing malted barley, I tightened up the Victoria mill for a fine grind of barley , that being 120 caramel/crystal malt. This mix will lead to a dark gold color as the barley is roasted, 120 being the color scale measurment of the malt. Just as a side note, this is how your red, porters and stout beers account for their color. The dark roasted grains may be an aquired taste.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/briess-caramel-120l-malt.html

Now I didn’t get the exact measurement of barley in addition to the 1 kg all purpose flour , probably around 1/2 cup, the new technics were to age the soughdough starter AND what’s know as a leven by soaking the grains, the all purpose flour, with water. Sour dough bread is a non yeast bread relying on the starter to provide the fermentation. 

OK, if time is on your side, as this is a long process, that being, the proofing, and temperature plays into the completion of the bread. Experience is the best teacher in this type of baking. My process is harvesting some starter from the crock in the fridge to start, feeding the crock ,before returning into cold storage. 

Now I fed the starter with the barley flour and water and prepared the leven as well. The very active starter didn’t take long to bubble and from prior failed proof of concepts, ( that’s a literal “proof”) with the additive of barley, an overnight soak sounds like a good idea for fussy grains like whole wheat and fresh ground barley malt who seem to take their time absorbing liquids.

The sourdough barley malt starter.

After an overnight stay, Now it’s a simple matter of mixing the starter and the leven. You can see the roasted barley bits in the dough.

Runny very hydrated dough , pre globular !

It’s Alive ! The organism starts to grow and pick up a cohesive texture, turn every hour or so, I find that tilting the bowl to the horizontal and utility a spatula dipped in water will easily fold the entity.

I used the floured towel and bowl method to nest the slow ferment the globular organism.

Several points to consider, the dough stuck to the towel when moved to the Dutch oven, being a pottery one versus cast iron with the bumpy top as result. Internal temp at the finish is 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  The next loaf will be either a lower oven temp or less cover off baking time. 

Several hours later, in the Dutch oven, the result.

A dark crust, crunchy right from the oven the apparent dark grains has a part to play in the finish color.

As apparent by the white dough spots (I split the main ferment into 2 bowls) the leven and starter did not fully mix in some areas, the dough was mixed in kitchen aid bowls and had a flour ball at the bottom, I just let it go. A marble loaf possible using 2 different color dough. The crumb airy and light not like other sours that I have baked that were the dense variety. (Small green fleck is from broccoli 🙂

One trait I notice with the sour ferments is that the crumb has a slight rubbery texture even though no oils were added, not like a slightly grainy finish from yeast/all purpose flour mixes or those with semolina additions.

“The toast test” , nice caramelisation at the edge, tender crunch. I need to improve storage as a plastic bag storage yielded a soft crust the next day. (Actually broiled both sides)

One other ferment  was placed stasis refrigeration, warming up to be nest fermented and baked. 

Taste is a earthy barley background clinging dark malt aftertaste. Do you taste your ingredients? That’s how to become familiar with the different flavours. Taste and smell the flours and grains that you use in recipes. Always have some ferment going on in the house. Fit in the mixing , fermentation, and baking to your schedule and it will become an aquired skill. 

Chicken,roasted veggies,barley

A redo of a meat, potato and veggie dish. 

Pan seared chicken, weighted with a smaller pan atop, seared on both sides.

Reheated roasted veggies previously cooked, turnip,parsnips,brocolli,onion,mushroom, beets, and carrot, oil and flax seeds, salt and pepper.  Most of the veggies from the market are kept on the counter, in sight before they had a chance to dry and shrivel completely they were roasted and then stored in the fridge. One of the best ways in my opinion to cook veggies especially root vegetables. 

The barley took on a brownish tone from being cooked in vegetable broth. Not a peticularlly fancy type meal but nourishing and flavorful.

Shrimp and Barley

Prepare barley as package directs, usually about a 2 to one ratio of barley/liquid (water, stock, etc.)

Stir fry shrimp in olive oil, season with thyme, or the herb/spice of you choice.

  

Roasted Veggies with barley

   Too simple…
Prepare barley

1 cup barley to 2 1/2 cup water
While the barley simmers, cut and dice vegetables.
Fennel
White onion
Green onion
Garlic
Carrot
I used a almost a whole fennel, including some of the stems diced like celery.

Medium dice on the bulb, and some of the fennel tips.
White onion, medium dice.
Green onions, medium dice, both the white portion and green stems.
Carrots cut to similar size.
Toss with salt, pepper, oil, a bit of rosemary.

Cut a piece of parchment paper about double the size of the baking sheet. Center the parchment paper on the baking sheet, add the veggies and fold and seal the paper, all edges to enclose the veggies.
Bake in a moderate oven for about an hour.

The fennel is very flavorable with the accompanying veggies , no other seasonings were needed.

Serve over barley.

The texture of the veggies were just right, not mushy, not too crisp.

With added broth, would be a good soup.

Lamb shoulder chops

Wow I haven’t posted in a while , is it sheer laziness or just uninteresting recipes, who knows, possibly the the summer weather has made cooking less attractive or the fact that I have not documented my cooking as it may be a repeat of previous recipes. That’s until lamb entered the picture

One of my favorite cuts of meat is the lamb shoulder chops. I don’t have these that often so they are a treat. Aside from the more famous lamb chop, the shoulder cut has a more interesting composition and flavor. It is not entirely meat, but some stratified fat included. Excellent for broiling, grilling and stewing in a sauce. Broiling was the way to go.

On the bottom of a broiler pan, actually one from the toaster oven, add some sliced veggies, onions of course and I happen to have some orange sweet peppers. drizzle with olive oil.

Broil them till they are about halfway to your liking.

add the broiler rack and place the shoulder chop on top, you get the idea ! the juices from the chops will drip on the veggies underneath. of course the chop is salted and peppered.

Now place under the flaming broiler….

broil and flip the chop, Mine’s slightly medium rare…. note the caramelizing of the veggies. yes a few are blackened, i don’t mind.

Plate up, fellow WordPress people ! A side of barley with veggies completes this meal. The lamb flavor was very mild in this particular cut, as far as taste, could be close to a beef rib. Very tender, not the least bit tough.

Related articles

• Heavenly Dinner: Lamb Shoulder Chops with grilled Zucchini ! (irenegrimes.wordpress.com)

Here’s another shoulder chop meal made on a different date.

Served with double wide fresh made noodles and tomato, green pepper,and onion sauce.

Barley ,rye , and wheat bread.

Barley ,rye , and wheat bread.

Grind flaked barley, flaked rye, and unmalted wheat. These amounts were not measured but about 1/3 each.

a coffee grinder, burr type , was used , giving the grinder a break after grinding about 1/2 cup, to avoid over heating, the raw wheat is especially hard on the burrs. More on this later *. It’s not exactly flour but what I would call medium ground grain.

About 1 cup of the ground grains mixture, added to 2 cups of white flour, 4 teaspoons of yeast, sugar and salt to taste is mixed with about two cups of water at 130 degrees, mix and add additional white flour. This dough was made on the wet side and let rise till about double.

Another use for ground spent grain is for dusting work surfaces and hands so the dough doesn’t stick. Also, if you need to grease and flour baking pans, ground spent grains can be used and give the crust a nice color and flavor. Some may not be used to the grainy ness and the fact that the ground spent milled grains still have some of the husks intact possibly because I have used a coffee grinder to mill the grains.
All in all, the idea is to substitute dried spent grain, ground or not , in the place of or to augment white flour in recipes.

Getting back to this recipe, the grain additions are not spent grain but unmalted or flaked grains. Most of these can be purchased from a shop catering to home brewing of beers or possibly a health food store or online search.

The dough rose fairly well in the bread pans , noting that milled spent grain was used to coat the sticky dough.

And then to the oven , lately the technique of starting the baking in a cold oven has improved the uniformity of the crumb as with the dark well used pans and very hot oven gave a denser crumb at the bottom. Usually I bake at a temp of about 400 degrees or better but the wet grainy doughs probably would benefit from a lower and longer baking period.
But the most of the bread baking including the the amount of yeast is geared for a quick production of bread, the modification of a longer time frame like letting the dough ferment in the fridge and using less yeast is a technique that needs to be worked on.

Freshly cut needs more resting time to cool.

The loaves are surprisingly light and springy.
Does this batch of bread taste any different than bread containing ground spent grains?
Update addendum :
After baking another batch with spent grains and comparing them the answer is yes, it is much more grain gritty than the spent grain and possibly one of the future batches will use the milled ground grains after they are soaked a while. That is make a soaker of the raw milled gains then incorporate them into the recipe.

With the baking complete, the taste is ok, maybe needs more sugar, the definite taste of grains is apparent and the long lasting taste and gut filling feeling. If you find store bought sliced sandwich bread to be as adequate, then you may be satisfied with 1/2 a slice of this. It’s one of those breads that will stay with you well after consuming it. Over all spent grain additions has a lighter taste than using raw grains, I would add less raw grains in the future. The spent milled grains additions has a lighter flavor and texture.

Adding milled grains whether raw or spent continues….

*A note about the grinder, a Cuisinart Model DBM8, is used often to grind coffee and is several years old. Parts for this are still available as the top hopper assembly has been replaced recently and consist of the upper stationary burr. It has lasted longer than previously powered coffee burr grinders and sometimes can be found online as a reconditioned or overstock model at a reasonable price. It is worth the price as long as replacement parts are available. Am considering a hand grain grinder though as it might yield a finer grind. Most electric powered grinders for grain are very expensive ( new) though I haven’t searched other sources like EBay .