Rise up

It is rather cruel that when you spend a couple of days and a few hours making bread that you aren't supposed to taste it until it cools for an hour.  Fortunately, I have a braise in the oven and the bread will go very well with it so I'm not too upset.  And the little bit of crust that stuck to the pan when I popped the bread out onto the rack was enough to tide me over for a little bit longer.  We'll have to see if I can hold out all the way to dinner.

About the bread itself … I have two of Peter Reinhart's bread cookbooks and I can't decide whether I like them or not.  I regularly and successfully make a really nice loaf from a fairly simple recipe.  Then I crack open one of Reinhart's books and the bread takes at least two days to produce.  The recipes require pre-mixing of certain parts of the dough the day before the double rising process.  And instead of the standard two loaf recipe, his recipes make one.  And I can't say that I have thought Reinhart's breads were so awesome that they were worth the extra time.  But I have had very good success with bread lately, and I'm giving the proofing feature on my new oven credit for that, so thought I would try again.  More to come after the official tasting later today.

And speaking of braising, I'm back into Molly Stevens' All About Braising book.  Yesterday I made a delicious braised tuna with chickpeas and radicchio.  It is a fairly quick recipe; a maximum of an hour from start to plate.

Today a little more involved braised oxtails is in the oven.  I have no idea if I like oxtails or not but I see them every time I go to my local butcher and decided to take the plunge.  If I don't like them, I can always have another slice of bread!