Tangzhong

It’s the dead of winter, and a middle-aged woman’s mind turns to…carbohydrates. In the wake of the holiday binge eating, it probably isn’t the best idea to be reading cookbooks. Oh well. It’s Hilda’s fault for giving me the Cook’s Illustrated 2016 Annual (yes, the same one I got the Christmas roast pork recipe from). Yesterday’s experiment was “the fluffiest dinner rolls.” The recipe used a Japanese technique called tangzhong, which is cooking some of the flour with water to make a paste before adding the rest of the flour and other ingredients. The author claimed that the paste made rolls that were moister and longer lasting than the usual dinner rolls.

I followed the directions to the letter, especially with regard to mixing and kneading time because the dough had an egg in it. You can abuse non-egg doughs all you want. Overmix an egg dough, and you end up with tough rolls that refuse to rise. The dough was supposed to be sticky, and that tackiness was helpful in rolling it out, the recipe said. Don’t flour the surface.

It certainly was sticky. Here is my best attempted at getting it into an 8”x 9” rectangle, cut in four strips, and each strip cut in three pieces.

The dough should be sticky. Check. 

I stretched each piece (a rolling pin was out of the question with no flour) into a 2”x8” strip. The only way I could roll it into a cylinder was to pry it off the counter with a bench scraper. The surface was not at all smooth like it was supposed to be.

Trying to form the very sticky rolls

But yeast dough is forgiving. The final product looked good. I can’t say they were the fluffiest ever, but certainly a fine dinner roll. I can also attest that they did keep their moisture overnight, although they are going in the freezer soon.

The final results

Today’s experiment was scallion pancakes, another Asian recipe. I’d never had scallion pancakes, so I would not be able to judge if I made them correctly or not. I would only know if I liked the final product. This dough was entirely boiling water and flour. After kneading it and letting it rest for half an hour, I cut it in half and rolled each half into the closest approximation of a circle that I could manage. I brushed the surface with oil and sprinkled on salt and sliced scallions.

Dough rolled out, oiled, and sprinkled with salt and scallions

Then I rolled it up and rolled the cylinder into a spiral. This was supposed to create layers. 

Rolled up and spiraled

The next step was to roll the spiral into an 8” circle. I can only describe the dough at this point as “squidgy,” with all the oil and scallions squirting out everywhere.

The spiral rolled into a circle again

Finally, I fried the pancakes in more oil. I do not fry, generally speaking. Stinks up the whole house for days. I found it difficult to put such a large, flat surface into the skillet without splashing hot oil all over, including on my person. Turning the pancake over had the same problem.

Frying the pancake

It tasted good with the dipping sauce but sat heavily on the stomach. I can say without hesitation that it was an excellent way of turning my entire kitchen into an oil slick. Not sure that’s a keeper.

The hens went outside yesterday for the first time in several days. It was brutally cold and blustery Wednesday through Friday, but yesterday the wind was less and the sun was out. Hilda was hesitant, so she made me do it so that if anything bad happened it would be on me. I was of the opinion that the girls would really enjoy some fresh air and exercise. It turns out I was right. I let them out when the temperature got above 10°. Five of them crowded into the dust bath at the edge of the coop, scratching, rolling, fluffing, and jockeying for prime position. They were in and out of the coop all afternoon, walking over the top of the frozen snow.

The girls scratching in the frozen ground and walking on the snow

They also used the kennel to get out of the wind if they needed to.

Angelica and Bella by the kennel

Here is a video I took this morning of the fight for the Sunday carrot peels and Blanche having a dust bath. The fact that she can get any dust out of the frozen ground is a testament to her claws.