Italia!

So I've been baking my life away, thus the lack of posting. King Cake business has exploded and I've been experimenting on other baked goods: sugar cookies, cakes, buttercreams, chocolates, cake pops, the works. But I FINALLY decided it was time to cook an actual meal, something that has sadly fallen through the cracks in the past few months leaving me stranded with meals of cottage cheese, cereal, &/or baby carrots.

Inspired by Food Network magazine's Italian issue, Bingham's quarter Italian blood & my envie for some tomatoey Italian goodness, I thought I'd give it a go. I've really been itching to make some home-made gnocci or ravioli, but I've been pinched for time so that'll have to wait. Instead I chose to do Uova in Purgatorio aka eggs in purgatory (or eggs in red sauce), a peasant dish of Naples. The version I used is spiced up with some peppers & salami. Get it purgatory, almost in heaven, but seriously, its delicious.

Uova in Purgatorio
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smashed
4 oz deli-sliced salami, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 Italian green frying pepper, thinly sliced (Thanks food network, you really think this is at my neighborhood walmart....I just used a green bell pepper)
1 small yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (love it!)
1 cup tomato puree (don't buy sauce!! just blend/process 2-3 small tomatoes, it's fresher & tastier)
1/4 c fresh parsley leaves
8 large eggs
2 tbsp grater pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
Crusty bread for serving (BUY BREAD! But excuse me ma'am, I'm a baker....I think I'll do it myself, hmph!)

Completed Crustiness

Crusty Garlic Bread
1 tbsp RapidRise Yeast
1/3 cup water
2 tsp sugar
3/4 c unbleached bread flour
2 cups warm water
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, processed
6 cups unbleached bread flour (made the mistake of using bleached AP flour cause that's what I buy in bulk for my king cakes, but next time I'd use bread flour)
2 cloves garlic, processed (for brushing)
1/3 stick salted butter/margerine, softened (for brushing)

Heat 1/3 cup water to 120-130F (microwave on high for ~1 min). Mix 3/4 cup flour, sugar & salt in small bowl. Add heated water, form into a ball, & score ball with criss-cross cut. Float ball in standing mixer bowl  with 2 cups warm water for 5-10 min.

Using dough hook, add garlic puree & enough of the 6 cups of flour until dough cleans sides of bowl. I have learned that the amount of flour you need for bread can vary up to 1/2 cup depending on air temp., humidity, the type of shoes your wearing. I ere on the side of less flour, just enough to clean the slides of the bowl & create a little "tornado" with your standing mixer.

Now its time to knead the dough, but first....

Tips on Kneading:
1) Don't knead too soft & don't knead too hard. Too soft &you won't be doing anything, too hard & you will start tearing the dough which is not really great for gluten development
2) Dust with as little flour as possible. More flour = drier bread, so only dust your board with as much flour as necessary, sometimes I don't use any as long as the dough isn't sticking to my surface.
3) Dough is done when elastic, smooth &/or window panes.
Elastic = give it a little poke & it bounces back (not completely, but a good bit).
Smooth = literally feels like a babies butt, I'm always amazed at how smooth dough can get.
Window pane = take a small ball of the dough and pull it out between your fingers, you should be able to get it thin enough that when you hold it up to the light, some light comes through (this test didn't really work well for this dough, but it usually does especially for doughs that have some kind of fat in them)

Window paning - this was right when I took it out of the mixer, definately NOT ready

Elasticity "poke" check

See you can barely see the litte imprint from my poke....its done!
And it felt like a baby butt

Put kneaded dough in well greased bowl (I like to use shortening for all my greasing needs) & top with a greased butter wrapper or wax paper. Cover bowl tightly with Saran wrap & place in a warm/draft free place for 1 hour or until doubled. I like to prehead the oven to 150 for 5 min, turn it off, then put the covered dough in the warm oven.



Risen dough, make sure your oven rack is lower or the dough
will run into the broiler coils....which happened here

Punch down dough (This part is fun! but short-lived) & shape into 2 long loaves tapered at the ends. Score dough length ways down center of each loaf. Cover with Saran Wrap and let rise until doubled.

Formed loaf with score

Risen Loaves - I recommend spraying Saran with cooking spray first

 Bake at 400 for 10 min, then reduce heat and bake at 375 for about 30 min. Remove from oven & cool (leaving oven on). Combine soft butter with pureed garlic & brush onto cooled loaves. Return to oven for 5 min.

Before butter & garlic



After butter & garlic....talk about a make-over

When you're ready to serve, just slice bread & bake or broil until toasted (only a very short time with the broiler!! we almost burned ours). We added more butter & garlic on our slices too (a little over kill on the arteries). This would go awesome with any soup or sauce based dish but not really made to be eaten on its own.

Toasty!

As for the main event, a little simpler...ok alot simpler than the bread.

I love meals like this where I can do half the work, leave, come back & finish it in 15 min. I did all the prep work before hand, mostly just slicing.

Took some extra time to slice these evenly

All my ingredients ready to rumble

Fry up the smashed garlic in a pan with the olive oil (on med-high heat) until its golden brown then remove it. The recipe says to discard the garlic but Bingham though that was blasphemy, and so did I so we pureed it with the tomatoes.

Throw in the sliced peppers, onions, salami & red pepper flakes & turn up heat to high for about 5 min. Add tomatoe puree & cook until veggies are tender.

Turn off the heat, scatter the parsley in & make 4 "wells" in your sauce. Add 2 eggs to each well, sprinkle with grated cheese & cover pan until whites are set.

 I like my yolks runny but we over did them but it was still delish!! I'd definately make this again but probably without the salami (not really a figure friendly ingredient but adds a ton of flavor).



Serve with some wine & I think our eggs just made it to heaven :)