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Have you ever been to a Mediteranean or Persian restaurant and been simply amazed at the “pocket” that is made so consistently in the center of the pita bread? It’s amazing, you may ask yourself, how do they manage to get the “pocket” to open up in just the right place everytime? How do you make something that appears so delicate?!

If I told you that it was really easy I would definately be lying to you. When I was lookiing through various articles and recipes to see how it is done, boy did I get scared. But to be honest it is pretty straightforward if you think of everything ahead of time and not in the typical recipe framework.

First I like to think about the process with something I am familiar with, proofing. We have discussed proofing on here a couple of times before so I wont go that far into it, except to say that I was surprised this was part of the recipe. Then we combine this with a sort of batter that we will prepare to make the initial integration easier and more uniform. To finish the mixing part we continue to add flour to our batter until we reach the consistency that we are looking for. After this the mixing is over and we have to allow the dough to rise. Finally we arrange the dough into the shapes we want and bake it at 450F for a few minutes and cool on a wire rack!

So first as I said before we are going to start with the proofing. Mix the following together in a small bowl.

• warm honey (1/2 tsp.)
• warm water (1/2 cup)
• yeast (1/4 oz.)

While this is proofing you can get the batter started. Mix all the following ingredients together using the paddle attachment on your stand mixer. Keep mixing until the batter is fairly smooth.

• warm water (1 cup)
• salt (2 tsp.)
• olive oil (2 tbsp.)
• AP flour (1 cup)

After a few short minutes your proof should be nice and active with a head of foam (not unlike that on a freshly tapped beer). Pour the proofed mixture directly into the batter until it becomes nice and loose.

When you have reached this point you will now only be adding flour to make the dough and so you should switch to your dough hook attachment. You can start by adding a 1/2 cup at a time until you have added 2 cups. At this point you should add the flour more slowly until the dough pulls away from the mixer bowl.

• AP flour (~3 cups)

Once the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl and is reasonably smooth, and stiff you should stop mixing and allow the dough to rise. To facilitate you should liberally coat the dough in olive oil and put it in a deep bowl (the stand mixer’s bowl should be fine). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap so that the dough will not dry out; this rise should take about 1-2 hours (depending on how warm your kitchen is).

When your dough has doubled in size it is time to take some advance measures, first you should set your oven to 450F and liberally flour your counter. Empty the bowl onto the floured surface (from as low as possible you don’t get flour everywhere) and cover both sides in the flour. Divide the dough into ten equal pieces and place all under a damp kitchen towel. Remove one piece and roll that into a ball and return to the kitchen towel (in total these will rest about ten minutes). Repeat this until you have 10 balls of dough.

Once you have returned to your first ball of dough dust both sides with flour again and roll the dough out into a 5-6 inch diameter circle (akin to a small tortilla). Coat one side of this dough in olive oil (I used a brush but you could be more rustic and use your hands as well). Cover this round with another kitchen towel and let rest for a few minutes. Repeat for all the other balls of dough as well.

At this point you are ready to bake. I put four of these rounds to a baking sheet with Silpat and let them bake until golden brown. Remove these after about 7-8 minutes and place on wire rack to cool. Repeat until your have ten pitas! Enjoy with almost anything that can fit into the “pocket,” personally, I prefer grilled lemon chicken with baby spinach.

So now that we have our burger buns ready to go, how should we proceed to grace them with meat? Should we place a juicy meat and onion amalgamation? Or perhaps replace those onions with shallots? No, not today, for me we are going to go with only one modifier, salt.

What?! Yup, only one ingredient, and a very simple one at that. Have you ever wondered how sometimes beef just tastes more like beef? It’s probably because whoever made it kept it simple. Salt in meat, just like in any other use, makes things taste more like themselves.

To make these delectable bites of meat, I used 100% ground round and the salt:

• ground round (1 pound)
• salt (1/2 tsp.)

A small amount of salt is all you need to keep it tasting nice and beefy too. Just combine and mix together thoroughly. Now we will mold the burgers into patties; I prefer to do this by making sure they will fit perfect onto the buns, so use them as a model. Doing this I got about 5 good sized patties.
Now judiciously heat a non-stick pan and place your beef patties on there. We are going to get a healthy crust going on either side of burgers by searing them. So the technique will be simply to sear each side, and then to bake them in the oven at 200F (you should preheat the oven before you place your patties in the pan). Place the patties in the pan for 3 minutes on the first side.

Now flip the patties in the same order that you put them in and resist the urge to push down the patties to make them flat, don’t worry, its not like there is some flavor component that will be missing. Let the other side cook for 3 minutes also.

Now if you were to open up one of these burgers now you would probably see a burger that was cooked less than medium. Now I took these burgers and put them onto a baking sheet and popped them into the oven for about 8 more minutes. After that I checked them to make sure they were done (in my case cooked through, I don’t take any chances with ground beef).

Now the sauce is incredibly simple. I call it Eritrean ketchup because it includes my favorite combination of Eritrean spices, berbere. It is a very simple sauce to make and all you have to do is combine things you likely already have in your refrigerator and pantry.

The recipe is simple, but should be done in two steps to make sure everything is properly integrated. First I would start with the lemon juice and hot sauce (use your favorite brand):

• hot sauce (2 tsp.)
• lemon juice (1 tbsp.)

Now you want to combine these wet ingredients with the berbere and salt:

• berbere (2 tbsp.)
• salt (only a pinch)

This must be fully integrated before you move to the next step because once it is in the ketchup it will be hard to distinguish the dry bits of berbere. Now finally you want to mix this loose sauce together the ketchup (use your favorite brand):

• ketchup (1/4 cup)

Once these are fully combined put it into a squeeze bottle and refrigerate.

Now the only ingredient that may strike you as peculiar is the lemon juice. The lemon juice is used to balance the vinegar in the hot sauce. Without it the flavor of the hot sauce comes out more than the berbere.

To complete the burger just slice the burger buns in half and pull out the inside. Place a nice juicy patty on top with some green lettuce and a healthy helping of the Eritrean ketchup. I honestly had trouble not finishing all of these burgers at once, I hope you have the same trouble!

Ok so I rarely crave anything (well except for pizza of course). But for some reason, I was absolutely craving some hamburgers, particularly beef burgers. I wasn’t just craving the meat though; it was the taste of beef. But you know I’m an engineer, and what do they teach us from the very first day? You cannot build anything of consequence without a strong foundation. So I will hit the meat part of this burger in my next post. This post I will dedicate to the foundation, aka the bun.

Now it might sound boring and inconsequential but I make the very the same argument with my pizza dough, “a bland foundation will lead to a bland concoction!” In this vein I will present what I believe are the very best rolls/buns for a burger or any other small sandwich. The best thing about this is that they are so easy to make!

As with almost any yeasted bread that I make, we start off with blooming the yeast in warm water:

• yeast, active dry (1/4 oz.)
• warm water, ~105F (1 1/4 cups)

This should take nearly 5-10 minutes and you will know it is ready when it has produced a healthy head of foam. I usually do this in the same measuring cup that I measured out my water since it has a nifty spout to pour from.

Once our yeast has bloomed I pour about half of the water (with the dissolved yeast in it) into my Kitchen Aid’s mixing bowl with the salt, sugar and bread flour:

• salt (1 1/2 tsp.)
• sugar (2 tbsp.)
• bread flour (2 cups)

I combine these in the mixer using the bread hook (this is a bit of a must, but before using make sure to liberally oil down your dough hook or else our dough will stick to it…permanently). Once the dough begins to come together continue pouring in the water until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the mixer bowl.

Now we must knead the dough, though I must say I much prefer doing this with the mixer. First pull the dough off of the dough hook and apply more oil to the dough hook. Replace the dough hook and turn the speed up one level higher than you were mixing the dough (you should have been mixing the dough on low). This will knead the dough within about five minutes, though dough should be nice and elastic once it is done kneading.

Now we will simply roll the dough into a nice round ball and cover it liberally with oil (to prevent it from sticking to the sides of the bowl) and replace it into the mixing bowl. Cover this with plastic wrap and allow it to rise until it has doubled in size (this should take about an hour).

Once your ball of dough has doubled in size you may now pull it out into a rectangle. Be gentle while doing this because you do not want to destroy the structure that you were creating by allowing it rise. I would also recommend that you lightly dust your work surface with a bit more flour to make it easier to work with.

I then cut it into eight even pieces and pulled each into a separate smaller balls of dough. Now to make sure that the bun will have a smooth bottom you will place the pinched part of the ball down onto the surface of the counter and cup it (you could do this with one hand if the balls of dough are sufficiently small) and push the ball in a small circle on the work surface. Slowly increase your speed until you no longer feel resistance, now if you look at the bottom of the ball of dough you should have a smooth surface.

I then placed each of these balls of dough onto a baking sheet (I used a silpat just so that they would have a nice even color on the bottoms). Cover this baking sheet once more with plastic wrap for about 45 minutes or until the balls of dough have nearly doubled in size. You should begin preheating the oven to 375F about 20 minutes into this final rise.

Once they have doubled in size remove the plastic wrap you may place them in the oven. Baking should take little more than 20 minutes, depending of course on your oven. You will know they are complete when they turn a golden brown color.

Now of course you want to allow these to cool for at least fifteen minutes before you consume them. Come back soon to see how I did!

Of course my family never really baked all that much, but neighbors mom did! She was probably the one who originally got me interested in baking. And now I love it so much, well actually what really got me into it was her peanut butter cookies.

Now this isn’t her recipe, but it is something that I have come up with that approximates it. To be honest, it is not altogether different initially from my chocolate chip cookie recipe, except of course we switch out peanut butter for the chocolate chips. I should remind you all that this is one of those recipes where you really see how wonderful a contraption your Kitchen Aid stand mixer is!
Of course as with most cookies of this sort we will start with the creaming method! First you will take your butter and sugar and mix them until ‘creamy’. Be sure to use:

• butter (1 cup)
• white sugar (1 cup)
• brown sugar (1 cup)

Then you will add to this the vanilla and eggs. Add the eggs one at a time and make sure that they are fully integrated before you add the next or move on. Here are the amounts of each that you should be adding:

• vanilla (2 tsp.)
• eggs (2)

Now we will break from the typical chocolate chip cookie recipe, now you add the recipe’s namesake, the peanut butter. Specifically you will be adding 1 cup of peanut butter. This is a difficult task that I solved by simply using a spoon to add to a measuring cup until it filled the top. Not the most elegant solution but hey, it got the job done.

Now in a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. The following are their measures:

• all-purpose flour (2 1/2 cups)
• baking soda (1 tsp.)
• salt (1/2 tsp.)

Whisk these together briefly just to make sure they are evenly distributed. Now add this to the wet mixture 1/3 at a time. Once they are fully combined place for 5 minutes into the refrigerator (just to cool it and make it more workable). I recommend that you now begin to preheat your oven to 350F.

Prepare your baking sheet and remove your cookie dough from the refrigerator. I used two cookie sheets so that while one is in the oven I can be preparing the next batch of cookies. I would now use a teaspoon (not the measuring device) to get some dough from the mixer bowl and then roll it together with my hands into a ball and then roll that into some sugar that I have put into a bowl. I put six of these balls onto each cookie sheet and baked them for about 9 minutes (plus or minus a minute). You will know that they are done when the edges of the cookies begin to turn brown.

When they are done remove the cookie sheet from the oven (and place the next batch in the oven) and allow the cookies to set for a couple minutes. Once they have set you may remove them from the cookie sheet to a cooling rack. Continue the cycle until you are finished.

Enjoy at your leisure!

I love having some nice spiced tea with a biscotto in the morning, it is as close to breakfast heaven as one can get. Don’t agree? Would you rather have pancakes and eggs or even toss in bacon. Well try this out first and then think again.

Granted, a little of this worship with the biscotto and tea may have to do with the fact that I recently gave up espresso. But you know this recipe will go equally well with both steamed milk and a nice frothy cappuccino. Without a doubt this is possibly the next best thing coffee in the morning!
The first step of this recipe is to combine the dry ingredients separately from the wet ingredients:

• flour (2 cups)
• salt (1/4 tsp.)
• baking powder (1 tsp.)

Just combine these in a separate bowl with a whisk, just to evenly distribute.

Now you are going to use a separate bowl and mix together the wet ingredients. We will however do this in stages, first combine:

• eggs (2)
• white sugar (1 cup)

And beat together with the whisk. At first it will seem to get stiffer but it will smooth out. Once it has a smooth consistency combine the rest of the ‘wet’ ingredients:

• almond extract (1 tsp.)
• slivered almonds (1 cup)
• lemon zest (1 1/2 tbsp.)

Continue whisking together until they are fully combined. Once the wet mixture is fully combined I would recommend turning on your oven to 350F.

Now you may slowly add the dry mixture to it to the wet mixture. It is very important that you do so by folding only about a third of the dry mixture in at a time. Be very careful when folding this in because it is critical that you do not create a bread like dough.Once it is fully combined pour the dough out onto a silpat equipped (or parchment lined) baking sheet. This will make sure the bottom does not brown too much. Shape the dough into a log. This log will now bake in the oven for 40 minutes (you will know it is done because it will have puffed up slightly and cracks will be forming on the surface).

You may now remove the log from the oven. Allow it to cool on a cooling rack for at least 20 minutes. When you have done that I would recommend using a serrated knife (I used my bread knife) to cut through the log. It will be very hard and will likely still contain some residual heat, please be careful. Once you have cut the log into about 12-15 slices replace them on the same baking sheet (cut side up) and return to the oven.

Each side should be re-baked for about 7-8 minutes. While you are doing this however I would recommend setting up a double boiler and melting about 1/4 pound of dark chocolate (about 4-5 baking squares of chocolate).

When hte biscotti come out of the oven allow them to cool before you coat their bottoms with chocolate. When you coat them with chocolate you may be generous, just be sure to place them back onto the silpat equipped baking sheet to allow them cool with out sticking (obviously put the chocolate side down).