My ideal bread—the bread I want to have for breakfast every morning, around my sandwiches at lunch, and to sop up the remains of whatever sauce adorned my dinner—is a crisp-crusted, chewy, open-crumbed bread, flecked with bran. This is the kind of bread perfect with a slice of cheese, some large-grained cured sausage and a big swig of coarse red wine to wash it all down. Rustic bread.

The concept is one thing, the creation of this imagined bread is another. Recipes from cookbooks have their virtues, but ultimately none has been totally satisfactory. Over the past year, I’ve tried to understand the techniques underlying the recipes, to manipulate the variables and create a bread that lives up to my ideal. I experimented with hydration percentages, finding that a wet — but not too wet — dough helped to create the open structure I was after. Next, I tested delayed fermentation to see what effect it had on my breadmaking. Lately I’ve been thinking about how I was mixing the stuff: kneading.

Never impervious to trends, I went through a no-knead phase. The results of the various no-knead recipes I tried (my favorite was Cook’s Illustrated’s No-Knead Bread 2.0) were always very consistent, and actually pretty close to what I was after: big open crumb, slightly sour flavor, crackly brown crust. That was all well and good, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was turning into little more than a bread machine: mix the given amounts of flour, water, salt and yeast, let them rest and bake for the prescribed amount of time, and then poof! bread. It was a good bread but not one over which I felt much ownership of or had any control over. Using the no-knead method, breadmaking felt more magic than craft.

Having rejected not-kneading, I went on a kneading binge. No bread passing through my oven would be kneaded any less than ten minutes, vigorously and by hand. I settled on this method mostly as a sentimental reaction against no-knead — good bread was something you worked for, dammit — but I also had a somewhat technical justification: the repeated working of the dough was helping to create a strong gluten framework that would support the airy internal structure I was after. And sometimes, it did. But I also found that often my kneaded bread would be very fine-textured, lacking the big holes that make me think “good bread.” Rereading Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking to research delayed fermentation, I came across an explanation for what was happening in my kneaded bread:

Kneading also aerates the dough. As it’s repeatedly folded over and compressed, pockets of air are trapped and squeezed into smaller, more numerous pockets. The more pockets formed during kneading, the finer the texture of the final bread. Most of the air pockets are incorporated as the dough reaches its maximum stiffness. (538)

All my diligent kneading may have been making strong gluten strands, but it was also crushing and dividing the tiny gas pockets that explode in the oven into my sought-after holes.

I needed a third way: a technique by which I could strengthen and bond long gluten chains while seeding the dough with large gas pockets. The answer was stretch & fold, a technique which I had first encountered as a way of dealing with extremely wet doughs, but only began to consider seriously as a general technique after reading and baking Samuel Fromartz’s baguette recipe. In stretch and fold, after dough is initially mixed it is allowed to rest for ten minutes. Then, using a bench scraper, the baker stretches the dough into a long strand in one direction before folding it in half over itself. The stretch and fold is repeated in the other three directions (check out this video!). The dough is then rested half an hour before being stretched again. I suppose this process could be repeated indefinitely, but I usually stretch and fold the dough four times over an hour and a half. After the final fold the dough can rest overnight in the refrigerator (I just can’t give up on delayed fermentation) and it is ready to shape, proof and bake.

Stretch and fold has given me impressive results and I have been tempted to say that it is the technique for achieving the bread I am after. But there had been times when I felt the same way about no-knead, and ten minute kneaded dough — those techniques had just fallen out of favor with me lately. To ensure that stretch and fold really was something different (and better) I conducted a head-to-head-to-head kneading technique breadoff.

I started by preparing a 3# batch of 68% hydration dough using:

• 6 oz wild-yeast starter (100% hydration)
• 16 3/8 oz water
• 23 5/8 oz white all purpose flour
• 2 oz whole rye flour
• 1 T sea salt
• 2 t instant yeast

Immediately after mixing to form a shaggy ball, I divided the dough into three 1# balls. One was placed immediately in a plastic bag and left to rest on the counter: this was the no-knead bread. Another I left in the mixing bowl to rest ten minutes (ample resting seems crucial to the stretch and fold technique). I spent that ten minute resting time kneading the third ball of dough, using no additional flour so as to keep the recipes constant.

After kneading I placed the dough in a bag next to the no-knead dough. Because the stretch and fold technique requires the dough sit at room temperature for close to two hours as it rests between stretchings, I left the other two bags on the counter as well so all three dough balls would have the same chance at yeast activity. I followed the procedure as I described above. At the end of the stretching/resting period, all the doughs looked similar, although the kneaded and no-knead doughs appeared more voluminous than the stretch and fold, probably due to their extended rest.

All three bags spent the night in the refrigerator.

Although three 1# dough balls will fit in my oven at the same time, it’s a tight fit and the breads close to the edges of oven tend to burn and grow towards the center. For optimal results, I needed to bake each bread in roughly the same place in my oven: the center of the stone. I couldn’t just pull out every dough ball out of the refrigerator to proof and then bake one at a time. That would give the third-baked far more time to proof than the first. Instead, I staggered the breads, proofing each bread for one hour in a proofing basket then scoring it once down the center and baking for 25 minutes in a 450°F oven with a preheated steam pan bearing 1 cup of room temperature water. True, this meant that the third dough ball would spend more time in the refrigerator than the first and second, but because the cold temperature means nothing happens very quickly, I thought the influence would be negligible. All the breads were baked within two hours.

The first bread I baked was the no-knead, followed by the kneaded bread, ending with the stretch and fold.

As I pulled the breads out of the oven, I was surprised by the extent of the differences. Where the no-knead bread was roughly cracked and browned, giving a very rustic, rough appearance, the outside of the kneaded bread was smooth and uniform.

The stretch and fold bread was similar in appearance to the no-knead but almost a half-inch taller.

The different external appearances were a sign of unique internal structures. The interior of the no-knead bread was familiar: haphazard large holes here and there, largely concentrated on the edges.

The kneaded bread, I was surprised to see, had much larger holes, although it also had large areas of uniform, fine texture. The large air pockets were possibly the result of my technique of forming a loaf; tucking the edges of the dough under it might have trapped large air pockets that were maintained by the strong gluten network.

The stretch and fold bread seemed like a combination of the other two. Although its structure was similar to the no-knead bread, the holes were larger and more evenly distributed. Of the three, here was the closest to the crumb structure I imagined for this style of bread.

But bread was not meant to be looked at; it should be eaten! Would my different techniques result in dramatically different flavors? Although I have been told that mouthfeel (texture) influences perceived flavor, I can say that these differently textured breads tasted essentially the same. All the breads were chewy and substantial, with a deep flavor of grain. I thought that I noticed the crust of the kneaded bread was slightly more chewy and less crispy than that of the other two, but after a few more bites I couldn’t be sure. The stretched and folded bread had slightly more fermented flavors than the other two. Overall, though, once the bread was in my mouth I couldn’t notice a major difference. A blind tasting panel, a more sophisticated palate, or a battery of chemical and mechanical tests would all have helped to better discern the differences. As far as I’m concerned, it was all pretty good.

Looking over the three slices, stretch and fold is the best technique for making rustic bread. Both other techniques yielded good enough breads, but neither could compete with the open crumb and lofty structure of the stretched and folded dough. In some ways, this is also the most involved technique: no-knead bread is over almost before it starts, and kneaded bread takes just ten minutes of intense activity. The act of stretching and folding is not particularly time consuming, but the dough does require attention every half hour for a couple of hours. You can’t just walk away from it. Maybe the technique’s appeal comes back to the sentimental: after working with stretched and folded bread over the course of an afternoon, it feels like I actually did something.

There’s something perverse about biking across a snow-covered city to get to the farmers’ market — particularly when it’s only 10 days in to October. But that was the situation we faced this morning as we headed out to the Midtown Farmers’ Market. There are a few weekends left for the market, but with snow (and, more critically, frost) here the vegetables will be thinning out (Gardens of Eagan recently tweeted about a slushy head of broccoli they pulled from the field) as will the market shoppers, until only the die-hards remain.

Frost only came in the last week, so farmers still had plenty to offer. Feeling that our diet was lacking in things green — a problem which only worsens during the winter — we bought broccoli, parsley and kale. We also bought three kinds of squash: acorn, spaghetti and delicata. With the squash from last week, I now have five distinct varieties of squash sitting in a bowl in my dining room. Clearly, some kind of squashstravaganza is called for.

As if five squash weren’t enough starchy, orange-fleshed, sweet vegetable, we bought sweet potatoes, in a 2 for $5 with Russets. We also bought garlic to store (although garlic doesn’t last long around here). And, after a successful apple tart last night, we bought more of the Haralsons that were sold to us last week as the ultimate baking apple . Finally, we got a loaf of honey-wheat bread from Brett and Mary of Real Bread.

As we were buying the sweet potatoes from Julie of Pflaum Farms she mentioned that her mom kept talking about sweet potato fries. That seemed like a good idea to us; when we got home we roasted a few of the sweet potatoes, cut into sticks and tossed with oil, salt, pepper and thyme. The fries accompanied sandwiches made on Brett and Mary’s bread with mayo, turkey from last night’s dinner, roasted red peppers and black beans. Washed down with cider, this made for a nice lunch on a snowy fall day.

The night before last I was looking for a source for the Alessi juicer by Philippe Starck (below left) after recognizing it in one of the scenes in Food, Inc. The juicer appeared in the kitchen of Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and I was curious about how much it cost (answer, $90). The movie was great for so many reasons. You should see it; I hope it will change the way you think about food. I hope it will change the way you think about a lot of things. Enough with the seriousness, though. This post is here because you should also see this website that I found the juicer on! They have a lot of great stuff. It’s Emmo Home. Emmo is meant to spell out the sound of saying the letters M. and O. M.O. for Modus Operandi (so they say in their FAQ). But that’s not what matters. Check out all of these lovely things!

Juicy Salif Squeezer by Alessi, Kiwi watering can by Alessi, Bread Bag by Stelton, Salad Plant by Black + Blum. Images: http://www.emmohome.com/

p.s. They also carry the Cycloc Bike Rack by IC Design Group (featured here previously).

Since the bánh mì is the sandwich of the moment—with a New York Times article and plenty of blog coverage—I thought I’d add my voice to the chorus.

My relationship with the venerable Vietnamese sandwich started well before I knew its name, when Emeril Lagasse (a man who I am not ashamed to admit inspired me to cook in a big way) featured a recipe for “Vietnamese-style Poor Boys” on one of his many Food Network shows. Emeril was taking a bit of liberty with his nomenclature, but I recognized a good thing when I saw it and made this sandwich several times over the years. My other bánh mì breakthrough was when I began working as a cook at Blackbird Café in Minneapolis, which features a pretty excellent version on its menu. Nothing like making a sandwich a hundred times to come to appreciate its nuances.

So there are my two big influences in banh mi-making: a creole TV chef and a South Minneapolis neighborhood restaurant. I’ve never been to Vietnam. But, great food knows no borders—earlier this week I set out to make my banh mi from scratch.

As with any sandwich this popular and widespread, or any sandwich at all for that matter, there is no exact consensus on what ingredients go in it. But from my experience eating the sandwiches, I knew what I wanted: liver pâté, roast and pulled pork, pickled carrots and daikon, sliced cucumber, cilantro, jalapeño and mayo all on a baguette-style roll.

Just as every house needs a foundation, every great sandwich needs to be built from a strong, tasty base; the first thing to tackle was the bread. Because it works very well for me, I used my standard sourdough bread recipe, which consists of mostly white flour with a little wheat flour thrown in and is hydrated to about 68%. This produces a nicely airy crumb while not being so wet as to be unworkable. After the initial rise I cut off 8 0z pieces and shaped them into rough bâtards. After a rest, a slash and 20 minutes on a 450° baking stone, I had respectable rolls on which to build my sandwich.

Although some restaurants omit it, in my mind liver pâté is essential to a great bánh mì—something about its rich fattiness and that funky liver flavor. Ever since finding an old copy of Terrines, Pâtés and Galantines in an antique store in Red Wing, MN I have been thoroughly immersed in the world of potted meats. Since it was going to be a spread for my sandwich, I needed to make a smooth pâté, rather than my usual chunky, rustic terrines. A food processor made this really easy: chunks of lamb liver, chunks of pork fat, spices are pureed in a matter of seconds. (Not really a process for the squeamish, you’re basically making liquid meat). If I were really anal retentive (ok, more anal retentive) I would have passed the resulting puree through a drum sieve to make sure it was perfectly smooth. To cook the pâté, without overcooking it, I utilized a double boiler. I cooked the ruby mixture until it had become more beige and granular and looked done. Pâté!

With the pâté resting in the refrigerator developing its wonderful flavors, it was time to tackle what is in some ways the star of the show: the pork. The question of the preparation of the pork is another area where pretty much everybody differs, but I fell back to experience. For one thing, I know that I prefer tender pulled pork to pork cooked more quickly.  Many of the bánh mì I have tried seem to use some kind of hoisin barbecue sauce, but I just rubbed the meat with salt, pepper and chinese five-spice. The warm, sweet spices are already somewhat present in the pâté and complement the heat of jalapeños.

Since the chunks of pork form a craggy, uneven layer, for a level sandwich you need something to build up while filling the cracks. This is where I like to bring in the pickled carrots. Since there was daikon at the farmers’ market, I used that as well (apparently this is traditional), shredding both.

I fell in love with making quick pickles at Blackbird. It’s as easy as taking a vegetable, cutting it into small pieces (or shredding), tossing it with a hot pepper, a garlic clove, whole peppercorns, coriander seed, and/or whatever other pickling spices call to you, and pouring boiling vinegar, water, salt and sugar over it all, then letting it sit in the refrigerator over night. I put a lot of sugar in to make a sweet pickle, since pork loves sweet things.

With a solid level built up by my pickled roots, I was ready to stack on the fresh vegetables. This was the only part of the process that felt like cheating since I didn’t have to do anything except for clean and cut the vegetables—it felt like it would have been more “from scratch” to have grown them myself. But since I won’t be growing hot peppers in my northern-exposed apartment windows anytime soon, store vegetables would have to do. It’s not like I raised the pig.

Thick slices of cucumber are essential to cool your tongue from the punishment meted out by thin slices of jalapeño. If you are one of those unfortunate individuals to have been cursed by God with a distaste for cilantro,that’s too bad, because the best bánh mìs pile it on, both the fragrant leaves and the crunchy stems.

With the sandwich elements perfectly balanced structurally, there remained only to add the finishing touch to top it all off and bind it all together: mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise can be put together from scratch really easily and can taste a bit richer and have a silkier texture than the heavily processed stuff from the jar (but honestly, if it weren’t for the ‘from-scratch’ gimmick behind this post, I probably would have whipped out the Hellmann’s). It’s just a matter of whisking an egg yolk with some lemon juice, salt, pepper and sugar and then slowly whisking in olive oil until you have mayonnaise.

And so, applying the top piece of bread, I had the scratch bánh mì: built from the ground up, each element custom designed to my exacting specifications. Was it worth it? Well besides the fact that it was more like fun than work to build each element of the sandwich, the sandwich itself was very good; I wouldn’t to call it “the ultimate bánh mì” because I have yet to meet a bánh mì I didn’t like. With pork, pâté, cool cucumbers, jalapeños, fragrant cilantro, sweet pickled carrots and rich mayonnaise on good bread you can’t go wrong. So while I instinctively bristle at all the hype, there is scarcely a sandwich that deserves it more than the bánh mì.

At the risk of being un-of the moment, I’d like to share some pictures from our February weekend in Duluth, MN. Allow me to set the record straight… this was the site of our first first picnic, attempted on the shores of Lake Superior and finished with gloved hands inside of a state park shelter with beautiful views of the lake.

If not for the snow, doesn’t this look like a lovely day for a picnic?

I thought it was a nice enough spot, and there were picnic tables. Tom reluctantly unloaded the (unnecessary) cooler.

In the end we got a little too cold and sought refuge. But as I said, we still had a lovely view of the lake. And with our teeth not so chattery and our hands not so cold, we were able to enjoy Tom’s creations a little more: lamb liver and pork terrine, baguette, Trader Joe’s dijon (too dijon for me, just dijon enough for Tom), olive oil, and parsley sprigs. It’s true that I continued eating with my leather gloves on. Tom found his fleece gloves didn’t take well to dipping bread in olive oil; he went bare-handed and was rather cold.

Finally, here’s the view from the shelter along with a few pictures from our stay in Duluth, MN. All images from the picnic were taken at Gooseberry Falls State Park. I’d like to return to Gooseberry Falls in the summertime, if we have a chance, to see the falls in their unfrozen state. Despite the cold, if you like to walk or hike, Duluth and the surrounding areas are a great place to visit. I’m sure it’s even better above freezing.