Just had a week where everything went right in the kitchen...

I tried that new no knead bread recipe on Monday and it actually rose perfectly for once. Then Wednesday I made a brisket in my slow cooker and it came out so tender I almost cried. Friday I finally got my sourdough starter to double in size after 3 weeks of feeding it. What weird cooking win have you had lately that just clicked?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_davis19d agoOG Member

That brisket story hits hard because when slow cooked meat turns out that tender it really does feel like a small miracle. The no knead bread thing is such a game changer once you get the timing down, I've had loaves that looked like deflated balloons for months before I figured out how wet the dough should actually be. My weird win this week was making a lasagna that didn't turn into a soupy mess, I finally let it rest a full 30 minutes before cutting and it held together like a brick wall. What's the trick you use to keep your sourdough starter from smelling like nail polish remover when it gets too hungry?

grant.richard19d ago

Honestly for the longest time I thought the nail polish smell was just part of having a sourdough starter, like a badge of honor or something. I kept feeding it every 12 hours thinking that would fix it but it just got worse. Then I realized my kitchen was too warm and the bacteria was going crazy before the yeast could catch up. I moved it to the basement where it stays around 65 degrees and started doing a 1:5:5 feeding ratio instead of 1:1:1. Now it smells like actual yogurt or ripe fruit instead of a chemistry experiment gone wrong. The same thing happened with my brisket too, I used to think high heat was the only way until I tried 225 for 12 hours and finally understood what people meant by "bark".