This morning I tried one of the most controversial recipes in the world of artisan baking: The No Knead bread.

This recipe has polarized bread makers since Jim Lahey of Co. Pizza made the recipe famous in 2006 through a feature in the New York Times.  

This bread caused a furor among white thumbs and some even went as far as hitting each other with bread sticks and flattening each other’s noses with rolling pins. It was ugly.

Even the band Bread couldn’t accept the fact that they weren’t kneaded anymore. In fact, sales of their Anthology Greatest Hits that features an extended killer–suicide– version of their overtly depressing song IF, have been reportedly on the decline.

“I don’t knead Bread,” said one of the former fans of the band headed by David Gates.

Some 10,000 “kneaders” in top bakeries have been laid off due to this revolutionary recipe.

“For ages, kneading is as essential as flour in making bread,” complained one ex-kneader.” Now, we’re all unemployed.”

I agree. After trying a couple of traditional breads, this one is really something new.

Obviously, No Knead Bread doesn’t need a lot of things that normal bread does.

Aside from not working on the dough, there’s no need for a bread starter. 

With breads like traditional baguettes, a bread starter made up of a cup of flour, some yeast, and water and fermented overnight is required for that fermented taste in artisanal bread. This starter will later be mixed with the actual baguette dough.

With the No Knead Bread, the whole dough is the starter. Once combined–the flour, salt, yeast and specific amount of water, it is left to ferment for as long as 24 hours.

There is also no need for a steam oven to develop crust. The oven within an oven baking technique does that.

Once this dough doubles in size and bubbles up like a living, breathing goo of microorganisms, it is ready. Shape it into a ball, plop it into a heated Dutch oven and stuff it inside a 450-degree oven. After that, magic. Crusty and chewy bread emerges from the flames. Amazing!

Now, the recipe stated that this No Knead Dough could be used for pizza crusts, baguettes, rolls etc. Just follow the instructions in making the dough mixture and then shape the proofed dough into your desired output.

I am making another batch of this dough for Saturday and I am intending to use it for homemade hamburgers. God knows how much I miss burgers. Yes that one, I still need.

I am also making more mini baguettes for an attempt to make my own Vietnamese Banh Mi. 

Like the burgers, the Banh Mi will be made from scratch– even the mayonnaise, liver pate, pickled carrots and Daikon radish, and the meat filing, which I plan to be braised pork belly in caramel sauce.

For a wannabe cook, French cuisine is every bit like a video game’s level boss–if not, the ultimate level boss. There are many reasons for this: intimidating, uncertain, requires too many ingredients, and too much tools and techniques. But perhaps first among all these multitude of reasons why the cuisine of France makes idiots out of trying hard cooks is time.

French cooking requires a lot of time. And if a person could not even spare a minute to crush a clove of garlic, that person will be eaten alive by French cuisine.

While other world cuisines require as much dedication and skill as French cuisine, none compares to the latter’s requirements of multi-stage preparations and cooking methods. It is a cuisine that takes so much time to create yet renders so little. But little the product may be, it could be the greatest little thing one could ever eat.

So for me who is interested in cooking my own meals for the rest of my life and leave behind a life dependent on takeout counters and frozen TV dinners, a firm grasp of the philosophy of French cuisine is imperative because as they say: If you can do French, you can do anything–or perhaps, even anyone.

This is the precise reason why yesterday (Sunday) Sheryl Mae and I decided to face this gargantuan level boss. I thought if we could pull off a multi-course French dinner menu, and get good results, we will most likely be able to sustain this home cooking and local eating lifestyle.

It wasn’t easy. And by the time we bought all the ingredients and tools on Saturday, we knew there was no turning back.  So the freaking out started. We could totally mess everything up and instead of having guests happy with their Brie, we might end up having Brie on our faces. The possibility of tragic failure and embarrassment made us sweat like a party-addict student searching the vast void for something to put on a blank test paper. We were nervous and petrified.

“What the hell are we doing,” I thought. “Why can’t we just feed these guests ready made pizza, twinkies, and softdrinks?

Boeuf Bourguignon, Salade Aux Larde, Sardine Aux Amandes, Brie En Croute, and Mousse Au Chocolat. That’s a tall order! And for a couple who used to believe that eating out of cardboard boxes was the hippest thing to do next to smoking weed naked, cooking dishes that we couldn’t even pronounce seemed like a virus free Windows PC– an impossibility.

But if we are really serious in changing our lives and hopefully contribute to our local food economy and help improve our environment, we need to learn how to cook.

Given the dishes we decided to make and serve, we divided our tasks to achieve an efficient workflow. Both of us will do the prep work, I will take care of the salad, the main dishes, and the cheese course, while Sheryl Mae will handle the dessert.

It was so timely that come Sunday afternoon, friends of ours, Gatch and Teresa, stopped by and gave me a gift: a professional cutlery set.

Damn those nice sexy blades!

As I held on to the virgin stainless steel chef’s knife and saw my reflection on the cold shiny object, I felt the uncontrollable urge to cut anything in sight. But thankfully, I controlled my urge and instead proceeded to cut the grass-fed beef for the bourguignon.

While I was trying my best to handle the work, Sheryl beat the egg whites like she was beating a purse-snatcher–to death! As a result, she got a nice firm and fluffy meringue perfect for the Mouse Au Chocolat. She also melted dark chocolate using a glass bowl on top of a pot of steaming water.

And since we were doing this French thing, Sheryl Mae even dressed to look the part: with curls and flowers on her hair, bright lipstick, high-heels, and a chilled bottle of Rosé that she drank every once in a while. And at one time she got a little too tipsy, her face almost fell over the bowl of melted chocolate.

As for me, I fired up my Mac and played some Parisian Jazz music and danced to it while I sautéed the mushrooms and work on the baguette dough.

Damn we were definitely having a blast!

The bourguignon took about six hours to make. I followed every step in the recipe and was anal with every ingredient. Beurre Manié?  Boquet Garni? All there.

Same with the other dishes: Brie? Puff pastry? Toasted almonds? Wine? Not a single ingredient was missing, not a single step missed.

We started the whole thing at around 11 Am, and plated everything at 9 PM, minutes before the guests arrived. And when they did, they all ate our offerings at once. And judging from their reactions, it appears we have conquered the boss. The guests were enthralled by the smell of the freshly made baguettes and as I hoped, used the crusty bread to wipe their plates clean of the hearty bourguignon sauce.

The Brie En Croute was a hit, so was the sardine dish and the Salad Aux Lard. But the showstopper was Sheryl Mae’s Mousse au Chocolat. Some guests even fought for seconds. But in true French etiquette, she regretfully told them that there were no seconds. One guest even eyed one of my new shiny blades with the obvious intention of throwing it directly between my eyes. Well, not really. But in the end everyone was happy. They liked the food, and we totally loved making it for them.

And when all the guests had gone, the two wannabe cooks sat on the table, sipped some freshly brewed coffee and heaved a deserving sigh of relief. We winked at each other as if silently confirming that indeed we had done it. Well, in all modesty, we think we really did. So now we can safely say that this new lifestyle can definitely see future.

We had so much fun cooking together that we didn’t even realize that Sunday was Valentine’s Day. Well, we usually don’t celebrate the holiday because we simply don’t believe it. But if we ever do celebrate the day again, we would certainly opt for cooking together again instead of the standard roses, Valentines card, a movie, and a dinner out.

Cooking is now something we truly believe in. Sheryl Mae sees macarons in her near future, while I see Cassoulet.

All in all, after having our own French revolution in the kitchen that turned our world around, I personally think that there is another reason far more important than time when it comes to cooking. And in true French fashion, that reason has to be Amour.

Brie En Crouté

Not the prettiest circular shaped pastry, but this sure tastes divine.

brie with butter toasted almonds and blueberry preserves baked inside fresh puff pastry.

Sheryl Mae’s obra: Mousse Au Chocolat.

Salade Aux Lard

Of course, the baguettes!

Sardine Aux Amandes

Not originally in my intended menu, but saw these fresh sardines in the market and couldn’t resist it.

A whole day of preparation for this soul comforting dish: Boeuf Bourguignon

I never knew making bread is as satisfying as writing stories or making music.

I certainly made mistakes along the way but I am glad I tried making these baguettes.

The whole process was a joy.

Now as often as I can, I will try to make my own bread. Goodbye bakery.

Photos by FoodSearcher

The natural consequence of living a locavore’s lifestyle is cooking.

And I am very happy to be doing it. In fact, I am addicted to it now. But don’t be fooled. I am not the next Jacques Pepin or an Iron Chef contender, but somehow, I know what to do when given enough ingredients and some cooking tools.

Lately I have been considering baking my own bread. Though I love getting bread from local bakers in my neighborhood farmer’s market, I have this urge to give bread-making a spin.

Looking at recipes, it doesn’t seem like calculus to me. Besides, I read that I can save a lot by baking my own bread. $0.43 for a homemade baguette compared to $2.99 if I buy from the market. Of course, I understand that the $2.99 price tag has a reason and the $0.49 could also mean baguette from hell. But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?

So this weekend, I am planning to get some whole-wheat flour from Whole Foods and some dry yeast so I could begin making my daily bread.

I am starting with a baguette. I think baguettes are great in a sense that it is multi-purpose. It is some sort of mother bread that always goes great with anything even as plain as honey.

The recipe I found is for classic baguette that requires steam in the oven to achieve that irresistible baguette crust.  Baguettes also require a starter or poolish which should be let to stand overnight.

Wish me luck.