The best buns

Before I found this recipe, we never seemed to have buns on hand. We always had slicing bread, and occasionally pita, and we would generally make do with those when we had hamburgers or anything else that required buns. One night we were completely out of bread, though, and we knew there was no time to pop a loaf in the bread machine (since bread takes about 5 hours to rise and bake in our bread machine). Amazingly, earlier in the week I had seen a recipe for “40 minute buns” on The Kosher Foodies.

*As a total aside, you’d think I didn’t live in a city where I could walk downstairs and find some buns or rolls or some kind of bread at pretty much any hour of the day or night within a one block radius. But that’s just not the kind of girl I am. 

Having made many kinds of bread in the past, I have to admit that I didn’t quite believe that the recipe would really work. I thought it would take longer than specified, or that the buns wouldn’t really rise. I was wrong to be skeptical. These are the best buns I’ve ever eaten, and some of the best bread I’ve ever baked. Fluffy, yet substantial, flavorful, beautiful, and best of all quick.

Now if 40 minutes still seems like too long on a busy weeknight, just make a batch or two and freeze them for later. We do this regularly, since we only use a few at a time. Then we always have them on hand for just about any kind of filling imaginable. And if we run out, it takes practically no time to whip up a new batch.

Sometimes we make them smaller for little slider buns (16 per batch), and other times we make them larger for really hearty sandwiches (8 per batch). But usually they are somewhere in the middle, and we get about 10-12 per batch. I would not, however, recommend trying to make them in shapes other than spherical. It just didn’t work well the two times we tried it (though you may have more luck). It’s worth it to roll them into pretty good balls, so they don’t have crags running through them.

Recipe: Buns

This recipe is tailored to bread machines on the dough cycle, but it will work if you’re kneading manually too. For a more straightforward manual approach, see “40 minute buns” on The Kosher Foodies.

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 egg (room temperature is best – submerge a cold egg in warm, not hot, water for about 5 minutes if you need to bring it up to temperature quickly)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 – 3.5 cups all purpose or bread flour – you can include a bit of whole wheat flour but no more than 1 cup
• 2 tbs active dry yeast or bread machine yeast

1. If using a bread machine, add all of these ingredients to the bucket part of your machine, in the listed order. When adding the yeast, make a little divot in the flour to cradle the yeast in. Set the machine to a dough only (no bake) cycle, and make sure not to let it rise for more than 30 minutes in the machine.
2. Lightly flour the pans you plan to bake the buns on, or line with a silicon baking mat. Pull the dough out of the machine, or bowl, onto one of the pans, and separate into two parts. Keep splitting the dough until you have the desired number of segments (see above the recipe).
3. Roll each segment into a ball and place evenly apart on the baking pans.
4. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
5. Cover with a towel and allow to rise for 10 minutes.
6. Remove the towel and bake for 10-15 minutes (on the lower end if the buns are small, on the higher end if the buns are big). Buns should be golden brown.
7. Allow to cool and either enjoy while warm, or allow to cool completely and freeze in freezer safe bags to enjoy later.

We put beef burgers, turkey burgers, veggie burgers, portobello caps, sloppy joes, chicken salad, eggs and/or cheese. The list is really endless – anything you would want on a bun. They really stand up well to moist ingredients, which I am always grateful for, since I like pickles or kimchee on just about every sandwich.

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Za’atar Pita

Za’atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend. I can’t even describe how to pronounce it because I don’t really know what the right way is myself. Growing up, it was this mysterious mixture we put on top of pita and microwaved, sometimes with mozzarrella cheese on top as well, wafting this strong unique scent throughout the house. It wasn’t until I tasted that familiar flavor in a dipping oil at the upper west side restaurant Vareli (where they also crust a pork chop with it) that I even thought to bring it into my adult life.

I never really gave much thought to what it was made of when I was younger. It was just za’atar. But once I tasted it outside of a family context, I just had to figure it out. Many spice stores sell something called za’atar, but pretty much every blend of it is unique. It seems every Middle Eastern locale, or even every household has their own exact proportion of flavors that make up za’atar. Generally, they can include ground thyme, oregano, marjoram, hyssop, sumac, and whole sesame seeds. The more sumac there is, the redder the mixture will be. I grew up with a dark green kind, but I’ve also seen it in a pistachio color that most likely had no sumac at all.

Every variety is delicious as far as I’m concerned. To make za’atar pita, you simply mix the spice mix with olive oil and salt to taste (I like it to be rather salty), and paint it on top of a pita, or pita wedges. Thin it with oil as much or as little as you like. Some people even just mix the spice with salt and dip soft bits of bread into it and eat it like that. The following mix is a bit mild. I think it is the hyssop (which I’ve never seen in a store) that gives it the characteristic sharp, burns-the-back-of-your-throat taste.

Recipe: Za’atar spice mix

Makes about 3.5 tablespoons – multiply or divide as needed. Store leftovers in an airtight container.

• 2 tbs dried thyme
• 1 tbs dried oregano or marjoram
• 1 tbs ground sumac
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
• 1/2 tsp salt

Mix or grind together, and enjoy on anything that tastes good. Mix with oil to paint onto other foods, or use as a dry rub. Heat brings out the aroma, but be careful not to burn it or it may become bitter.

Have you ever had za’atar before? What did you eat it with? What do you think it had in it?

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An Ali Baba sandwich and thoughts of Paris

My thoughts have been drifting over to Paris quite a bit lately. I think it’s the travel bug that’s been itching in me all winter. This year also marks five years since I studied there. I spent a good part of this afternoon following Google street view around my old Paris haunts, amazed at how much is still the same (assuming Google’s photos are up to date).

The five months I spent in Paris were fabulous, and every once in a while I wish I could be transported back to that time. I learned so much there, a lot of it about food. If I were to go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would surely choose to eat a lot better. As a student, I was on a tight budget. I also knew much less about food than I do now. I cooked a lot of weird meals for myself and ate at a lot of weird places (usually only once).

But one place I know I would go back to is a little sandwich shop that was around the corner from my school. Pictured above, Le Ventilo is just a little lunch window on a quiet street. If you went inside, it like someone’s homey kitchen. There was a small seating area for maybe 3 people. You would sit behind whoever was making sandwiches that day and watch through the window as other people got their lunches. It was a lovely place, but there must have been many more remarkable sandwicheries across the city.

The menu at the time had cutely named sandwiches. I think there was one called “Le Austin Powers,” and of course, they sold the requisite Nutella panini. My favorite one, which I must have ordered a dozen times while I was there, was the “Ali Baba.” It wasn’t always available, but I remember treating myself to one whenever it was. It was 3.20 euros, I think. It was the simplest sandwich – a soft baguette pressed with moist ground beef and chopped cooked tomatoes. Simple, but somehow perfect. I would wait a few minutes for it to cool down and then nibble it for as long as I could while the meaty juices soaked into the meat and occasionally dripped down my fingers.

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Whole Wheat Pocket Pita

I’ve clearly been on a bit of baking kick lately. I think it’s been because by the end of the week I’m out of fresh goods but I always have basic baking ingredients in my pantry.

A lot of people bake bread to be frugal. And I’d like to say that I made these pita because they were cheaper than store bought ones, but I’m not entirely sure that’s the case. They are better than store bought ones though. And really not that hard. If you like excuses to whip out the ol’ rolling pin, and want a bread that’s really hard to mess up and not too much trouble, give these a try. I have fun every time I make them. You’ll also end up with enough that you can probably freeze half for when you aren’t feeling as motivated to bake.

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