Chefs Collaborative

This post comes from Piper Davis and Julie Richardson of Grand Central Baking Co. in Seattle, OR and Portland, OR who write about their experience baking flaky pie crust with whole wheat flour. This is just one example of how bakers and chefs are adjusting their recipes to make them work with small batch whole grain flours. Read on to learn some tricks for baking with whole wheat flour, and see a recipe for their flaky pie crust. The post can also be viewed in its original form on the Grand Central Baking Co. Bakers Blog.

Fabulous pie crust made with whole wheat flour? Impossible. Or so I thought. Whole grains might have the upper hand nutrition-wise, but most everyone in the professional baking world knows that the refined stuff simply makes a flakier croissant, a light, fluffy biscuit and the most delicate pie crust.

So color me shocked when last week, GCB Cuisine Director Piper Davis returned from Kneading Conference West – an artisan baking confab in Mount Vernon, Wash. – talking up the whole wheat crust she made for a fruit pie class. Bakers and farmers at the conference were buzzing about the resurgence of regional grains and small-batch milling. So naturally, Ms. Piper and her baking buddy Julie Richardson of Baker & Spice got their hands on some whole wheat pastry flour grown and milled in Eugene, Ore., at Camas Country Mill (which happens to make the delicious whole wheat bread flour now used in Grand Central’s hearth breads).

Fruit pie class is in session at Kneading Conference West with, from left,  Julie Richardson (Baker & Spice), Piper Davis and Mark Doxtader (Tastebud).

They wanted to use it to make a pie. Wheat farmer/miller Tom Hunton appreciated their interest, but countered with a warning: Not even his mother, he said, can make a good pie crust with whole wheat flour. Well, responded Piper, if anyone can do it, Julie can. So Piper sat back and watched while Julie followed all the right steps for a buttery, flaky crust, with some minor tweaks to make allowances for the whole wheat, one being overnight refrigeration for the dough. The proof, of course, was in the finished apple pie, baked in Tastebud’s mobile wood-fired oven as part of their pie workshop for the conference.

Piper, whose pastry vocabulary normally doesn’t include words like “whole wheat,” pronounced the crust delicious, tender and with a flavor “like buttery Wheaties.” Still wearing her oven mitts, she tracked down Tom Hunton, the wheat farmer, who also loved the results. (Tom’s comment to me in a follow up phone call: “I think your boss is really brave.”) Having tried the recipe myself, I can tell you that it doesn’t look or taste like classic pie pastry, but paired with the right filling (such as crisp, full-flavored fall apples), it makes a delicious rustic dessert.

Notice that flaky crust? Overnight chilling and resting for whole wheat dough is the key.

What did these two professional bakers do right to make the whole grain flour play nice, instead of becoming mealy and tough in the form of a pie crust? According to Piper, Julie paid close attention to three parts of the pastry dough process:

1. Sufficiently hydrate the flour. Piper explained to me that water is often the enemy of good pastry; you want enough to allow the dough to come together, but not so much that it ends up wet and impedes the butter-flour alchemy that makes a flaky crust. But whole wheat flour absorbs more liquid than white flour, so you’ll need to add a bit more, a tablespoon at a time, enough so that when you squeeze a bit of dough in your hand it holds together. The good news about working with whole wheat flour is that you can use a heavier hand than normally recommended with pie dough (usually a quick path to an overworked, tough crust). Mix it as much as needed to make cohesive dough.

2. “Stack” and wrap the dough before chilling. Piper likes to mix the dough by hand. When it just comes together, she turns it out onto a clean surface, cuts it in half with a bench scraper and places each piece on plastic wrap. She pulls up the edges of the plastic wrap, gathering chunks of loose dough and forming it into a rough ball, and gently flattens it into a disk with the heel of her hand and wraps it tightly in the plastic. The pie dough can be a bit shaggy at this stage because it will gather moisture as it chills. This “stacking” helps form buttery layers that encourage a flaky crust.

3. Chill the dough overnight. You can get away with chilling most pie dough for an hour or two. Not so with whole wheat flour. It needs that extra time, says Piper, to pick up moisture and to let the gluten relax. That makes it both easier to roll and more tender when it comes out of the oven. And don’t rush the process: If the dough starts to crack when you roll it out or otherwise becomes persnickety, put it back in the fridge to chill for a bit, then proceed.

Julie’s pie was lovely, but we’ll have to take Piper’s word for it, because it disappeared before someone thought to haul out a camera. Here’s an apple pie I made using the Whole Wheat All-Butter Crust recipe and served warm on a recent rainy, blustery night.

Homey, yes, but delicious. Whole wheat pastry flour passed muster in my apple pie, delivering a flaky crust with a flavor like buttery Wheaties.

It’s a bit rustic looking but the crust tasted earthy and sweet and had lots of flaky layers. And the pie was gobbled up by my tasters, including two dubious teens.

Baker’s note: You can make the recipe below with 100 percent whole wheat pastry flour or use up to 50 percent all-purpose white flour for slightly flakier results. Any whole wheat pastry flour works in the recipe. We used Camas Country Mill’s Oregon-grown whole wheat pastry flour, which isn’t sold in supermarkets but you can find it at the Creswell and Springfield farmers markets (Oregon), or through Hummingbird Wholesale.

Whole Wheat Flaky Pie Dough

Whole wheat pastry flour makes a buttery, flaky pie crust if follow a few crucial steps: Use very cold ingredients; add enough liquid to make the dough hold together (you’ll need more than you would with white flour); and refrigerate the dough overnight before rolling it out, so it’s adequately hydrated and easy to work with. The stronger flavor of the wheat flour is especially nice with apples or other fall fruit pies.

Makes 2 disks, enough for a double-crust pie

2 ½ cups (10.6 ounces) whole wheat pastry flour, chilled
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, well chilled
2/3 cup ice water, plus or minus 1 tablespoon
1 tablespoon lemon juice

In a medium bowl, whisk together the whole wheat pastry flour, sugar and salt. Slice the butter into 1/2-inch cubes and toss with the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the texture is mealy and butter is in pieces ranging from the size of a lentil to a pea. Make a well in center of the mixture. Combine the water and lemon juice in a small bowl and add to the flour mixture all at once. Gradually pull the dry ingredients into the well with a fork, mixing gently until combined. Check the dough by gathering a small fistful; if it holds together, it’s ready.
Place two large pieces of plastic wrap on a clean surface and divide dough between them. Take one half and gather the edges of the plastic wrap together to form a round dough ball, stacking shaggy bits of dough on top of each other (this encourages flaky layers in the crust). Press the ball into a disk using the heel of your hand and wrap tightly in plastic. Repeat with other half of dough.
Chill the dough overnight. Use as directed in your favorite pie recipe, making sure to refrigerate it between steps.

This post comes from journalist Barry Estabrook who wrote last week on his site, politicsoftheplate.com,  about the most recent Gulf of Maine cod stock assessments, which don’t look good. Stock assessments are complex endeavors, as our director Melissa Kogut learned recently, and scientists and fishermen often have divergent opinions on the outcome, as this Times article noted yesterday. Whether the question is about one species or an entire ecosystem in need of rebuilding, we New Englanders wish the cod stocks a speedy recovery.

Are the embattled populations of Atlantic cod collapsing or making a comeback?

It depends on who you ask and when you ask it.

Fishermen and fisheries officials were taken aback earlier this month by an initial assessment of Gulf of Maine cod populations conducted by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Patricia Fiorelli, a spokeswoman for the New England Fishery Management Council, said in an interview after a preliminary draft of the assessment was issued. “There is a lot of speculation that cod populations are dramatically lower than anyone expected.”

The new findings fly directly in the face of a NOAA assessment conducted in 2008. That study presented an optimistic picture for New England cod, saying that the once-decimated population was no longer overfished and was rebuilding rapidly. The discrepancy may be explained by overfishing, or lower-than-projected reproductive rates. Fisheries scientists are currently reviewing the new assessment and will issue their final report early in 2012. “We won’t know for sure until then,” said Fiorelli.

Meanwhile, a group of Canadian researchers writing in a July issue of the journal Nature, reported that the populations of cod and other bottom-dwelling predators on the Scotian Shelf, a shallow area east of Nova Scotia, are finally rebounding. In 1992, the Canadian government put in place what was to be a two-year moratorium on cod fishing after a sudden, catastrophic collapse in the 500-year-old commercial fishery. For some reason, even with fishing banned, the populations did not begin to recover for more than a decade. No one could explain why.

The answer to that mystery may provide an important lesson for American fisheries managers. “This recovery is about an entire ecosystem reestablishing itself, not just about the recovery of cod,” said William Leggett, a biology professor at Queen’s University in Ontario and one of four authors of the Nature paper.

Leggett said that when overfishing dramatically reduced the population of cod, haddock, and other so-called groundfish, the smaller, minnow-like forage fish that they normally preyed on underwent an uncontrolled population explosion—900 percent over the ensuing decade. These small fish in turn ate the eggs and larvae of groundfish, consuming any young that the few surviving cod produced. Eventually, the population of smaller fish became so great that there wasn’t enough food to sustain them. Scarcity of food caused them to begin dying off, whereupon groundfish populations finally began to rebound. Today, Scotia cod have climbed back to 30 percent of their historical population levels. Haddock populations are even bigger than before the collaspse.

“Fisheries management has to be evolving toward having a broader, ecosystem-wide approach,” said Leggett, “not just focusing on individual species.”

The good news is that the job of rebuilding fish stocks may be easier in waters off the United States than those off Nova Scotia. Leggett noted that in New England, dogfish—which are scarce in Canada—are abundant and prey on smaller fish that would otherwise eat the juveniles of species like cod improving the odds that the population will bounce back and do so in less time.

For the Gulf of Maine’s iconic Atlantic cod, recovery can’t come soon enough.

—Barry Estabrook

by Jen Ede, Development & Marketing Associate, Chefs Collaborative

Chefs: at the end of your shift tonight, head into your walk-in and throw half the contents away. Producers: walk straight past your stall at the local farmer’s market and place a quarter of your vegetables directly into the dumpster. Eaters: when visiting a restaurant, tell the server not to bother bringing the second half of your entree. It’ll save time, embarrassment, and a nasty smell in the back of your fridge if it goes directly into the trash.

Photo property of myzerowaste.com

We wouldn’t dream of doing this, right? No, but the fact is, we do, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. These scenarios fairly accurately illustrate how we as a society deal with excess food. From the fields to distribution centers, to supermarkets, restaurants and fast food chains, to your home and into your garbage – and then out to the landfill – the supply chain that brings us an abundance of food also lets huge amounts of food fall through the cracks. Namely, between 25 and 50% of it, depending on how conservative (or optimistic) you’d like to be with your guestimate.

The realities of food waste have been even more on my mind lately, given both my job at Chefs Collaborative and my own personal Depression-era sensibilities. At the Collaborative, we talk a lot about how to effectively build sustainable supply chains that benefit all stakeholders. Addressing what happens to food waste is as important to a sustainable food system as addressing the supply. This is an issue that many in our network are actively grappling with. What if we brought the issue of food waste to the forefront of our discourse when we talk about a sustainable food supply? What if, alongside “where do you source your meat and your produce?”, consumers learned to ask “how does your restaurant deal with food waste?”, and chefs asked farmers and distributors the same question?

I just finished reading “American Wasteland”, in which the author, Jonathon Bloom, argues that food waste is not as simple as teaching people to clean their plates. But, I believe that addressing food waste begins with the consumer and that businesses change their practices – for the worse or for the better – to give consumers what they want.

On the farm, produce that is irregularly shaped and not appealing to consumers or is too fragile to ship is left to rot. (See Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland, for a prime example of how one highly-shippable, highly symmetrically-shaped vegetable nearly killed him as he drove along the interstate in Florida.)  Distribution results in another 10-15% loss of even the hardier produce, then still more is thrown out after hitting grocery store shelves.

On the other end of the food production spectrum are the “value-added” meals that consumers get when dining out from fast food joints, buffets, caterers, and restaurants. 4-10% gets thrown out by kitchens, 17% of meals are thrown out untouched by customers, and 55% of leftovers will stay on the table after the customer leaves.

Clearly the point to make is, there are opportunities to minimize waste – from the farm to the kitchen to the table.

Food waste needs to be a part of the conversation about sustainability, because after all, as much as we are what we eat, we are also, I’d argue, what we throw away. The above suggestions are just three ways you can minimize food waste. Please feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments section or by visiting us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sources:

http://www.americanwastelandbook.com/

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/from-farm-to-fridge-to-garbage-can/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440004575548391291973152.html?

This month we put the spotlight on Cara Rosaen, Co-Founder & Director of Vegetable Outreach of Real Time Farms, Chefs Collaborative member & recent sponsor of the 2011 National Summit in New Orleans. Real Time Farms is a crowd-sourced online food guide based in Ann Arbor, Michigan that aims to connect and educate producers, chefs, and eaters alike on where exactly their food comes from. Their mission: to collectively document the entire food system. Sound a little intense? You just haven’t met Cara.

Let’s start with the basics: You co-founded Real Time Farms with your husband, Karl Rosaen, describing it as a “for-profit social venture” and “crowd-sourced online food guide.” What exactly does all that mean?

Our mission is a social one: collectively document the food system, so people can make informed decisions about what they eat.

How did you personally become involved in the world of sustainable food?

In that same vein, where did the inspiration for Real Time Farms come from? Was there a specific “lightbulb moment?”

I’d love to say there was a moment of revelation, but no. We were troubled about the current state of the food system. After a lot of research into our own local food system, we were delighted to find a set of great options for what to eat. Bad news, it took a lot of work to learn about where our food came from and how to find food we felt good about eating.

Many months of talking with farmers, vendors, and restaurant owners later, we got to the heart of what people really needed.

People really needed a single location, where they could intimately connect to the people, stories, and information about where their food comes from, so they could easily find food they feel good about eating.

Director of Vegetable Outreach sounds like a pretty cool job title. What is your favorite part of your job?

Working with people: chefs, farmers, students, and other community members who have a real passion to lift the veil on what we eat and empower people with the knowledge to make informed decisions.

What would you classify as a couple major accomplishments since Real Time Farms’s founding in 2010?

• Launching the first ever tools for diners to trace their food back to the farm. Working with 60+ of the top restaurants so far to change the way people know food.
• Our launch of the Food Warrior Program – an educational internship for students across the country to learn, document, and immerse themselves in their food system.
• Being asked to speak at TEDxManhattan Change The Way We Eat this January, after attending last year, in awe of presenters such as Josh Viertel, Britta Riley, and Curt Ellis.
• Capturing data on 4000K farms and food artisans, 6500+ farmers markets, and now 60+ restaurants.

How does the service Real Time Farms provides benefit to chefs?

We provide web tools to meaningfully communicate the depth of what they do – the stories of each of their ingredients and their purveyors. This builds consumer trust and appreciation for what they are eating, which will undoubtedly mean repeat customers.

By connecting their menu to an ever growing community guide of farms and food artisans, we are bringing that menu to life. Not only do diners get answers to questions before walking in the door such as ”how was beef raised?”, “the lettuce grown?”, but they are also learning the stories, and seeing the pictures of the people and places that the chef knows so well but doesn’t have the time to share.

For example, here’s a bird’s eye view of Chefs Collaborative member Seth Caswell’s emmer&rye.

Here is their farm-linked menu on Real Time Farms and on their own website.

Click on any ingredient, see the farm name. Click on the farm name, and you are brought to a rich profile with stories, images, and more on the farm or food artisan.

Now when they update their menu on Real Time Farms, it updates their menu on their own site automatically, with all of the sourcing information – saving the time and money that would need to go into telling the individual stories of each purveyor and artisan.

How can our members get involved in Real Time Farms’s mission?

If you are a chef, try our web tools to tell your menu’s story. (Free 2-week trial. $40/month after that.)

If you are a farmer, fisherman, rancher, or food artisan, add yourself to Real Time Farms. (Free.)

If you are an eater (that’s all of us), play around on the site, and share what you know. (Free.)

Why are you a member of Chefs Collaborative?

To get to know all the partners of the food web, so we can build useful tools to trace each part.

With the holidays coming up, everyone’s got menus on the brain – any favorite dishes/ingredients this time of year?

This is not gourmet of me at all, and maybe not politically correct, but I really like canned cranberries.

We don’t judge!

Feel free to contact Cara with any more questions at cara@realtimefarms.com or at 650-814-7796.

Anyone can register on RealTimeFarms.com for free; sign up and add your favorite local restaurants, farms, artisans and markets to their ever-growing database.