The commonly known Japanese stock, dashi  uses kombu (seaweed) and bonito flakes (fish), to make either the delicate very clear stock ichiban dashi, or the stronger fuller body flavoured niban dashi.  It’s seriously worth making dashi from scratch, so simple and the flavour is beautifully clean, you can not compare it to instant dashi sachets for sale.

This version using shiitake mushrooms and kombu is less well known but a great one to have for vegetarian and vegan dishes, or as in my case for allergy sufferers.  In the Japanese Buddhist cuisine vegetarian dashi can be made from a variety of dried vegetables but this combination is apparently a popular one.  Shiitake and kombu are excellent together because both ingredients are super rich in compounds that make up the umami flavour.

Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

I can’t buy whole dried shiitake mushrooms needed for this stock in the supermarkets, I’ve only seen sliced dried shiitake, for whole ones I have to visit a Japanese or Chinese grocery shops or buy online.  Once I unfortunately used the sliced shiitake and created the most horrid bitter stinky over-powering stock that went straight down the sink.  Too strong.

If sliced shiitake is the only type you can get hold of, then my advice would be to play around with tiny amounts, start out by using 10-15 grams (half an ounce) and see if it will provide the mild mushroom flavour the stock should have.

While in the middle of writing this post realised I have someone on twitter selling organic shiitake mushrooms, fresh and dried Maesyffin Mushrooms here.

Don’t Use Fresh Shiitake

Fresh shiitake mushroom do not have the depth of flavour as the dried ones.  It’s in the drying process of the mushroom which makes dried shiitake an excellent source of umami.  In the dehydration of the mushroom the substance riboucleotides is broken down and the enzymes release guanylate.  Guanylate is a major component in the flavour of umami.

Water Temperature

When soaking shiitake mushrooms it matters the temperature they’re soak at.  If the water is too hot it will stop any further enzyme activity continuing the process of producing guanylate from the ribonucleotides.

The drying process doesn’t provide fully the whole transformation into guanylate, therefore on hydrating the mushrooms the enzymes can continue that process in warm water.  If the water is too hot the enzymes will be killed, thus stopping the maximum release of the guanylic acid.

The optimum temperature for hydrating the mushrooms is at 30-40˚C / 86-104 F.

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In the last post here, I said since the experiment with the poolish showed signs of activity it had inspired for more experiments, only this time not exhausting the yeast to see whether I could produce a good loaf.

A poolish is equal amounts of water to flour, how much yeast you add and the temperature it’s kept at will determine how fast it rises.  Usually you see a poolish sit anything from 6-12 hrs.

Bacterial Growth

The idea of a poolish (like with any other preferment) is to enhance bread flavour.  The long fermentation of the poolish contributes by allowing time for enzyme activity, and something else which is never spoken of is allowing bacterial growth.  Yeast doughs fermented for 8 hours or longer will have bacterial activity, this is what I believe contributes to a better flavour in long fermented yeast doughs.  In fact you can manipulate with certain flours or pre-long the length of time with the poolish to the extent it will add acidity to the finish crumb just as you do in a sourdough, only in a milder form.

The other contributing factor of a poolish is shortening the time it takes for the baker to make the bread.

Why Are All Poolish Recipes the Same?

What’s interesting when I started experimenting with this type of poolish was how I hadn’t seen it written elsewhere.  All my bread books when using a poolish they add more yeast on mixing the dough.  Did you notice in my last post how I had omitted adding any extra yeast when it came to making the dough?  This was the amazing discovery for me, that almost-dead-but-not-quite loaf was showing signs of activity.

I checked my bread books recipes using a poolish and all added yeast twice, a tiny amount for the poolish and again a larger amount mixing the poolish with the rest of the flour.  Why?  Why add yeast again?  Can a dough not be made with just the yeast in the poolish?  A tiny amount of yeast will still have thousands and thousands of yeast cells, isn’t that enough?  Made me wonder if they knew something I didn’t.  I wanted answers.

Above on the very top a sourdough levain, isn’t it interesting how it looks the same as a yeast version?

Underneath the levain, two different size poolish, one box has a larger amount (of equal amounts of flour/water ) to the other box. [click to continue…]

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A Levain and a Poolish hung out together

May 13, 2012
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I carried out this experiment with the full intention of predicting a failure with the poolish.  What I wasn’t prepared for was that the result wasn’t the complete failure I had anticipated, this led to further experiments with the poolish, very successful ones in fact. It’s established a sourdough dough will give you plenty of [...]

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Scoring, Slashing Sourdough

May 8, 2012
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I’ve already posted lots of photos on scoring/slashing loaves in this post here, but Nicola asked me last night to show her how, and since I had 2 loaves already in the fridge for baking this morning it would be easy to video scoring them…well easy because I had a second pair of hands to [...]

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Bruges, Belgium and The Hertog Jan Meal

May 3, 2012
Bruges, Belgium and The Hertog Jan Meal

This post follows on from my last on Bruges, and De Hefter Bistro here. Here’s the 14 course meal we had for my birthday at Hertog Jan’s restaurant. The bouquet of roses were waiting for me at our table with a bottle of champagne, they really were the most beautiful roses I’ve received.  This set [...]

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Bruges, Belgium and De Refter Bistro

April 30, 2012
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It had been almost two years since Bikerboy and I had time on our own, and for my big birthday getaway we stayed two nights in Bruges, Belgium.   I have a big thank you to say to the charming and informative Elizabeth from Elizabeth On Food blog for recommending the gorgeous hotel and the [...]

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What a Difference Too Much Moisture Makes

April 26, 2012
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I made these yeast rolls today from the same batch of dough, and wanted to share the extraordinary difference in baking them one batch after the other.  I made the dough last night, bulk proved and shaped, then refrigerated overnight, baked this morning. I pre-heated the oven as usual, added water to the bottom of [...]

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Dan’s Double Chocolate Lamingtons – too good for lamingtons (dairy-free, soya-free)

April 23, 2012
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The 4 year old asked for chocolate brownies yesterday and I made these instead, she calls herself the “brownie monster” and when I told her I was making chocolate lamingtons not brownies she made that pout face of disapproval but I converted her as soon as I let her try some of the sponge. It’s a moist [...]

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Dan’s Buns – Dairy Free Version

April 18, 2012
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For once I have very little to say on a post, I’m glad since my head is full, have been studying hard and don’t think I could fit another thought. These are too good to only make them as hot-cross buns, in my household we have fruit buns all year round toasted as above.  I [...]

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Fermentation The New Sexy, Microorganisms The Next Taste Frontier

April 15, 2012

Two years ago I can’t imagine I would be as excited  as I was yesterday about watching David Chang’s Harvard Lecture on “Microbiology: An Overlooked Frontier”  he made in 2011, David is the chef at Momofuku.  This lecture on microbes and their flavour profile is interesting for me personally on two different levels, one because [...]

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4 Year Old Has Fun – Cerebral Palsy

April 11, 2012

Bikerboy had this idea for a while, he wanted to make 4 year old feel like a normal kid, move around like anyone else and most of all to have fun so we exchange this quad bike a friend had with something he wanted and here it is, 4 year old having fun!    

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Allergies and Intolerances – How Complicated

April 9, 2012
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Allergy kid is 14 this year and I write this with thirteen years experience dealing with allergies explaining how complicated this subject is, maybe it explains why it’s so misunderstood.  I myself have intolerance to dairy and rye and my oldest daughter is intolerant to dairy and we have a family history of dairy allergies [...]

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Oxidising Fresh Flour, Over-Oxidising & Over-Mixing Dough

April 3, 2012
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The subject of the need to oxidise fresh flour and also the need to introduce oxygen when mixing dough and the consequences of over doing it, which produces an inferior loaf both in appearance and flavour is a huge subject with nerdy-type of details.  These details cover the effect of the gluten-forming proteins as well [...]

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Ladurée Macarons Are Worth Seeking Out

April 1, 2012
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This was my breakfast this morning, entirely for research purpose obviously!  I say this with tongue-in-cheek as I must be one of very few people around the world who’s not into the mac craze.  I find them too sweet, often tasteless with odd colours.  I get they’re cute and dainty but they’re expensive for something [...]

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Debra Wink & Pineapple Juice Sourdough Starter

March 29, 2012
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Debra Wink is a microbiologist who’s work I’ve used before on this site when explaining what’s happening inside a Sourdough Starter here.  Without Debra’s work I would still be in the Dark Ages, continuing to think incorrect facts about starters such as establishing a starter is a battlefield between good and bad bacteria or that [...]

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