Master Recipe, Three Ways (9 of 42)

The assignment for this episode is to bake three variations of the Master Recipe: Hearty Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf, Turkish-Style Pita Bread with Black Sesame Seeds, and Whole Grain Garlic Knots. 

I first baked the Turkish-Style Pita Bread with Black Sesame Seeds.  

 

This pita is rolled out thicker than a regular pita since the Turkish-Style Pita does not puff.  Although I have a bench scraper, and use it, I have found that a plastic putty knife often works better to loosen dough on the counter when I roll, it is a bit smaller and gives better control, especially in tight places--they come in different sizes and are cheap, too.  And using a putty knife is a guy thing, though not as good as Elwood's using power tools.  Maybe I can duct-tape a bread knife onto my sawzall . . . .

After rolling, I used my medieval docking tool to dock the dough, brushed it with melted butter, sprinkled it with black sesame seeds, and baked it. 

I got a fair amount of oven spring.  Perhaps I should have rolled it a bit thinner, but it tasted great. 

After letting it cool a bit, I cut it into wedges and served it with  

Baba ghanoush
Adapted from Ellie Krieger and Steven Raichlen
2 large eggplant
10 whole garlic cloves, peeled
4 tablespoons tahini
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped flat parsley
salt and pepper to taste
Cut 5 slits into each eggplant and cram a clove of garlic into each slit. Cook the eggplant on the grill, turning semi-regularly, until blacked on all sides and very soft in the middle, 20-30 minutes depending on your grill. Cool, remove most of the blackened skin (a bit remaining gives a nice extra smokiness), and dump the pulp (with garlic) into a food processor. Add the tahini and lemon juice and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley and serve.

Next I baked the sandwich loaf,  

and used some of it to make a crab salad panino (singular, for Ellen and props for getting her Master's Degree).

Then it was on to the Whole Grain Garlic Knots, which called for garlic, which is doing nicely, but not ready to harvest,  and parsley, which I overwintered, and was ready to harvest.

I made my knots, without too much sturm und drang, let them rise, drizzled them with the garlic/parsley oil, and sprinkled with some grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. How could they not be good?  

Which brings us to this episode's Special Feature, a knot-knot joke presented by one of my Whole Grain Garlic Knots, which as you can see is suffering from a split personality: