Angus Burger with Caramelized Onions and Cheddar
Working overnight leaves few options for food. Working overnight in a bakery means that you either bring food from home, eat lots of bread, or if you're baking in Chelsea Market, send the new guy to Pop Burger with the bakers' orders. Pop Burger packages two mini burgers in a little cardboard box. Their burgers are quite a few notches above what one would purchase at White Castle. This was my first experience with the slider craze. Prior to Pop Burger and overnights at Amy's Bread, I never knew sliders existed.
Mini-Tuna Melt
According to Food Channel , mini menu items have increased by 400% from 2007-2010. American consumers continue to look for smaller, more affordable portion sizes. Practically speaking, I enjoy sliders because I can offer my guests several sandwich options. They are a portion of the commitment an entire burger represents. My kids love the little guys, too. I can make them with a whole sandwich they will be able to finish rather than cutting a burger in quarters or, more often, wasting 1/2 a meal. Finally, they are as cute as can be...affordable and adorable!
Tribeca Oven recently released packaged Artisan Sliders. I've always been told that adding a pre-fermented dough such as sourdough, poolish, or levain, to the final dough helps to extend shelf life. During the course of the slider development, this theory was proven to be true. Adding a "biga" to the challah dough extended the shelf life from two to three days. Tribeca Oven's slider buns are made using all natural ingredients...flour, water, yeast, salt, egg and oil...the cleanest label around. These buns are currently for sale at Kroger, nationwide...$2.99 for an 8-pack!
It's really interesting that using a sourdough, biga or poolish can add a day to your slider buns shelf life. I just pulled a loaf of brioche out of my oven, that I made the traditional way. Now, I'm curious about making it with a poolish just to see how it would turn out.
ReplyDeleteI've been enjoying reading your earlier posts, espcially the one about having to vary the amount of yeast you use depending on the type of bread or the time of year.
Happy Baking!
Natalie
Thanks for reading Natalie. I would use a biga in your Brioche, or better yet, make the dough one day ahead and refrigerate it over night. This has the same effect as adding a preferment...the entire dough becomes the preferment. I'm going to write a more detailed post about the differences between poolish & biga later this week, but to put it simply, poolish will help you get length in a product, like a baguette, and biga helps you get girth, like a batard or pan loaf.
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