I don’t know how or why particular tastes morph into food memories, but we do return to specific pleasures. What students call “Pork bread” has become like that. I wonder if the desire to revisit certain tastes is triggered by the drinking water, or if it lies dormant somewhere in a photographic memory, so that when I see a recipe on a page in my mind, I let myself know “I need to have that again.”
We have prepared milk rolls studded with pork in classes over the past month or so. After the students discovered them for the first time, I watched this simple food embedding itself in our memories in an effort to guarantee its own future. Modest dishes sneak up on us and most recently, when one student tasted the bacony buns, he just emitted “Pork bread” almost involuntarily. So now, of course, that is what we called them.
For me the modesty of such a dish is also a part of its strength. When I have a magnificent dinner at a three star restaurant in France, I can recall the details of it years later. It’s a category of experience that my friend Marietta might describe by saying, “I not only remember what I ate, but what I was wearing.” But I don’t long for those three star dishes in the same way that I long for modest tastes of the Pettis pains, aka Pork bread. The hospitality of that three star dinner is joined by the remembrance of tastes and flavors, but there is also inaccessible distance that separates the two experiences. I know on which side my bread is buttered.
The Petits pains with bacon and walnuts weren’t at all fussy to prepare. When we opened the oven door we discovered that they have great ‘gueule,’ or what Bogart might have spoken of as kisser, meaning looks. I think that may be how they snuck up on us. We made them small enough to fit in your hand, like a Parker House roll. However the egg glaze they were given provided an extra shiny and dark appeal. These are not the rolls of the fine pastry shop, but more the style you’d find in the bread bakers shops on side streets of small towns in France.
We started the bread dough the normal way, by adding flour to a utility bowl. My gestures are automatic, pushing the flour with a wooden spatula to create a well on one side of the mound instead of the middle. What can I say; I’m left handed. I used warm milk, instead of water to start the action of the yeast, encouraging it with some honey. The milk/yeast is poured into the well of flour, and a little flour gathered to it to ‘feed’ the yeast. I toss the salt needed for the batch to the other side of the bowl, away from the proofing yeast. I leave it to proof for 20 or so minutes until the yeast becomes bubbly.
While that goes on, I cut pancetta into what the French call ‘lardons,’ a word boys have fun massacring. The roll of pancetta is cut in a slice as wide as my finger, then cut again in smaller segments also as wide as my finger, about ½-inch by ½-inch. These are sautéed slowly in a skillet, without the addition of any fat. The bacon renders and gradually develops even and golden color. My technique calls for crisping the lardons on the outside while retaining a creamy texture inside. When I have it where I want, I remove the pieces from the pan and chop them into bite-sized bits. You can save the fat, adding it to the bread dough (or not), to give additional flavor and softer texture. Mostly however, I skip this gesture.
While the lardoons sauté slowly, I take a handful of excellent walnuts, and warm them in a small skillet. When they begin to give off an aroma of oil, it indicates that the flavor of the nuts is on the surface. I chop them in small pieces as I did with the bacon. Now all the elements are ready.
The yeast should have proofed by this time, so it’s time to add about a half cup of cold water to the proofed paste, and to start pulling in flour until I have gathered the dough into a ball. I don’t attempt to pull in all the flour because I would only end up with a shredded mess. Instead I build a ball of dough until it resembles the finished shape I want the dough to take. While adding more water, and pulling in more flour as needed, I never lose sight of the ball of dough.
I dump the dough on the counter, and scatter a handful of reserved flour beside it. The bacon and walnuts are added to the dough that is kneaded one hundred times. As the dough becomes sticky, it’s dusted with flour and kneading continues, repeating that action until I reach one hundred turns. At the end, the dough has evolved to a soft smoothness like a baby’s cheek and no longer sticks to my hands.
After adding a light coating of flavorless oil to a utility bowl, the ball of dough gets coated on the bottom side with oil. A quick flip of the dough ensures an even coating that helps prevent the dough from drying out when covered with a towel and set it to rest in a place sufficiently warm to double in bulk in about half an hour.
The oven is set to 425oF when the dough is removed to the counter. It is cut it in half first, then shaped into a log, and each half cut once more into six pieces. These in turn are shaped slightly larger than a golf ball, arranged on an oiled sheet pan and left to rise another 15 to 20 minutes. Just before they go into the oven, they are carefully brushed with an egg wash that will give them their final burnish of color and shine.
It’s hard not to eat Pork bread as soon as it comes out of the oven. I usually do because you have to test them before you serve them. You also might want to rehearse your lines so you have a delivery equal to the beauty of these little pork rolls. We’ll serve them this weekend at the table in the Studio. Come see for yourself. It’s a new era and you might as well get some inspiration for how good it’s going to be.
