Bah Humbug

Scrooge's Third Visitor from Dickens, A Christmas Carol

As I sit and watch the Disney 2009 version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ I’m rather struck with the impression that Dickens may have written the first of the liberal ‘real meaning of Christmas’ type things. Let me also say that I rather enjoy ‘A Christmas Carol’ and consider the Disney pretty much my second choice. The 1999 version with Patrick Stewart is my favorite.

As I said – I rather enjoy the story – as a story. The problem with every one of the ‘real meaning of Christmas’ things is that they are by people who have no clue. Christmas is not warm fuzzy feelings, whether about babies in mangers or mankind as a whole.

What, then is Christmas? It is either the Incarnation of God as Man, or it is nothing more than some pagan winter festival. Which is what the liberals have been aiming at for years. We should, indeed, ‘Love our neighbors as ourselves’. BUT – that is the second commandment, not the first. The first is ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and mind’. The Incarnation is the first act of the mighty series of events that culminated in the Crucifixion and Resurrection – which re-created the fallen world. If we participate in that re-created and redeemed world then we reflect the love of the Master of the Universe for His creation and only by reflecting the love of God can we truly love our fellows and the rest of the creation. Consider that the very liberals who deny God and talk about loving one another cannot seem to even hold a marriage together, much less consistently love anything as ornery as the rest of humanity.

So what is the conclusion of this ramble? Easy –anything that talks about Christmas that is not specifically Christ centered is just blowing smoke about a liberal mid-winter festival. We already know that all the commercial BS has nothing to do with Christmas. So also let us realize that all the ‘feel-good’ stuff is also a red herring. Only in Christ is there Christmas.

Braised Shank of Lamb

Dutch Oven Image via Wikipedia

The shank, or shin, is usually some of the toughest meat on a critter. Think about it – this is the part between the knee and the foot that does a great deal of the work of holding the animal up and moving it around. Lean muscle, as it were. This means that there is lots of connective tissue (collagen), which means tough meat with lots of flavor potential.

What we want to do is cook long and slow so that the connective tissue becomes dissolved, tender, and yields all the flavor back in to the pot. The French, as usual, have a better way – braising with flavorings. Now braising – from the French “braiser” – combines both dry and moist heat. Beef Bourguignon is world famous for its delicious flavor, yet it is only simple braised beef with wine. Here the same technique is applied to the lamb shank – with wonderful results.

2 lamb shanks
salt and pepper
10 cloves of garlic
12 white mushroom caps
1 tsp coarse ground pepper
1 tsp salt
4 Tbs olive oil
1 bouquet garni - thyme, basil, and rosemary
1-1/2 cup Burgundy or other hearty red wine
1-1/2 cups beef stock
1 tsp tomato paste
2 Tbs finely chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 400°F, with the racks set such that you can get your Dutch oven in about the middle of the oven. Yes – you can use something else – but a good cast iron Dutch oven is best. You’re on your own where other utensils are concerned. There are also people who do this in a crock pot – I’m not one of those. Anyway, dress your shanks with salt and pepper and sauté in hot olive oil until well seared on all sides. Reduce the heat and add the garlic. When the garlic is nicely golden – about a minute or so –
add your wine, salt, pepper, and the bouquet garni. If you’ve got fresh herbs, just tie them up with a string. If all you’ve got is bottled then you can wrap them in cheese cloth or –easiest of all – put them in a tea caddy and drop that into the mix. Advice: use a separate caddy for your garni’s or really get it clean after. I don’t think that lamb flavored tea would be quite right. Anyway, slow simmer things for 8 to 10 minutes.

I guess we need to talk about salt somewhere, and here is as good as any. Go easy on the salt – you can add more later, but taking it out can be fun. In fact, if your beef stock is not salt free then don’t add any salt, other than sprinkling the meat before browning.

Add the beef stock, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and slow simmer for another 8 to 10 minutes. Cover the pot, reduce the oven to 325°F, and cook for 90 minutes. This is called cooking in a falling oven. Quite traditional with the old wood-fired stone ovens.

Turn the lamb over, add the mushrooms and a bit more liquid only if needed. Don’t drown the meat. The liquid does not cover it. Cook for another hour.

Remove the lamb and mushrooms to a covered dish and strain the liquid through a sieve. Add the tomato paste and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pull the lamb off the bones – it should just about fall off and serve with mushrooms covered with sauce.

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What’s in a Name?

Apple Cobbler Image via Wikipedia

Herself wanted to know what the difference was between a cobbler (which I make fairly often) and a grunt (I seldom do those).

Well – here are a few definitions:

Betty: A Betty is made with buttered bread crumbs. The one we’ve all heard about is the Apple Brown Betty, and this is the real way to make one:

4		slices white sandwich bread, tear into large pieces or 2 cups coarse bread crumbs
1/2	stick	unsalted butter, melted
6		apples peeled & cored & sectioned into 8 pieces (Galas or Fujis do well)
2	Tbs	lemon juice
1/3	cup	packed dark-brown sugar
1/2	tsp	ground cinnamon
1/2	tsp	ground nutmeg
		Vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream

Oven to 375°F.

Chop up the bread by pulsing in a food processor until you get coarse crumbs.  Spread out the crumbs on a jelly roll pan (you really want those rims). Bake until a nice light gold brown – maybe 10 minutes. Cool completely, put into a bowl, add butter and toss or mix until completely coated.

Put apples, lemon juice (which keeps the apples from browning), sugar, spices, and half the breadcrumbs. Put into a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Cover with the other half of the breadcrumbs. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until breadcrumbs are brown, about 15 minutes. Keep an eye on things. Stage 1 is over when the apples are fork tender and stage 2 is complete when the top is golden brown.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream. Sprinkle with a bit more cinnamon if you like.

Buckle: The buckle is a kinda layer cake of a sort. The bottom layer is a cake. The middle layer is some kind of fruit filling, the top layer is crumbly. Some combine a couple of the layers together. Here’s a genuine Pennsylvania Blueberry Buckle:

		Base
1/2	stick	unsalted butter, softened
3/4	cup	sugar
1		egg
2	cups	all-purpose flour
2	tsp	baking powder
1/4	tsp	salt
1/2	cup	milk
		Filling
2	cups	fresh blueberries
		Topping
2/3	cup	sugar
1/2	cup	all-purpose flour
1/2	tsp	ground cinnamon
1/3	cup	cold butter

Oven to 375°F.

Base:

Use a good mixer unless you are a manual nut. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg. Mix in the rest. Gently fold in the blueberries. (This is one of those that combine the first two layers.) Pour into a buttered square baking pan – about a 9 incher.

Topping

Do the topping by hand. Mix up the sugar, flour and cinnamon, then cut in the butter until you have a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle the topping over the mixture. Bake at 375°F for 45 minutes. Use the toothpick test near the center. Cool it on a wire rack before cutting.

Cobbler: The cobbler is filling and crust melded together into a single layer. Here’s a peach cobbler:

		Fruit
500	g	peaches
210	g	sugar (1 cup)
		Crust
150	g	all-purpose flour (1 cup)
8	g	baking powder (2 tsp)
4	g	salt (1/2 tsp)
245	g	milk (1 cup)
1	stick	butter, melted (1/2 cup)
		Cream, whipped cream or ice cream, if desired

Over to 375°F

—– Fruit —–

Blanche peaches for 1 minute, ice bath for 1 minute, slip peeling off fruit. Pit and cube. In a saucepan simmer with sugar and 70g (1/3 cup) water for 10 minute, stir often.

—– Crust —–

Mix together everything except the melted butter. Mix in the butter last. Spread in an ungreased 2 quart shallow pan. Spoon crust batter into the pan, then spread the fruit mix over the crust.

Bake 375°F 45 minutes or until the dough rises above the fruit and is golden brown.

Whipped cream or ice cream and a little cinnamon are good.

Crumbles and Crisps are pretty much the same animal. The technique resembles the topping of the buckle. The crumble can be sweet or savory. The sweet is the more common. A layer of stewed fruit has a crumbly topping of butter, flour and sugar sprinkled over it. For the savory variety (not usually seen outside England) use a base of meat and a topping of butter, flour and shredded cheese. Crumbles are a very recent invention – as in WWII – because the flour needed to make pies and such was so heavily rationed. By putting a crumbly crust on the top the amount of flour needed is cut by about 70% or so. I’m not going to bother with a recipe. If you want to make one just stew some fruit until it develops a bit of syrup, about 10 minutes. Put it in a buttered dish and sprinkle a crumbly crust make from cutting cold butter into a little flour and sugar until it is mealy.

Grunts are another upside down variety. A biscuit crust is put over a stewed fruit base. Similar to any of the rest. {{Herself Sez: I did some Google searching myself. The thing that tickled my funny bone is the description of the Grunt: “thought to be a description of the sound the berries make as they stew!” There is also a “Slump” which was simply another name for the Grunt. Very confusing until you let your research sort of cook down in your fevered brain!}}

Pandowdy – another one of the crust on top variety. Standard pie type crust is placed on top. Winds up being kind of like a standard covered pie without the bottom crust.

You may get the feeling that I don’t fool much with the last few since I didn’t bother to give you a recipe. You would be correct. They are very easy to do and you can either figure them out with about 5 seconds thought or look up a recipe on the net.

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Krumplis Lángos

Theoretically the original flame baked flat bread was introduced during the Ottoman Turk occupation of Hungary in the 16^th

Krumplis lángos

century. An alternate theory is that they descend from the Roman hearth bread panis focacius, which is also an ancestor of the Italian focaccia, which I have written about elsewhere. Actually, both theories could be correct – since the Turks were Byzantine Christians until the Moslem conquest and Constantinople was the Eastern Rome. Things have changed a bit over the centuries. The bread is no longer cooked in front of an open flame, but has become deep fried. The basic version –lángos - is a standard bread kind of thing. These are the potato variety – called krumplis lángos. I’ll write up the plain lángos one of these days – they are good also.

{Herself Sez: This lovely picture is from the following Hungarian website: http://www.szentesinfo.hu/mozaik/2002/05/langos.htm

340	g	mashed potato (3/4 lb)
1	pkg	yeast
5	g	sugar (1 tsp)
250	g	all-purpose flour (1-3/4)
15	g	olive oil (1 Tbs)
5	g	salt (3/4 tsp)
125	g	milk (1/2 cup)
2		cloves garlic, cut in half

You know the basic drill for a mashed spud: peel it, whack it into about 8 pieces, put into boiling salted water for about 15 minutes. The test is to stick a fork in it. When the spuds are tender all the way through drain them and then mash them up. Put the mashed spuds and everything else except the garlic into the mixing bowl. Mix with the flat beater for about one minute, just to get things together. Swap the beater for the dough hook. Mix 3 minutes on first speed. Mix 3 minutes on second speed.

You will notice that the dough starts off rather dry, but becomes pretty loose and wet by the second speed mixing. This behavior is pretty typical of potato breads. Put the dough into a lubed covered bowl and let rise until doubled. Don’t be fooled, this stuff rises pretty fast, as in about 20 minutes or less should see the volume double.

You will find this to be some of the smoothest, silkiest dough that you have ever felt. Anyway, cut into four pieces, flatten on a floured board and form into rounds. Cover with plastic or a floured cloth and let rest about 20 minutes.

In an electric skillet, or a large fry pan heat up about 1 inch of good oil to about 375°F. Peanut or canola come to mind.

Flatten and stretch each piece to an 8” round on the floured board. Fry them one at a time for about 2 minutes 30 seconds per side. You are looking for a rich golden brown. Drain on paper towels.

The most frequent way of serving these is to cut a piece of garlic in half and rub it over the round while it is still hot, then sprinkle with a good coarse salt. A good Atlantic sea salt or a Himalayan pink do very nicely. Himalayan pink is actually from Pakistan, which I’m not fond of enriching, but I won’t let that get in the way of the taste buds.

Other common toppings include sour cream and minced dill, shredded Emmanthaler and/or Gruyere (try mixing in 1/3 Parmigiano-Reggiano). For a nice desert cinnamon/sugar or powdered sugar work well. Really, you can top them with anything you like.

People have referred to lángos – pronounced lon-gosh – as Hungarian pizza. I disagree. These have got a whole lot going for themselves and don’t imitate anything. They are their own wonderful flavor.

I suppose I should mention that these have spread all over Eastern Europe, popular everywhere. Mostly served in fast food joints or by street vendors.

Once you’ve done these you can pretty well knock them out while preparing the rest of dinner. Be warned that these are addicting and filling – particularly the original garlic and salt variety.

A Quick Can o’ Peas

Image via Wikipedia

“A kid comes up to me in a white jacket, gives me a Ritz cracker and chopped liver. He says ‘Canapés,’ I say, ‘Can o’ peas my ass! That’s a Ritz cracker and chopped liver.’”

The Godfather II – Frank Pentangeli to Fredo Corleone

Sometime a happy taste sensation can occur simply because of a need to fill in a corner of the stomach. And, of course, what you have on hand. Anyway – this turned out to make a jim-dandy little snacker – and really simple.

1	part	chicken, white meat, chopped fine
1	part	quality blue cheese, chopped fine
1	part	mushroom duxelles
1	part	good mayonnaise
		French bread, sliced thin

Chop up the chicken and blue cheese pretty fine, but not a mush. Mix the meat, cheese, mushroom and mayo together until nicely blended. You want to use a really good quality blue cheese. We used the stuff from Clemson University. They’ve had blue cheese growing in local cow juice for many years and it is a really nice strain. Put about a half tablespoon of goop on each slice of French bread and run into a 350°F oven for a few minutes. You don’t want to cook this stuff, just warm it up nicely.

Herself Sez: We learned about Clemson Blue Cheese when I was working at Clemson University back in the ’80′s. They used to have a dairy store with incredible locally made ice cream. Although the shipping eats us alive, we occasionally order a couple of 10oz Krumbles and use them in everything that calls for blue cheese. Oh Yummm!

Mushroom Duxelles has already been written up, and is something you want to keep handy in your refrigerator.

Homemade is the best way to go on the French bread and the mayonnaise.

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Cream of Mushroom Soup

1/4 cup onions, minced
3 Tbs Unsalted butter
3 Tbs a/p flour
6 cups unsalted chicken broth, seasoned with 2 parsley sprigs, 1/2 bay leaf and 1/8 tsp thyme
salt and pepper
1 lb fresh mushrooms – save the caps, rough-chop the stems
2 Tbs unsalted butter
thinly sliced mushroom caps – from the above pound of mushrooms
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 Tbs unsalted softened butter

Image via Wikipedia

This is Julia’s recipe for the real French cream of mushroom soup. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Separate the mushroom stems from the caps. Rough chop the stems. Fine slice the caps. Set them both aside.

Start the stock heating up to the boil in a heavy bottomed saucepan. If you make your own stock what you want is a traditional white stock. I can’t find it in my local store, so I use chicken stock. If you are using chicken stock you will need to remove the bay leaf and parsley after boiling a minute of two.

Sauté the onions in 3 Tbs of unsalted butter. Do not let them brown, what you want is just nice and softened. Probably about 5 to 8 minutes depending on your stove’s low setting. Once again: DON’T BROWN.

Make a pale roux: add the flour and stir or whisk over medium heat for about 3 minutes. Don’t get it brown.

Remove the pan from the heat and add boiling stock a cup at a time, stirring continuously. When the roux has been completely liquefied and absorbed add all back into the liquid.

Add in the rough chopped mushroom stems and simmer partially covered for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. If there is any scum on the surface skim it off.

Strain the mixture through a sieve. Squeeze the juice out of the mushroom stem pieces. The easiest way is just prop a sieve over a pan, pour the juice through and let it sit for a few minutes. Dispose of the remains of the mushroom stems and onions that are left in the sieve.

Slowly sauté the sliced mushroom caps, lemon juice, and salt in the 2 Tsp of butter for about 5 minutes.

Add the mushrooms and their juices to the strained soup base and simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes.

Beat two egg yolks and 3/4 cup heavy cream together. Temper by adding hot soup about ½ to 1 cup at a time while whisking constantly and vigorously. When the mix has been tempered add it back into the soup. Stir over very low heat. Do not let it come to a simmer. All you want to do is let it thicken a bit – about 2 minutes.

Taste and correct seasoning. Off the heat stir in 1 to 3 Tbs of butter to taste.

If you want to impress your dinner guests reserve some of the prettier mushroom caps, flute and sauté in lemon and butter. What is fluting you say? It is just carving a pretty curved pattern with a small, very sharp knife. If you don’t want to flute – or don’t know how, you can use a zester to make a pretty pattern, or skip the pretty pattern bit and just serve the caps undecorated. Anyway – float the sautéed caps in the bowls or cups just before serving.

This stuff is easier than it sounds, and doesn’t take all that long.

This lot will feed 4 to 6 depending on whether you just want a small soup course or more of the main meal. Really outstanding with a crusty French bread for dunking.

Oh yeah – for those who are used to the canned cream of mushroom that is kind of stiff this will seem a bit liquid. You can stiffen/thicken it up by adding a small amount of arrowroot or cornstarch before serving. On the other hand – if what you are after is the taste of the canned junk then just serve it and don’t go to this trouble. But – my taste buds claim that this well worth the minor effort.

Final note: You could probably use any mushroom that tickles your fancy, but for the best results the plain old button mushroom just can’t be beat. This is a rather balanced and delicate taste and the stouter mushrooms just overpower everything in my opinion.

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Mushroom Duxelles

A collection of dried mushrooms.

Image via Wikipedia

1/2	lb	mushrooms, chopped fine
1	Tbs	unsalted butter
3	Tbs	shallot, chopped fine
		salt and pepper to taste
1/2	tsp	dried thyme
1	Tbs	unsalted butter
1/4	cup	dry sherry

Chop up the mushrooms very fine. If you’ve got good knife skills – go for it. If your life skills are on the blink or your get up and go got up and went then use a food processor. You probably want to do about 1/3 of the mushrooms at a time. You can also chop the shallots in the processor if you like. Use any kind of mushrooms that you really like, but I advise that you do not use those that are too strongly flavored. Good old button mushrooms work very well indeed.

Wring the moisture out of the chopped mushrooms. If you haven’t done this before you are likely to be plumb amazed at the amount of liquid that comes out. For those who haven’t done this before – take a clean non-fuzzy kitchen towel, place the mushrooms on it, fold the towel so that you’ve got the mushrooms in a ball. Start twisting the ball around while holding on to the towel with the other hand. Continue wringing until you’ve gotten all the water that you can. Be amazed. If this is still unclear look around on YouTube and you can probably find a video showing this. This same technique is useful for wring out frozen spinach. If you like you can save the mushroom juice for use in a stew or sauce. I don’t usually bother.

Add a bit of oil and a tablespoon of butter to a good, heavy skillet. When the butter is ready add the mushrooms and shallots. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add thyme. Sauté over medium high heat stirring frequently for about 8 minutes. At that time the mushrooms should be nicely browning.

Add another tablespoon of butter and stir. Add the dry sherry. You can use any dry wine or vermouth that you have. Keep the heat up and keep stirring until the liquid has evaporated.

Remove from the heat, let it cool down, and cap it in a jar. This makes about a cup. You can keep it in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. Makes a nice addition to many things.

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Garlic Parmesan Dressing

Garlic Parmesan Dressing

1	cup	olive oil
1/4	cup	red wine vinegar
1/4	cup	apple vinegar
1/4	tsp	whole peppercorns
	pinch	cayenne pepper
3-6		cloves garlic
1/4	tsp	rosemary
1/4	tsp	oregano
1/4	tsp	basil
1/2	tsp	salt
1/4	tsp	freshly ground black pepper
1/4	cup	grated Parmesan cheese

The amount of garlic depends on the size and strength of the garlic at hand and how stout you like your garlic dressing. Of course, if you don’t like garlic you won’t want this dressing anyway.

Put everything except the oil into a blender and puree pretty fine. Drizzle the oil in and

blend thoroughly.

This is outstanding with avocado. Just take a nice Haas avocado cut in half lengthwise and the seed removed and fill up the hole with the dressing. Then scoop it up with a spoon, very tasty.

This stuff benefits from sitting and mellowing awhile.

If you want to make this sort of Frenchified just add a blop of Dijon mustard to the mix.

Image via Wikipedia

Herself Sez:  Himself uses Madagascar Tellicherry peppercorns which he orders from Fantes’ Kitchen Wares. They have many excellent items that we use. He orders our usual sea salt for grinding from Salt Works. We also use some of the different sea salts found at Whole Foods. (Celtic Sea Salt, Himalayan Sea Salt) While Whole Foods is pretty much overpriced and thinks much of itself, it does carry many necessary items.

Honey Glazed Lamb Chops

Honey Glazed Lamb Chops

This is quite a nice way to enjoy your rack of lamb, Frenched and cut into individual lollies. You can also use plain old lamb chops or shanks.

8		lamb lollies, chops, or a couple of lamb shanks
1	Tbs	olive oil
1-1/2	tsp	thyme
1-1/2	tsp	coarse ground black pepper
1	tsp	salt
1/2	cup	honey
1/2	cup	balsamic vinegar
4		apples, cored and cut into bite-sized pieces

What you want is about 2 chops and 1 apple (or equivalent) per person. This is about right with a little salad and perhaps a little cold soup like gazpacho or whatever suits you.

Brush your lamb with olive oil and then sprinkle with thyme, salt, pepper. You can add a little garlic if you want, but that is quite up to you. You can pan fry the lamb in a little olive oil if you like. The better method is to cook them over a grill. Either way under cook them a little bit, about 3 minutes per side, to get a little charring on the outside while still being quite red inside.

Use a pan big enough to hold your lamb to heat up the honey and vinegar. Stir the mix while bringing it to a boil. Add in the apple pieces and simmer about 10 minutes or so until the apples are soft – not mushy – just not longer crunchy.

Set the fruit aside and finish cooking the lamb in the bubbling liquid until it is the desired doneness. It should be nicely glazed. Serve things up with a little extra glaze poured over the fruit and the meat. Sticky but very, very good.

Some variations on the fruit are quite nice: figs, pears, cherries come to mind. Cut the whatever into the proper bite-sized pieces. Cooking time will probably vary by the fruit used.

Portuguese Sweet Bread

Image via Wikipedia

I first saw this stuff in the James Beard’s book Beard on Bread. Herself was making it back when. As in the old back-breaking way. When she expressed a desire to have it again I told her that I’d look into it… and update to a more bakerly approach. I don’t have any patience with that old feel your way through school of thought. Precision! That way you can bang it through with little hassle and get consistently repeatable results.

You will notice that this is a lot like kulich or brioche. In fact – most of these sweet butter and egg yeast breads look a good bit alike and are handled in similar fashion. There are, however, differences in taste and texture which make each unique and delightful.

725    g bread flour (4-3/4 cups)
230    g sugar (1 cup)
1    stick unsalted soft butter
125    g water (1/2 cup)
125    g milk (1/2 cup)
3     eggs
18    g salt (1 Tbs)
2    pkg yeast
1     egg, well-beaten, for brushing

Weigh everything except the last egg into the bowl and mix 3 minutes on 1st speed and then 3 minutes on 2nd speed. You will have a rather wet and sticky dough, but don’t worry – this is correct. Into a buttered bowl to rise. Cover with plastic wrap.

Bulk rise for 1 hour, then fold. Divide in half. The choice of shape is yours. The traditional loaf is the standard round loaf. If that is what you want then lube up a couple of 9” pie pans and set the rounded loaves in them. This dough is wet enough that it will spread out too far if it is not supported at first. There other way to do it is to use standard 8.5” x 4.5” x 2.5” standard loaf pans well lubed.

Whichever shape you use cover with plastic and let it rise. This is SLOW rising stuff, so don’t freak out when it doesn’t jump up like normal dough. In fact, it will benefit from a couple of hours rise, then retarding overnight in the refrigerator. Take it out the next morning and let it come up to room temp. You only want this to rise up to 75% or so of the pan height. It will really balloon out when it hits the oven.

Oven temp 350°F. Brush the tops with the last egg, well-beaten. Oven time will be 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on shape. This is not a good thump test bread, the best way to tell when it is done is a thermometer, which will be at 205°F when it is just right. The top will usually be a dark brown from the egg wash.

Dump onto a cooling rack and let it cool before cutting.

{{Herself Sez: As long as I’m posting this for Himself, I’ll add a comment or two. His version here is delicious. I do prefer the round loaf, though, and Himself will make it that way next time. If you look at the Brioche and Kuliche recipes (if not posted, then to be posted shortly), you will be able to see the similarities. But there are differences, and each of these breads tastes somewhat different from the other two, and each has a different texture. Thank you, dear, for editing this recipe so I can make it – should it become necessary.}}

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