www.sausagemaking.org

In any case my soft roll recipe is better.

Goodness, what an opener to a post.
Have you made Phil's yet?
I am sure that you wouldn't make such a bold statement (they are famous don't ya know ) without having made them first.
I would love to know your comments on them....as I think they would be hard to beat.

Thanks
John

In the interests of fair play I will have to try steelchef's recipe and adjudicate

Dave

(bribes to the usual address please)

Hey Phil,
I’m glad that you took my remarks in the light-hearted way they were made. I believe you are correct in assuming that most US & Canadian bread recipes are on the sweet side. The only way I have of comparing is the scones my grandmother used to bake and I found them quite horrible compared to the “conventional” bread my mother baked.
Your question about the properties of potato flour made me realize that I didn’t even know the answer, so check out the following bits of enlightenment.

Definitions of Potato starch on the Web:
• Potato starch is starch extracted from potatoes. The plant cells of the root tuber of potatoes plant contains starch grains (leucoplast). To extract the starch, the potatoes are crushed, the starch grains are released form the destroyed cells. The starch is then washed out and dried to powder.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_starch
• Very fine flour made from the potato after the peel has been removed.
brightbites.com/glossary/
• This very fine gluten-free flour is made from cooked, dried, and ground potatoes. Also called "potato flour." Used as a thickening agent and in some baked goods. Corn flour and corn starch have pretty much taken its place today.
www.cookadvice.com/glossary/11/letterp
• A thickener, interchangeable with cornstarch. See Arrowroot.
www.bloodroot.com/glossary.htm

~an excellent choice for thickening sauces, gravies, stews, and soups. It also produces superior flour-free sponge cakes, for it absorbs and retains moisture to a far greater degree than wheat flour and produces cakes with a lighter texture.

http://scandinavianfood.about.com/od/sc ... starch.htm

Apologies to anyone I may have offended with my remarks but I assure you they were made in jest. I am preparing a batch of Phil's rolls right now. My wife will be home for lunch just as they come out of the oven. I'll tell you what she thinks.

Cheers!

Colin

And that's the way I took them, glad you can post in jest too as sometimes it is difficult to get the sentiment across in words.

Dave...the fiver is on the way to "help" your decision in the great bake-off


Seriously though...will you post your findings, i would love to know how these fair as they look interesting, without the sweetnees ( for me)


John

I'm glad that you realised that my reply was 'tongue in cheek' (having a laugh). Watch it though, Johnfb's probably got a contract out on you by now!

I use fecule (from france) a lot, both in cooked sausage and in sauces etc. I'm not quite sure whether it's starch or flour as my French is of a schoolboy standard. (I've never really known whether the two were different anyway.)

It thickens without making clear liquids go opaque and 'coagulates'/binds at quite low temperatures, so is very useful in cooked sauage. I'd never come across its use in bread before, it's something I must try.

Phil

wheels wrote:I'm glad that you realised that my reply was 'tongue in cheek' (having a laugh). Watch it though, Johnfb's probably got a contract out on you by now!

I use fecule (from france) a lot, both in cooked sausage and in sauces etc. I'm not quite sure whether it's starch or flour as my French is of a schoolboy standard. (I've never really known whether the two were different anyway.)

It thickens without making clear liquids go opaque and 'coagulates'/binds at quite low temperatures, so is very useful in cooked sauage. I'd never come across its use in bread before, it's something I must try.

Phil

Yeah...there's a couple of boys calling to him tonight with violin cases, nobody messes with the family

I am smiling to myself here looking at the addition in brackets (tongue in cheek') as we went through this before with "faggots"

Phil,

It appears to be the same product with a Francois nom,
That’s the full extent of MY French!

Also, TWIMC, I’ve gone into hiding and instructed my wife to tell any callers that I ran away from home. So call off your hit-men, they’ll never find me! Lol!


fécule
Definition
• Starch; particularly potato starch which is made by grinding raw potatoes and washing away the solubles with water, leaving a pure starch similar in properties to corn flour and arrowroot.


Tapioca starch is another fascinating idea for sausage, possibly as a substitute for gelatin. It is slipperier than “you know what,” and has no taste. It’s also cheap like Borscht.

You'll find many references to tapioca starch on here. Captain wassname uses it in many of his sausages.

I have a bag of it in the cupboard, I must get around to trying it.

Phil

Hi Phil

Just to let you know that I made a batch of soft rolls to your recipe yesterday and they came out very well, thank you. Just what you said they were like. My kids liked them a lot and I was pleased with them.

I generally make bread using either a poolish/biga or a sourdough ferment but the kids are not keen on the crust or the robust flavours so perhaps I now have a recipe that I can use to replace the supermarket rubbish (bread-type product) that they currently eat!

Richard

I'm glad that your kids like it.

Personally, I'd prefer your sourdough or biga/poolish loaves.

Phil