Soft Pretzels

Last weekend we didn't watch the Superbowl, but did see this recipe on one of the food blogs we read, and decided that Soft Pretzel making would be a fun weekend project. They were actually a lot easier than I thought they would be, and really tasty too! The only thing you need to do is plan a few hours ahead, as there's a lot of waiting both for the dough to rise and for them to bake.

Otherwise, here are the ingredients and our step by step photos!

Soft Pretzels

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1 (1/4-oz) package active dry yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons)

3-3/4 to 4 cups all-purpose flour

1 large egg

1 heaping Tablespoon baking soda 

   
Start by adding the sugar to the warm water. Stir it up so that it dissolves. Add in the yeast and let it sit for 5-10 minutes until it looks frothy kind of like this. Next add the flour and knead it until it's a nice dough consistency. It should still be a bit sticky so don't add too much extra flour

Next let it rise covered for 45 minutes to an hour. 

  
Next comes the messy part. Flour your hands and then punch down the dough and divide into 8 evenly sized pieces.

Then roll each piece into long thin strands. 

Then do your best to form them into pretzel shapes!
It took us quite a few tries and we had some very bizarre looking ones. 

Some are better than others, but they all tasted the same, so don't worry about it!

Next you boil a big pot of water. Once it is boiling add a big tablespoon of Baking Soda.
It does something to the dough so they brown more apparently. 

Throw in your pretzels a few at a time and cook for about 3 minutes flipping them over halfway through so both sides get done. 

They look kind of weird at this point as you can see. 

Next brush them all over with an eggwash and sprinkle with coarse salt - or whatever other seasonings you want. We wanted to go traditional on our first run.

After 35 minutes in the oven at 425 degrees they'll brown up nicely and be crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside. And pretty darn tasty too! 

4 Experiments

There's been less incentive to cook a full meal, since Laura went home, so this weekend I just messed around in the kitchen.

Experiment 1 - Jicama

There's a small store across the street from here that sells fruit and vegetables. I bought some jicama. Jicama's a root, but the inside is really juicy (the flavour isn't very strong quite watery and just slightly sweet). At work, they often use jicama in fruit salads and it's also used in a malay salad call Rojak (which I definitely need to make). This is what the it looks like before cutting:

The inside is all white.

I didn't do anything exciting with the Jicama this time - I just cut it into strips and ate it raw.

Experiment 2 - Apples poached in white wine

We had bit of wine left over from a few weeks ago when we made risotto, and Laura left an apple behind, so I decided to see what would happen if I poached it. I heated hot wine with and added cinnamon, about glob of honey and some lemon thyme. I added sliced, peeled apples to this and let the apples cook until they were slightly soft. Because there wasn't an abundance of liquid, I had to spoon the liquid over the apples as it cooked.

It turned out really good! The wine combined really well with the apples - and in the end the wine ended up tasting like a sweet apple cider.

Experiment 3 - Potato pancakes

I finished eating all of our stick-chicken leftovers the other day, but we still had some extra potatoes left over. Rather than throwing them out, Laura suggested I try making potato pancakes by cooking them a bit more in the frying pan. I added a bit of olive oil to the pan, shaped the mashed potatoes into a pancake and heated them in the pan. I also added some Mexican hot sauce. It turned out really well. Much less boring than old mashed potatoes. I even got pretty good at flipping the pancake over with a flick of the wrist!

Experiment 4 - Tomatoes with Feta, olive oil and lemon thyme

This isn't really an experiment - but it's really good! I sliced some tomatoes added some really good feta cheese we got from the Milk Pail (which has a really good variety of cheap, but excellent cheeses). I sprinkled on some lemon thyme, a pinch of kosher salt, and a drizzle of really good olive oil. It's really excellent (especially if the tomatoes are really ripe).