I decided this week to have some fun with squid ink. I've been wanting to make a squid ink bread for a while and today this was the first attempt. I was quite pleased with the results though tomorrow I will adjust the quantities a little. I based the recipe on a simple pain de mie recipe with the addition of the ink. I took out some of the butter; however on tasting the bread I feel that reducing the water to accommodate the added moisture from the ink would be better. The loaf had a fantastic crust and the crumb was quite light and moist.
I didn't have the proper mould to cook a pain de mie so I cooked the loaf first in a terrine mould and then finished it out of the mould.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the bread yet. I've thought of canapes with sea urchin, king crab sandwiches or maybe crisp croutons with 62 degree egg and chorizo puree. Not sure yet.
So this was a good start to a week of fun with squid ink. I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow.
Here's the first two dishes to come form my squid ink bread. I made a second batch with more butter, less ink and a little less water. The crumb was a little denser but still nice and light. We froze the loaf overnight and sliced it nice and thin. First we made crisp fingers and dressed them with a tartar of Hervey Bay scallops, sea urchin roe, yuzu/hazelnut emulsion and crisp garlic and baby onion rings. Quite delicious
Next we dried the bread around a canoli mould. when the tubes were nice and crisp we filled it with smoked bacon mousse and topped it with salmon caviar and a few micro herbs. I think this is the version were going to adapt. More to follow....
