This week I found a fun use for my leftover corned beef from St Patty’s day.  Rueben sandwiches.  I started by making sourdough rye bread.  I basically used Peter Reinhart’s basic sourdough bread recipe as found in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.  To make it rye bread, I substituted 5 ounces of rye flour and a half an ounce of caraway seeds during the dough portion of the recipe.  Also, as I discussed here, I used the Dutch oven method for baking instead of Reinhart’s hearth method.  I also don’t knead my dough so now window panes here.

The bread turned out really nice…

 

Rueben Sandwiches

1 Loaf – Sourdough rye bread

3 lb – Corned Beef Roast

1/4 lb – Swiss or Gruyere Cheese

8 oz – Sauerkraut

Thousand Island or Russian Dressing

Butter

Canola oil

Salt/Pepper

 

Slow Roast the Corned Beef

Remove the roast from its brine (reserve the brine) and pat dry with a paper towel.  Salt and Pepper generously and let sit for a few minutes.  Heat a large skillet over high heat on the stove, add 1-2 Tbsp of oil and wait until it starts to smoke lightly.  Add the roast and brown evenly on all sides.  Place the sauerkraut in the bottom of your slow cooker, add the browned roast, the contents of the seasoning packet, and the brine.  Let roast on low for 6-8 hours or until very tender.  Remove from slow cooker and reserve the sauerkraut.  Let rest under aluminum foil until slightly cooled.  If you plan on using making ahead of time, reheat lightly before assembling in a sandwich.

Assembly

Heat 2 large heavy bottomed skillets (preferably cast iron) or a Panini press.  Spread dressing on the inside halves of both slices of bread per sandwich.  Thinly slice corned beef and place as much as you’d dare.  Place several spoonfuls of the reserved sauerkraut on top of the beef followed by the cheese.  Butter the outside of the bread on both sides of the sandwich. Grill inside one of the skillets, placing the other skillet on top of the sandwich, flip half way through.  Grill until golden brown and the cheese is melted.

Serve with pickles, coleslaw and homemade potato chips.

I’ve been working on my bread making for several years now.  I received The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart for Christmas and I’ve been baking quite a bit since then.  I’ve tried various styles of bread but mainly I’ve dealt with wild yeasted breads (sourdough).  For a few years I’ve been extracting various sourdough cultures.  One I started from organic white wheat berries and the other from organic rye berries.  The wheat based culture (I feed them both from bread flour now) came out rather sour, with a “classic” sort of sourdough taste to it.  The rye based culture is kind of unique.  It tastes very sweet and “lactic” (that’s the best way I can describe it).  It tastes sort of “milky”.  I really like it. 

Recently I traded a sample of the rye based culture (we call it “the baby” from back when we had to feed it constantly) for a sample from a friend of mine from The Herbfarm.  It’s a great start.  I knew is was going to be awesome when I first got it and within a few hours the container burst open from all the gas buildup (in the fridge).

Another thing I’ve been trying recently is a departure from Reinhart’s “hearth” baking method.  Instead I’ve been using the New York Time’s No-Knead bread technique of baking inside a Dutch oven.  Actually, I don’t have that sort of Dutch oven (I only have the big camping kind) so I use a Korean ceramic pot (claypot) style oven.  It seems to work just as well or better.

So now I’ve been trying it with all of my favorite breads.  I tend to like lean bread recipes (non-enriched) so the normal flow lately has been to make a firm starter, let it ripen for a day in the fridge, make the dough (no kneading!), let it ripen another day in the fridge, shape the dough, let it rise for a bit, then bake it inside the preheated ceramic pot (inside the oven).  I preheat the oven to 500 degrees, drop the dough in, cover, and then drop the heat to 425-450.  After 20 minutes I remove the lid from the pot and let it bake a while longer until the inside temp reaches 200.

Here are some other bread pics of bread that I’ve made.

 Sourdough Rye

Braided Challah