Fortissimo Durum Flour

I recently purchased a bag of Fortissimo durum flour from Cairnspring Mills in Burlington, Washington. According to the North Dakota Wheat Commission, “[d]urum thrives in a climate characterized by cool summer nights, long warm days, adequate but not excessive rainfalls and a dry harvest….”  Although California, Arizona and North Dakota produce the majority of US-grown durum flour, Fortissimo, developed in 2006, performs well in certain Pacific Northwest regions. Cairnspring’s Fortissimo grows in Washington’s Skagit Valley.

Fortissimo is a very hard variety of durum wheat. Cairnspring claims that during its early milling trials, the wheat broke its mill stones. Durum’s protein content can range from 9 to 18%. Fortissimo has a protein level between 10-11.5%, which is just a tick below average. Cairnspring mills and then sifts its Fortissimo to a Type 90 flour, which has slightly more texture than Central Milling’s Extra Fancy Durum. Neither Cairnspring’s Fortissimo nor Central Milling’s Extra Fancy Durum flour resemble traditional semolina, which is a granular flour composed of evenly sized endosperm. 

 

When I first came across Fortissimo on Cairnspring’s website, the mill only had 50-pound bags of the durum available for pick-up in Burlington. As I write, Cairnspring now offers 2.2-pound bags that it will ship (but, per the website, supplies are limited).

 

I’ve made a number of batches of pasta blending 60 grams of Cairnspring’s Fortissimo durum with 90 grams of Central Milling’s Organic Type 00 flour. To hydrate the flour, I add one whole egg and two egg yolks, which together weigh just under 100 grams. Using a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, I slowly add the egg mixture to the flour blend until the dough just comes together. I then tightly wrap the dough in plastic film and let it hydrate at room temperature for 30 minutes before rolling the dough out in my Imperia R220. I plan on using the same flour blend to extrude pasta with my torchio, but will cut back on the amount of the egg mixture to make a harder dough.

 

I try to support my local Pacific Northwest food industry, especially newer ventures like Cairnspring Mills, which started in 2016. Its Fortissimo durum flour feels like the freshly milled and sifted flour that I grind with my Komo grain mill. The pasta I made with Fortissimo using my preferred 2:3 ratio of durum to Type 00 flour had a balanced, firm texture and lovely yellow hue. Although not traditional, I especially like to use this 2:3 flour blend when making pappardelle destined for a hearty sauce.

Koji Stock

Back in February of 2019, I wrote (here) about using Japanese ingredients, such as culinary powders and stocks, to make pasta sauces and I shared a recipe by Danny Bowien for what has become a staple in my kitchen pantry: shiitake mushroom powder. Here’s how I use the powder to make a quick yet flavorful fresh pasta sauce serving 2:  

Sauté a diced shallot in 2 tablespoons/28 grams of butter. Add 1 tablespoon/2 grams of mushroom powder to the pan and stir the mixture together over moderate heat. Add some thinly sliced vegetables to the pan. (When in season, I like to use thin slices of fresh artichoke heart or asparagus.) Pour in ½ cup or so of water, a bit more butter and a pinch of fennel pollen and/or some chopped herbs. Bring the mixture to a simmer, taste and season with salt and pepper, cover the pan and braise the vegetables for about 4 minutes. The sauce is now ready to receive the cooked pasta. Mix the pasta and sauce together for a minute over moderate heat, add freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and/or Pecorino Romano cheese and cook until the pasta absorbs its sauce. The shiitake powder enhances the flavor of the other ingredients without contributing a mushroom flavor. The powder makes the sauce taste delicious and savory.

When I want to add even more flavor to this pasta sauce, I use koji stock in place of water. In The Noma Guide to Fermentation (Artisan, 2018), René Redzepi and David Zilber write that they “find koji indistinguishable from magic—the best kind of magic, in fact, because anybody can wield it.”

Koji

What is koji? Per The Noma Guide to Fermentation, “[k]oji is a term that comes from Japan, where it refers to rice or barley that have been inoculated with Aspergillus oryzae, a species of fungus—a sporulating mold, to be exact—that grows on cooked grains in warm and humid environments. (In the English-speaking world, we apply the term koji interchangeably to the inoculated grains, the fungus, and the spores.)”

I first read about dried rice koji in a 2013 article by Tara Duggan in the San Francisco Chronicle. Duggan’s piece focuses on shio-koji, an easy-to-make mixture of dried rice koji, salt and water. Shio-koji tastes salty, sweet and savory all at the same time. Use it like salt to marinate meat, make pickles, and add flavor and depth to salad dressings and sauces.

The Noma Guide to Fermentation contains a recipe for shio-koji. But, better yet, Redzepi and Zilber tell the reader how to make the actual koji grains. The book goes on to suggest innovative ways to use both fresh and dried koji grains. One application surprised me: use dried koji grains to make stock. Redzepi and Zilber write: 

“One of the best possible uses for dried koji is as a flavoring for stock. Boil 1 liter water in a pot and add 150 grams crumbled dried koji (not koji flour). Turn down the heat and let the stock simmer for 10 minutes. Strain and discard the solids. What you have is a versatile, vegetarian base liquid that can be used for a whole flight of applications.”

That’s it! In 10 minutes you can create this magical liquid that enhances and deepens the flavor of food. On its own, my homemade rice koji stock smells and tastes just slightly sweet and of mushrooms, but its own unique flavor disappears as it cooks and the koji works its magic. The authors share that, thanks to koji, at Noma they “more or less stopped making long-cooked meat stocks and producing sauces via classical reductions…By cooking koji into a lighter broth, we can achieve the same rich, complex flavors without the heaviness of all that gelatin and dairy.” 

If you want to try koji stock but don’t want to make and dry your own koji grains, finding commercially-manufactured dried rice koji isn’t nearly as difficult as one might imagine. Start your search at a well-stocked Asian market. If you live in a major metropolitan area, you might find dried rice koji at a nearby grocery store with a good international food section. The brand I see most often here in the Pacific Northwest is Cold Mountain. If you cannot find dried koji grains locally, you can buy a container on-line from US and Japanese sellers.

Being me, I wanted to make my own koji grains. I used my Brød & Taylor Bread Proofer and a homemade cedar tray to hold the grains. I bought koji spores (aka koji tane) from GEM Cultures, a business here in Washington State and from Kawashima, an on-line source in Japan. Koji tane doesn’t cost too much and has a self-life of months if properly stored. By carefully following Redzepi and Zilber’s clear instructions, I went from uncooked white rice to koji grains in 2 days of mostly unsupervised attention. Making barley koji is just as easy as creating rice koji.

Is koji stock made from homemade rice koji better than stock made from Cold Mountain dried rice koji? In my experience, the homemade stock has a much deeper aroma and taste. But both produce remarkable stock.

If you haven’t checked out Redzepi and Zilber’s book, I recommend you give it a look. The Noma Guide to Fermentation explores a broad assortment of fermented foods ranging from simple lacto-ferments, such as pickled white asparagus, to mind-blowing black vegetables and garums made from roasted chicken wings. Redzepi and Zilber also explain how to use koji to make miso and shoyu.

Japanese Ingredients in Pasta Sauces

A historical survey of Italian regional pasta reveals a rich tradition of makers using available ingredients. In her Translator’s Preface to the Encyclopedia of Pasta, Maureen B. Fant writes: “If [an entry’s ingredient] seems vague or ambiguous, it is because people used what they could lay hands on.”

Today, inside and outside of Italy, what people can lay hands on has dramatically changed. I increasingly reach for Japanese culinary powders and stocks when making pasta sauces. If you taste a plate of pasta made with one or more of these ingredients, I doubt you could pick out a Japanese essence. These ingredients blend in to support and enhance other flavors. Over the course of 2019, I will examine a few of these ingredients. First up: Shiitake mushroom powder.

The recipe that I use to make this savory-inducing powder comes from The Mission Chinese Food Cookbook by Danny Bowien and Chris Ying (Ecco, 2015). Bowien writes: “This is the gentleman’s MSG. It’s umami incarnate, in powdered form.” 

I first made the powder about three years ago.  It looks a little like a soup mix one finds in a package of dried ramen. One night, on a lark, I added a tablespoon or so to some water while braising artichokes for a pasta sauce. The sauce boasted a delicious rich flavor. I now use shiitake mushroom powder not only when making pasta sauces, but also as a seasoning when cooking other Italian (and non-Italian) foods.

You can find commercial mushroom powder at Asian markets and online, but making it at home takes almost no work at all, especially if you purchase dried shiitake mushrooms. Here’s Bowien’s recipe, which makes about ½ cup of powder.

1 (1-inch) square dashi kombu

½ ounce stemmed, dried shiitake mushrooms

1. Use a pair of kitchen shears to snip the kombu into 4 or 5 smaller pieces, then grind it to a fine powder in a spice or coffee grinder or blender. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Grind the mushrooms to a powder and combine with kombu. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Like ground spices, this begins to lose its potency immediately.

Plenty of on-line sources sell dashi kombu (aka konbu) if you cannot find it in a nearby market. If you want to splurge, The Japanese Pantry, an on-line business located in San Francisco, sells outstanding ma konbu as well as other high-quality Japanese food products.

If you own a dehydrator, you can dry your own mushrooms in about 18 to 24 hours. I start with approximately 33 to 35 small- to medium-sized fresh shiitake mushrooms. Wipe the mushroom caps clean with a damp towel and remove the stems, which often twist off where the stem meets the cap. Dehydrate the mushroom caps at 120°F/48°C until completely dry. I let the dehydrator run 24 hours then weigh out 14 grams of dried mushrooms to make the powder. A small Krups spice grinder makes quick work of pulverizing the kombu and dried mushrooms.

Bowien calls for shiitake mushroom powder in a lot of the recipes in The Mission Chinese Food Cookbook: Mapo Tofu; Kung Pao Pastrami; Thrice-cooked Bacon; Broccoli Beef; Catfish à la Sichuan; Pork Jowl and Radishes. I can go on (but won’t). Point being: The powder makes a range of different types of food taste better.

My delight with shiitake mushroom powder lead me to make Porcini Spice Powder from State Bird Provisions (Ten Speed Press, 2017) by Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski. I found their mushroom powder interesting, but trickier to employ because it contains allspice berries and sugar.

I now use shiitake mushroom powder whenever I make my favorite artichoke pasta sauce, which recipe I will post. But first, I need to introduce another Japanese ingredient that has recently permeated my Italian cooking: Rice koji stock (here).