Augieland

Woody's chestnut raised pork

A while back I did a post about the glories of the acorn-fed black footed pigs of Spain and the hams and charcuterie that arise from them. Soon after, I received an email from a gentleman named Woody explaining that he was a chestnut farmer/breeder and had recently been raising some pigs on the chestnuts he had been farming. While at this point he is not producing the pigs for sale so I couldn’t buy them, he explained that he would happily give me some for sampling if I was interested and would give him feedback. After entertaining the idea that he might be related to the wine guy at A Voce or some other restaurateur I have been less than nice to, I decided this would be quite an elaborate ruse and that maybe this guy was on the up and up.

Last week, right before my Alba trip, a Styrofoam cooler box filled with dry ice and some pig showed up (so it is worth noting all this meat spent 10 days in my freezer before the tasting). There was a tube of ground pork, a pork liver, an Iowa chop, and some bacon. In the interest of giving good feedback and running this meat through its courses I decided on three tests:

First test – Bacon. For the bacon I went over Pichon’s and did a side by side comparison with what I felt would be a competent competitor. For the other bacon we chose Seriously Good bacon from the guys at the Greenmarket with the Seriously Good Bacon sign.

To be fair, the Seriously Good bacon guys had no idea they were entering a competition, but there was a drastic difference between the two bacons physically. Woody’s bacon was striated with fat while the Seriously Good bacon was more a fat cap next to meat. Both types possessed almost a one to one ratio of meat to fat, the Woody bacon however had its fat spread throughout, while the Seriously Good bacon was more two distinct sides.

We went with two methods of preparation: microwave for its exactness and lack of human error, and pan-frying, because it tastes better. Each preparation was done separately, so as not to commingle flavors. The pan-frying was performed by Pichon in two pans, the microwaving for four minutes at half power in two waves.

I don’t know how much of these results were due to cut and how much were the chestnut raising, but texture does not seem a fair point of comparison. Woody’s won hands down. The fat on the Seriously Good was just getting limber while the meat was already too tough. The Woody pig, however, benefited from its fat being distributed in striations so that crisp was crisp rather than crunchy. This carried even into the tasting – as you chewed the Seriously Good bacon the sensation was of freeing trapped salt from the limber fat, while Woody’s was uniform enough to be perceived as one thing.

As for flavor, in order we preferred the Woody bacon in a frying pan, the Woody bacon in the microwave, the Seriously Good bacon in the microwave, with the Seriously Good bacon in a frying pan bringing up the rear. We tried desperately not to use the word “nutty” to describe the flavor of the Woody bacon. The best alternative we could come up with was when Ringwald noted its faint aromas of roasted winter squash, which did make some sense of the flavor. Sadly, as clichéd as it sounds, the fat of the nut-raised pigs was nutty, wonderfully nutty. Both bacons were salt cured, though the salt notes were far more pronounced in the harder fat of the Seriously Good bacon.

I chose Seriously Good bacon because I love it and wanted as fair a competition as possible. Going in, Pichon absolutely declared he doubted one bacon could be better, or even very different. But side by side I may have designed an unfair competition. Whether we admit it or not, bacon is about fat and the fat of nut-raised pigs just tastes better, more interesting, more complex, more pastoral and in general just more. Hands down the victor of this round was Woody’s bacon.

Second test-was actually an experiment. For the liver I decided we should try to recreate the sofritto Nettasdad made when we roasted the pig in October. I had tasted Nettasdad’s sofritto but was too busy with pig roasting and wine drinking to see him make it. What we had to go on was that awesome old hand Italian cook thing where he mumbled the recipe as: “the liver, the heart, some pork meat, some tomatoes, some garlic, some wine, some peppers oh yea and some peppers.” With this in mind, the gift liver seemed a fair excuse for me to test my hand at some-some-some.

We grated about four garlic cloves and set them in a cool pan with olive oil to wait while I chopped up the liver in a rough dice and mixed the ground pork in.

Once the liver was cut up and the ground pork was added to it I turned the heat under the pan to high.

As the garlic started to brown I added the pile of meat and spread it around evenly. I moved it a little too much, I think, because in the long run the meat more grayed then browned. (Next time I will brown the offal first, then the meat).

Once everything was uniformly grayish brown I added some twists of salt, black pepper, and a couple shakes of chili flake.

Then we threw a large fistful of rough-chopped vinegar peppers in and let it simmer for about fifteen minute with about four glugs from a bottle of a California Cabernet Sauvignon we were drinking (‘97 McKenzie Muller to be exact).

The first taste lacked a certain acidic zing so I added a couple more twists of salt, a couple more twists of pepper, a few more shakes of chili flake, and about a quarter cup of the vinegar from the peppers.

Then Pichon remembered that Nettasdad had said tomatoes so we added about a half cup of chopped tomatoes and their liquid and let that cook down for another fifteen minutes. This added a different and sweeter acidity, rounding the dish out nicely.

Was it as good as Nettasdad’s? Who knows? (Like I said, I was Busy drinking and roasting while he made it.) It was very good and I think I can make it better next time. I would happily serve it to friends as well as enemies as was. How much of the credit belongs to Woody’s pig meat and liver? At this point I am willing to split credit, the worst critique we got was “that’s awesome” and that was from a sober person. If I am sure of anything it is that great cooking may cover mediocre ingredients, but just as much when fooling around in the kitchen trying to reproduce someone else’s good results great ingredients will give you a huge amount of leeway which I definitely enjoyed.

Third Test-For the chop I decided to take my hands out of the prep. Not many people make a pork chop so well that the New York Times reviewer dedicates the title of a review and a whole paragraph to explaining how he was close to getting it on every visit to a particular restaurant. Joey Campanaro is such a chef, so I called Little Owl to see if Joey would play along. I asked that he take my chestnut-fed Iowa chop and one of his now famous chops into his kitchen, prepare them identically, and come out and eat them with me and Pichon, not telling us which was which.

I gave the chop to Joey wrapped hoping he would be able to mask from me which was which; sadly this could not happen. So I never saw it uncooked. On the plate, though, Woody’s was a more traditional chop and obviously different from Joey’s very thick one so I decided to turn the tables, cutting them down to bite-sized morsels and presenting them to Joey and one of his waiters blind, both of whom preferred the house chop.

Again, this was an expected outcome. Joey, his recipe, and his chop have come together over time to be a pretty special combination and just throwing Woody’s chop in deprived it a fair evolution. There is no doubt, though, that Chef Campanaro was fair in the kitchen; both chops were the same hue of pink in the middle, the Woody chop a little more succulent and the Joey chop toothier, apparently by nature.

Once the four of us had tasted, the consensus seemed to be:
-- that the fat on the Woody chop scorched on the grill, giving it an acrid note. We figure that this cut may be better suited to roasting or some other longer, lower heat aplication.
-- that the fat in the Woody chop really adopted the fennel and black pepper notes of Joey’s marinade, so much that some bites were a little overpowering, and that the aroma of these lingered far longer with the Woody chop.

So what have we learned? First and foremost, it may be bad to accept candy from strangers, but pork should always be welcome. Second, that a diet of nuts makes for far more interesting pork. I don’t know what it will take for Woody to move from the fooling-around-raising-pigs-on-the-nuts-left-over-after-the-humans-are-taken-care-of phase to the pig-raising phase, but I hope it happens soon. This meat was amazing, seriously reminiscent of the greatest pigs I have had.

PIG: rotisserie, charcoal, wet rub

Pichon, Helmet, Link and me standing outside a red barn-like butcher shop at the end of a dead end road in Chatham Township, NJ, on a chilly early autumn morning with a sixty-seven pound pig on a stick and four bags of charcoal, discussing constant rotation or focused heat with a man in a bloodied white jacket is the picture of this day.

The first plan was to cook a proper ghetto pig. One day I happened across Link and Helmet talking about pig cooking methods and joined the conversation. They were discussing whether to bury it with coal and banana leaves, or to roast it rotisserie style. I told the story of when I first got involved in pig roasting through Cuz, and that the research he had done had turned up a website by a couple of Cubans in Miami who like to butterfly a whole pig, strap it to a chain link fence and grill it, something I had always wanted to try. At this point Cuz and I have rotisseried many pigs and have strong beliefs on the proper way to do it, but I have always thought it would be fun to do the ghetto pig version of the guys down in Miami. So Helmet, Link and I started discussing approaches and methods and decided the pig would be done lashed to fencing and set on cinderblocks over charcoal.

About the time we figured out that un-galvanized aluminum fencing is almost impossible to get in the metropolitan New York area (I assume the weather changes of the northeast make it impractical to use unprotected steel, or aluminum) Helmet found this butcher in NJ that rents fire pits and rotisseries and gives you the entire pig already lashed to the spit.

The story as we believed it was that this place was a working farm and we would be involved in the killing of the pig, something I felt obliged to participate in because of the amount of trepidation it caused me. As it turned out, after having steeled myself to face the discomfort of taking part in an intimate task of involving myself in the moment of death of my food that society has so removed us from it seems foreign, I had actually taken an extra step away from being involved because the second most intimate thing about roasting a whole pig is the actual hands-on step of securing the beast to the spit and the folks of Green Village Packing, had already done this for us.

So we gave up a little involvement in the interest of convenience, which tears me. I hate convenience in food prep as a general principal. Wife and I long ago threw out our microwave believing that the little extra time taken in making things like mashed potatoes from scratch makes a far bigger difference in flavor. However, when preparing food for fifty folks, a little help is great.

When Cuz and I roast a pig we have come to a pretty stripped down method. We simply and liberally salt the inside of the carcass and fasten it on the rod. We then salt it again on the outside, and set it over the heat. Now, to be honest, leaving well enough alone is the hardest part from here on out. In order to give ourselves something to do, we’ve picked up the little nervous device of dipping long branches of rosemary in olive oil and smacking them against the skin of the pig while it cooks. I know that the skin of a pig is tough enough to make footballs from so I don’t believe we are doing any flavor adding with our little exercise, but it is still fun and dissipates the energy of hours of staring.

What the folks at Green Village Packing do besides giving you the fire pit, the charcoal, the rotisserie, and the spit, as well as affixing the pig, is to season its interior. They use a blend of garlic, herbs, adobo, black pepper and oil, all good and all sensible and all much appreciated. I clearly am a purist and find the flavor of slow-roasted pork best unadorned while cooking. I do like accoutrements like mojo, or vinegary slaw, or even hot barbeque sauce when it is done, but for cooking I keep it simple. That being said, nothing could be simpler than this.

Literally all you have to do is go home, light a fire, set the spit in the rotisserie and cook until the ham and shoulder achieve 165 degrees in the center. And that’s almost what we did. My belief is the pig should be belly side down over low heat for about 45% of the estimated cooking time (about an hour for every 10-12 pounds). Then 20% on each side, 10% with the back facing down, and the remaining 5% spent spinning over much higher heat to crisp and brown the skin. The logic here is that the concentration of the meat is on the pig’s underside, so time spent spinning it leaves ¾ of each minute with the densest concentration of the meat being off the flame, making the leaner meat toward the pigs back overcook. So without a calculator I guessed our sixty-seven pound pig would spend two and a half hours stomach down, an hour or so on its left side followed by another hour or so on its right, half an hour with its feet in the air, and the remaining time spinning with periodic temperature checks.

The reality is, as will always happen when men gather around a fire with raw meat, a committee formed with votes on how best to do it. Ultimately, we went with one hour belly down, one hour spinning, half an hour on each side (while a rosemary, garlic olive oil wet rub was applied to the off-fire side) and then spinning till it was finished (people like to watch things spin). There is also the truth that meat + fire = happy eaters.

About 90% of the pig was consumed within half an hour of it coming off the spit. I was proud to have been a part of it’s making (even though the back was a little tougher then I like ;-) and, as often happens when I cook, I had little interest in eating it beyond the taste that confirmed I was proud of the job we had done. Instead, I went inside to eat the sofritto that Nettasdad had made of our pig’s heart and liver. Now that’s the way food should taste; once I figure out how to make it I’ll tell ya.

NYC Country Gravy

Weekend breakfast is an important thing around our house. Most often we get up on Saturday, swing by Joe on 13th Street, grab a coffee and continue on to the Union Square Greenmarket to grab some provisions for the rest of the weekend. This week, however, Wife decided to make a quick swing by the Market on Friday, just to grab provisions for Saturday morning (we had eaten at home a lot this week and had run through most of our CSA stuff already). Friday Greenmarket vendors vary from Monday, Saturday, and Wednesday folks to some degree, so what we had was an opportunity to try different food from different vendors.

When I awoke on Saturday, in the fridge I found:

Araucana Chicken Eggs

Pork Breakfast Sausage Links

Organic Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits (made with Ronnybrook buttermilk)

So I did exactly what you would have done – made fried eggs on biscuits with sausage gravy.

I started by browning about ¾ of the meat in the package in a cast iron pan.

Once it was all chopped up and tiny bits of it were sticking to the pan’s bottom, I removed the meat and threw in two big spoonfuls of organic AP flour.

Because the sausage hadn’t rendered as much fat as I thought it would and I wanted a thick roux I added about 2 tbs of unsalted butter and let the roux come together and brown well. I whisked 2 cups of raw milk and copious amounts of ground black pepper into this and let it boil till it thickened.

Once it was thick enough, I mixed the browned sausage back in and turned the heat off. I spooned this mixture onto the biscuits I had split and then put two fried eggs on top.

I assume anyone looking at this would call it a country breakfast, which I am cool with as long as you realize I made it in my 10th floor apartment with food bought from farmers within a stones throw of a McDonald’s. Woo Greenmarket!

BLT, it's about time

Once the ramps’ fronds have grown too fibrous to be good any more and the fiddleheads have opened to become the ferns they were destined to be, the next things I look forward to at the Greenmarket are tomatoes. I am one of the people who actually waits for tomato season to eat tomatoes because they just make little sense to me at other times. Sure that red thing they put on my sandwich at the deli adds moisture, a slight sweetness, and a slight acidity, but for me to buy tomatoes and consider them an ingredient they have to be locally grown, sweet, and juicy.

Saturday, while wandering around the Union Square Greenmarket I came across one of the two farmers I buy tomatoes from in the summer (the Jersey guys on the east side of the park, Tim Stark is the other) with the first taste of tomatoes cut up for sampling. I approached with great skepticism and tasted. Maybe it was because it has been a long rather mild boring winter since last I had one, or maybe the spring was so mild and wet they somehow got real beefsteak tomatoes to mature on the vine even before the smaller, faster-ripening heirloom varieties, but either way I was definitely pleased. Not as ecstatic as I would have been with a truly great picked-that-morning, fully ripe tomato in August, but pleased in the fact that this was a juicy, meaty tomato with genuine sugar development that had never been made dumb through refrigeration, even if the stems still clung.

So with four good-sized tomatoes in hand, I had a plan. I stopped at the bread guy and got a loaf of farm bread, then the lettuce and greens guys that have no signs for a head of oak lettuce, and the “seriously good bacon” guys for a pound of black boar bacon.

Walking home, I stopped at the 14th street Garden Of Eden and grabbed a 500 cl bottle of Catalonian organic olive oil made from the Arbequina olive because these tomatoes were finally my excuse to make the allioli on page 20 of José Andrés’ “Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America.” This book is inspirational enough that I wanted to set about the task of slowly drizzling a cup and a half of olive oil into a mortar while pestling four cloves of garlic, a pinch of sea salt, and the juice of a lemon wedge. But what I needed was the time and proper ingredient for inspiration.

These tomatoes were very good, not great (great tomatoes only want olive oil and salt, maybe a torn basil leaf and a twist of black pepper, little more). Very good tomatoes can use a little help and work better as part of an ensemble then in a solo. So here I was with rain starting outside, very good tomatoes, fresh lettuce, fresh allioli, a pound of bacon browning in a pan, a loaf of fresh bread to toast, and Pichon, Ringwald, and Vee on their way over for first of the season Greenmarket BLT’s. That’s what I call a good Saturday afternoon.

Bagna Cauda as dressing

I love the flavor of bagna cauda with bitter vegetables, but some of my favorite bitter greens are dandelion greens and they don’t work well for dipping in hot oil. Besides being a perfect level of bitter, dandelion greens are purported to greatly encourage liver health, so it makes sense to eat them raw, at least sometimes.

This is how I make the hot olive oil, garlic, anchovy dipping sauce of Piemonte, bagna cauda, into a cool dressing for raw leafy greens.

Cover the bottom of a small pan with crushed raw garlic cloves, pour olive oil in to generously cover, add 1 fillet of white anchovy to equal half the total number of garlic cloves, plus 1 fillet. Set it on the lowest possible flame. The ideal is steady but minimal bubbling. When I have trouble maintaining this level, I will set the small saucepan in a large sauté pan to help dissipate some of the heat. Let this simmer for 1 hour. Then remove from the heat, and steep at room temperature for at least 4 hours (if it will be longer then 12 hours before the next step, refrigerate but let it come up to room temperature before using).

When it is time to dress, puree the mixture evenly with an immersion blender, and drizzle on the washed greens. Finish with a scattering of dry grating cheese. Parmigiano is fine, I like a dry, grating goat cheese Coach Farms makes, but that may be because I usually buy my dandelion greens at the Union Square Green Market on Saturdays, and that’s when they are there.

Babbo: 2 menus 2 times

I had one of these menus in November 1999, and the other in January 2006. For one of them I paid the premium for the reserve wines. Other than that, I'd like to let them speak for themselves. I am very interested in your comments

Bread 7

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

2 cups Bellaria Farina tipo “00”(2.1g protein per ¼ cup)

1 cup Arrowhead Mills organic pastry flour  (4g protein per ¼ cup)

½ cup Arrowhead Mills organic Kamut flour (5g protein per ¼ cup)

2 tsp Diamond Coarse Kosher salt

1 ½ tsp saf-instant dry yeast

1 ¾  cup NYC tap water

I gave these a quick whiz in the food processor, and then placed the dough in a large metal bowl to rise. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it rest inside the bowl close to the dough.

8 hours later I turned it out of the bowl, punched it down, divided it into 4 balls and rolled these out. Because they had already proofed for so long, I immediately skipped ahead to loaf formation. I rolled the balls out and rolled them into long tubes, which I rested for 1.5 hours.

I slashed the top of each loaf and put them in an oven that had preheated to 425 for ½ an hour and cooked them for 35 minutes.

This time I:

1. Hoped to create looser dough by upping the water a little, it was still rather stiff.
2. Sprayed the walls of the oven before I put the loaves in and again 5 minutes into cooking.
3. Rolled the dough into loaves rather then dividing into thirds and folding.
4. Skipped the ½ hour of proofing as balls and went straight to proofing in the shape of loaves, which I proofed for 1 ½ hours.

Notes on bread 7:

1. There is more air in the crumb.
2. The gauge of the crust is getting too thick and hard to break through.
3. Rolling the dough, rather then folding, made more pockets for air but they were smaller.

I think water = air pockets inside the bread, and that spraying the oven resulted in the too-thick crusts. Going to have to play with this.

bread 6

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

3 ½  cups Bellaria Farina tipo “00”(2.1g protein per ¼ cup)
2 tsp Diamond Crystal Coarse Kosher salt
1 ¼   tsp saf-instant dry yeast
1 ½ cup Lynx natural Mineral Water From Milan

I gave it a quick whiz in the food processor. Usually, before I slowly add the water, I combine the dry products for five or so seconds, but this time I realized after adding all the water I had forgotten the yeast so I sprinkled it in while I let the blade spin. Then I placed the dough in a large metal bowl to rise. The dough itself was extremely moist and loose. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it lay inside the bowl close to the dough.

3 hours later I turned it out of the bowl onto a floured board, and punched it down. It was unworkable, I would guess I needed about ½ a cup of bench flour to be able to handle it without it gluing itself to whatever it touched. Once I got it to stop sticking it to everything, I divided it into 4 balls and let it rest under a floured side towel.

The 4 balls proofed for 1 hour. I then rolled them out, gently, folded them into thirds, pinched their seams closed, and rested them between two floured towels for ½ hour while I preheated the oven to 425.

I slashed the top of each loaf with a razor blade and cooked them in the preheated oven for ½ an hour.

This time I:
1.    Made the bread entirely of one kind of flour.
2.    Switched to Diamond Crystal kosher salt; there was too much variation in the flavor of the breads made with Mortons.
3.    Used a bottled mineral water.
4.    Ended up using much more bench flour then I’d needed before.
5.    The dough, in spite of all the bench flour, was almost liquid and required the lightest touch to work it and get it into the oven.
6.    Decided that “00” flour is soft as confectioners’ sugar and quite fun to play with.
7.    Switched back to spraying the walls of the oven with a spray bottle.

With Bread 6 I found:
1.    There was much more air in the crumb.
2.    It was far creamier tasting.
3.    It might tolerate even a little more salt.
4.    The crust was much lighter, except on the bottom where it was nicely thick.
5.    The late yeast addition doesn’t seem to have hurt it any.

Bread six was born out of an experiment involving primarily Italian ingredients.  Finding “00” flour was easy (all I had to do was go to The Garden Of Eden on 14th St) and European mineral water is ubiquitous. Sadly, the “00” flour they sell has about half the protein of bread flour. I will have to keep my eyes out for someone with “00” flour in the 4g+ protein range. I figured it was worth a shot, and think I have happily discovered some insights into the more airy crumb as a result.

Bring on bread 7!!!

bread 5

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

1 cup King Arthur bread flour (4g protein per ¼ cup)
1 cup Arrowhead Mills organic pastry flour  (4g protein per ¼ cup)
1cup Heckers unbleached All Purpose flour (3g protein per ¼ cup)
½ cup Arrowhead Mills organic Kamut flour (5g protein per ¼ cup)
2 tsp Morton Coarse Kosher salt
1 ½ tsp saf-instant dry yeast
1 ½ cup NYC tap water

I gave these a quick whiz in the food processor, and then placed the dough in a large metal bowl to rise. The dough itself was very dry and tight. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it rest inside the bowl close to the dough.

3 hours later I turned it out of the bowl, punched it down, divided it into 4 balls and let it rest under a floured side-towel.

The 4 balls proofed for 2 hours. I then rolled them out, folded them into thirds, pinched their seams together, and rested them between two floured towels, seam side down, for 1 hour. I also tucked the pointy ends under in the interest of creating a uniform shape.

I slashed the top of each loaf and put them in an oven that had preheated to 425 for ½ an hour and cooked them for 30 minutes, plus five minutes (see notes on this below).

This time I:
1.    Tossed 4 ice cubes in the gap between the stone and the oven floor when I put the bread in, and then again 5 minutes into the cycle.
2.    Divided the bread into 4 loaves (last time the center didn’t seem to cook all the way through).
3.    Went back to the 2 tsp amount of salt.

Notes on bread 5:
1.    The crumb is still far denser then I would like.
2.    The crust, although it has a very good crunch, is harder than I would like and seems thicker in gauge than my previous attempts.
3.    Tucking the corners under just made for even sillier looking ends.
4.    There is still a scorching issue, although much less, with whatever ends up on the left side of the center of the stone.

I think it mat be time to shake up the system, this is good bread, but not great.

Bread 4

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

1 ¼  cups King Arthur bread flour (4g protein per ¼ cup)
1 ½  cup Arrow Head Mills pastry flour flour (4g protein per ¼ cup)
¾  cup Arrow Head Mills organic Kamut flour (5g protein per ¼ cup)
1 ¾ tsp Morton Coarse Kosher salt
1 ¼ tsp saf-instant dry yeast
1 ½ cup NYC tap water

I gave it a quick whiz in the food processor, and then placed it in a large metal bowl to rise. The dough itself was very moist and loose. I assume this has something to do with the use of pastry flour. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it lay inside the bowl close to the dough.

3 hours later I turned it out of the bowl, punched it down, divided it into 3 balls and let it rest under a floured side towel.

The 3 balls proofed for 1 hour. I then rolled them out, folded them into thirds, and rested them between two floured towels for ½ hour.

I slashed the top of each loaf and put them in an oven that had preheated to 425 for ½ an hour and cooked them for 30 minutes, plus five minutes (see notes on this below).

This time I:
1.    Accidentally had set the oven to 375 as opposed to 425 so I added 5 minutes with the oven on 500 to the end.
2.    Tossed 6 ice cubes in the gap between the stone and the oven floor when I put the bread in, and then again 5 minutes into the cycle.
3.    Divided the bread into 3 loaves (last time the center didn’t seem to cook all the way through).

Notes on bread 4:
1.    Hard to judge because of the mistake in oven temp.
2.    Crust was nice
3.    Crumb again seemed under-cooked
4.    Color more yellow, probably as a result of more kamut.
5.    The salt was noticeably missing.

Well there is always bread 5.