It all started when my childhood friend asked if I could bake her a poppy seed roll. For those not from Pittsburgh, an area populated by the children of Eastern European immigrants, this is a sweet yeast dough, flattened and spread with a ground poppy seed filling, rolled into a log, baked to crusty perfection and sliced to display a black spiral against a white dough.
I hated it.
And it didn't matter whose version I tried: my mom's mom (Serbian), my dad's mom (Ukrainian), my first employer Anne (Croatian), my roommate's mom (Hungarian), my first boyfriend's mom's (Polish), even my mother's canned SOLO filling version.
I hated them all, regardless of country of origin.
This added an element of culinary inexperience to my friend's request. I had successfully made nut rolls (same concept, but filled with a sweetened ground nut filling), but poppy seeds were not only not on my radar, they were in the DMZ of my brain, the Dead Marshes that led Frodo astray.
However *that* turned *this* into a CHALLENGE. And I, if nothing else, will embrace a challenge so long as it does not involve scary heights or spiders.
My first attempt was a no-brainer: I bought SOLO canned poppy seed filling and used my standard sweet yeast dough. Perhaps my taste buds had taken on adult sensibilities, like when I started paying taxes and losing my ovaries?
The Result? Hated it just as I had suspected, proving it wasn't a selective childhood memory...I really did dislike poppy seed. But I mailed it to B with unconcealed reservations and planned Round Two.
Then I did what I should have done first: asked here for advice. And I was blessed with lots of ideas. I also researched hard-copy and Internet searches, focusing on Hungarian cook books after Oli mentioned Hungary had the largest number of poppy seed-based recipes.
Unfortunately, what I found was disappointing: every recipe simply referenced using "ground poppy seeds" with no pre-processing step.
I bought raw organic poppy seeds and ground them in a small coffee grinder (thanks, Cathy). But, good grief, what a mess. Poppy seeds went everywhere and it was like herding loose mercury pellets to gather them. At least with mercury, you have the possibility of accidentally poisoning yourself. This involves terribly painful symptoms. Sometimes you even die.
With poppy seeds, you suffer all the same but you don't die. You just keep cleaning up poppy seeds for weeks. I now understand how so many eastern European countries were overthrown--they were too busy picking up loose poppy seeds to notice the invading armies.
With my freshly ground poppy seeds, I used an Internet recipe and baked another loaf which rated a Culinary Eigenvalue of 2 on a scale of 10.
Round Two Result: Still a failure in my opinion, but the flavor profile of the freshly made filling was definitely better than the jarred stuff. Not good, mind you, just better in a relative sense.
Round Three involved testing pre-processing steps. With "ground raw" as my control, I tried roasting and boiling for various amounts of time. The roasted ended up tasting like...toasted sesame oil, while the water in the boiled versions had a distinct bitter taste. That was interesting! The water from the 30 minute simmer was actually brown and deeply bitter and it's remotely possible I stumbled upon the method of deriving crack in my little kitchen.
Grinding the simmered seeds was also easier. I switched to my Kitchen Aid mixer sausage grinder attachment and it wasn't until I added the dry roasted and raw samples that it jammed up.
Conclusion: simmering the seeds first made for easier grinding.
I used the simmered seeds with a filling from George Lang, Poppyseed Filling (Makos Toltelek) supplied by barb. It involved cooking the mixture, lots of sweetness (sugar, apricot jam, raisins) and ultimately changed the flavor to something that I could live with: Culinary Eigenvalue increased to 5 and I mailed the results off to my mom.
However, unlike a real scientist, once I reached a recipe I could live with, I quit.
My thanks to Traca for contacting Rick Rodgers to ask him in person about grinding poppy seeds. I have his Kaffeehaus pastry book sitting here...the last thing I received from Amazon before the rat bastards took over my account.
oh wait...there was one more thing that happened. When I was taking the photos for this story, I sampled the poppy seed to see whether time (aging) had improved its flavor. (Answer: no.) At that moment, the doorbell rang and Officer S from our local police arrived to take my statement about the Amazon Internet theft. We chatted for a while, she reviewed my computer for forensic evidence, took my statement and left, head camera running the entire time.
That's when I walked into the bathroom and saw that my teeth were embedded with tiny black poppy seeds.
(yah...)
So here's a suggestion for the Game of Thrones make-up department: use poppy seed paste to blacken the gaping maws of undead wraiths.
I hated it.
And it didn't matter whose version I tried: my mom's mom (Serbian), my dad's mom (Ukrainian), my first employer Anne (Croatian), my roommate's mom (Hungarian), my first boyfriend's mom's (Polish), even my mother's canned SOLO filling version.
I hated them all, regardless of country of origin.
This added an element of culinary inexperience to my friend's request. I had successfully made nut rolls (same concept, but filled with a sweetened ground nut filling), but poppy seeds were not only not on my radar, they were in the DMZ of my brain, the Dead Marshes that led Frodo astray.
However *that* turned *this* into a CHALLENGE. And I, if nothing else, will embrace a challenge so long as it does not involve scary heights or spiders.
My first attempt was a no-brainer: I bought SOLO canned poppy seed filling and used my standard sweet yeast dough. Perhaps my taste buds had taken on adult sensibilities, like when I started paying taxes and losing my ovaries?
The Result? Hated it just as I had suspected, proving it wasn't a selective childhood memory...I really did dislike poppy seed. But I mailed it to B with unconcealed reservations and planned Round Two.
Then I did what I should have done first: asked here for advice. And I was blessed with lots of ideas. I also researched hard-copy and Internet searches, focusing on Hungarian cook books after Oli mentioned Hungary had the largest number of poppy seed-based recipes.
Unfortunately, what I found was disappointing: every recipe simply referenced using "ground poppy seeds" with no pre-processing step.
I bought raw organic poppy seeds and ground them in a small coffee grinder (thanks, Cathy). But, good grief, what a mess. Poppy seeds went everywhere and it was like herding loose mercury pellets to gather them. At least with mercury, you have the possibility of accidentally poisoning yourself. This involves terribly painful symptoms. Sometimes you even die.
With poppy seeds, you suffer all the same but you don't die. You just keep cleaning up poppy seeds for weeks. I now understand how so many eastern European countries were overthrown--they were too busy picking up loose poppy seeds to notice the invading armies.
With my freshly ground poppy seeds, I used an Internet recipe and baked another loaf which rated a Culinary Eigenvalue of 2 on a scale of 10.
Round Two Result: Still a failure in my opinion, but the flavor profile of the freshly made filling was definitely better than the jarred stuff. Not good, mind you, just better in a relative sense.
Round Three involved testing pre-processing steps. With "ground raw" as my control, I tried roasting and boiling for various amounts of time. The roasted ended up tasting like...toasted sesame oil, while the water in the boiled versions had a distinct bitter taste. That was interesting! The water from the 30 minute simmer was actually brown and deeply bitter and it's remotely possible I stumbled upon the method of deriving crack in my little kitchen.
Grinding the simmered seeds was also easier. I switched to my Kitchen Aid mixer sausage grinder attachment and it wasn't until I added the dry roasted and raw samples that it jammed up.
Conclusion: simmering the seeds first made for easier grinding.
I used the simmered seeds with a filling from George Lang, Poppyseed Filling (Makos Toltelek) supplied by barb. It involved cooking the mixture, lots of sweetness (sugar, apricot jam, raisins) and ultimately changed the flavor to something that I could live with: Culinary Eigenvalue increased to 5 and I mailed the results off to my mom.
However, unlike a real scientist, once I reached a recipe I could live with, I quit.
My thanks to Traca for contacting Rick Rodgers to ask him in person about grinding poppy seeds. I have his Kaffeehaus pastry book sitting here...the last thing I received from Amazon before the rat bastards took over my account.
oh wait...there was one more thing that happened. When I was taking the photos for this story, I sampled the poppy seed to see whether time (aging) had improved its flavor. (Answer: no.) At that moment, the doorbell rang and Officer S from our local police arrived to take my statement about the Amazon Internet theft. We chatted for a while, she reviewed my computer for forensic evidence, took my statement and left, head camera running the entire time.
That's when I walked into the bathroom and saw that my teeth were embedded with tiny black poppy seeds.
(yah...)
So here's a suggestion for the Game of Thrones make-up department: use poppy seed paste to blacken the gaping maws of undead wraiths.
