Oh, yum! Going on the menu soon!

Those look great, Ann. I would be very happy to have one for dinner tonight.

Very timely! I scheduled FD sandwiches for tonight as a treat to myself. Of course they won't be nearly as pretty as yours.

As always, thanks for sharing.

Those look far more appealing than the "real" ones from Downtown L.A.! Really lovely.

Ann, Yum, indeed. What bread recipe did you use? I made one loaf of Italian bread last week with 5 3/4 cups of flours, 2 cups of water and a tablespoon of yeast, plus salt. Could I just repurpose dough into the baguettes? So cute they are.

Yum, AnnT, those look delicious, perfectly done beef and crusty bread.

That's quite a slicer too. Elery and I just bought one at the local on-line auction, an old Globe slicer from a local store with a deli department. We haven't used it yet, but we did plug it in and try it out. Now I might have to do a sirloin tip, and clean up that old Globe.

Annie

Beautiful!!!!!

Beautiful sandwich!

What is the dipping sauce for the French Dip?

dcarch

The sauce - Au Jus - is made from the drippings off of the roast.

~Ann

Can you tell me how you make your sauce au jus de viande? I never get so much. I thought it was a cup of coffee!!! LOL

The roast was cooked at 500ðF. When it was done , I removed the roast from the pan, and placed the pan back into the oven for the juices to reduce and brown. I added about one teaspoon of flour, and beef broth. Added one cracked garlic clove and a sprig of rosemary and simmered the sauce with the lid on for about 10 minutes. Seasoned with salt and lots of black pepper. Not a lot of drippings but more than enough for beef dip sandwiches. More juice than gravy.

~Ann

Ann, I would love to get your recipe for the bread. I looked on your blog but could not find it.

Ann T and other bread bakers, I am trying my hand at bread this morning again but foolishly may have added insufficient yeast. One tablesoon of dry yeast to about 5 3/4 cups of flour. Am I about too bake too dense a loaf? Any salvage possible?

Carree, that is more than enough yeast for the amount of flour. It might take a little longer to rise depending on room temperature, but your bread will taste better.

Debrak, I'm at work so can't access my files , but you can find the basic recipe on the attached link. Can be made with or without a starter.

~Ann

Here is a link that might be useful: Baguettes

Well, you were right, Ann T!

Take a look :)

they are so perfect Ann, I wish you opened a bistro in Calgary, I would be there often !!!

For what it's worth, I was about to agree with Ann T about the yeast, that's plenty for that amount of flour. Ann T makes more bread than anyone else I know, I think, and she won't steer you wrong.

carree, that's some good looking bread.

Annie

Thank you.

Thank you, Annie. I am still struggling to get more air holes in the bread and with a clean shift over to the baking stone. That is what explains the odd shaped loaves. guess I should not scrimp on cornmeal or flour on the peel. Whatever! I am having a fine time of practicing. Thanks again for the yeast guidance.

I'm a little (a lot) confused. Is this the basic recipe?

Artisan Style Bread
Edited February 5th, 2014
6 cups flour (1000 g)
3 1/2 cups water (820g water - 82% hydration)
1 1/3 Tablespoons salt (4 teaspoons) (21 g)
1 1/4 teaspoons yeast (5 g)

What is Biga and Levain?

Sorry if I seem clueless.

Carree, your bread looks great. And I'm sure it tastes wonderful.

Debrak,

A Biga and a Levain are both "preferments". Made with sourdough starters or with small amounts of yeast.

It is just another option. The bread can be made with just yeast without the addition of a "preferment". A preferment improves both flavour and texture of the bread.

I fed my starters yesterday and last night before bed I mix up a biga using 230 g flour, 230 g. water and 70 g of starter.

I kneaded up a batch of bread dough using that biga, along with 1000 g of flour, 820 g of water, a pinch of yeast and 25 g of salt.

The dough will go into the fridge before I leave for work and Moe will take it out about an hour or so before I get home. I'll be baking bread tonight and making a pizza for dinner.

I could have left out the pinch of yeast, but the rise would have been slower and I wanted to give the dough a bit of a boost .

Thanks, Ann T, for the reminder. We're nearly out of bread and I'm going to stir up a starter right now. Not a sourdough starter, but one that just starts with yeast, flour and water, so I can bake tonight or tomorrow.

Annie

Can you just clear something up for me - what is gravy in your neck of the woods? because what you all call au jus is gravy in England. I'm curious to learn what the difference is!

Islay, the difference for me is that gravy is thicker. Au Jus is more brothy, but still rich in flavour. Even the gravies I make are not thick. But I know others that also refer to au jus and gravy and sauce as the same thing.

~Ann

Thank you for explaining! When I get a free weekend, I'm going to try it.

Thank you.

The thing about words like "gravy", "sauce", "salsa" and "mole" is that they take on local characters to mean something rather specific when all of those words really just mean liquidy stuff to pour over food.

Calling it "au jus" is more about the 100+ years of the sandwich famously being described as "au jus", than about it accurately being sauce au jus de viande. One of the restaurants which claims to have created it, Phillippe's (a few blocks from the other one), gave this recipe to Food Network, though I don't know if that's how they actually make theirs. Au jus, is a noun in American English. You will often hear people ask for "more au jus", or ask to "warm up the au jus".

One of the origin stories was that the roll fell into the pan drippings at the carving station while a man was getting a beef sandwich and he said he was fine with the wet roll. Another version was that he complained that the bread was stale or too hard, so they dunked it in the juices to soften it. Still another version was that the guy just wanted the drippings so asked to have them soak up on his bread. They say it got the name because customers who saw it would ask to have the roll dipped "like Frenchy does," referring to Mr. Phillippe, who, being French, probably also inaugurated calling it "au jus". Thus, he probably just meant "with the juice", period. At the other place that claims to have invented it, Cole's, they say it was dipped in the juices for a guy with bad teeth who couldn't bite and chew the roll. I could believe that they did make sandwiches with drippings, too, but it makes the most sense that the name of the sandwich, and the "au jus" to dip it in, came from Frenchy's, which is what customers used to call Phillippe's.

Whichever, that first French dip sandwich was literally dipped in the jus de viande. I wouldn't think many had been since, since, as you say, there isn't that much juice to be had, especially if you skim it.