At The Table With Chris Green
Chris Green, with a love for food and culinary arts, originated and is the administer for the Facebook page Phoenixville Phoodie Phoundation.
Chris grew up on Washington Avenue in Phoenixville in the home of his grandparents, Eugene and Florence Green. He fondly recalls his visits to Freida Hersh and her store. It was the place the neighborhood kids went for their candy.
It was around the age of 10 that he started to cook with his grandfather. Eugene was the family cook and did most of the household’s cooking.
Chris’s background is in food safety. He worked his way up the ladder from a food tech to the head of safety at Clemens Food Group in Hatfield. Due to his schedule, he considers himself a “weekend cook,” prepping during the week.
Chris is proud of his family. He and Jesse Zummo met in Great Valley at the Boathouse. They have been married for eight years. Jesse puts her talents to use at Salena Salon as a hairstylist. His son, Chris, is called “Phoenix” and is a five-year baseball player. Seven-year old Tala runs track and field; recently she placed in the 100- and 400-meter races. Then there is Sophie — the love of the Green Household — who technically is the family’s oldest child. Sophie is a 12-year old American pit bull.
Chris cooks it all, with the focus on bread doughs. Top of the list is sourdough. Chris lies to think outside the box. It seems he creates new ideas weekly. He thinks it is all about the crumb and the perfection of his breads. For an added touch, he creates design scoring on top of each loaf. He has managed to make chocolate sourdough and sourdough croissants, as well as his pizzas.
He belongs to several classic dough groups. Actually, a pizza shop by the name of Gruppo LaPiccola Napoli in Italy has contacted him about some of his pizza recipes and techniques.
Great bakers do not measure out their ingredients by cups and spoonfuls. They use a scale to measure for accuracy.
Chris shares with us today his 80 percent sourdough recipe.
80 Percent Sourdough Bread
375 grams flour
285 grams water 16 grams of salt
160 grams of sourdough starter
1. Mix all the ingredients.
2. Bulk proof for two to six hours while doing stretch and folds every 30 minutes.
3. Continue to bulk proof for one to three more hours depending on the climate.
4. Shape the dough and place it into a banneton.
5. Proof in the banneton for five to 12 more hours depending on the temperature, or this is when the dough can go into the refrigerator to slow the fermentation process down.
6. Place onto a baking sheet or preferably a Dutch oven with a lid.
7. Cook at 450 degrees F for 25 minutes with the lid on, then 20 minutes with the lid off until brown.
Enjoy!
Let Bette Banjack hear from you: banjack303@ verizon.net. Search YouTube for “Look Who’s Cooking with Bette Banjack,” as well phoenixvillenews.com
(search bar: Banjack) for this column. Find Bette on Facebook by searching “Bette Banjack’s Downtown Kitchen.” Her book, “2 Cups of Yesterday,” is available at Gateway Pharmacy or by contacting her.