Anyway, this week by request (from way back in January...oops!) I've decided to try my first sourdough. However, since making a sourdough takes so much time (four days, and I only just started last night), I'll have to change the format up just a little. I'll go through as much of the method as I've already done, give a quick life update, and then finish this post up sometime on Wednesday.
To get started, we need to make the "starter." How appropriate. Anyway, this is absurdly simple: pour 1 cup of warm water into a tupperware container. Stir in 1 cup of all-purpose flour, and a scant 1/2 of a teaspoon of yeast. Cover, and put in some out of the way place. You might think the top of the fridge is a likely candidate, but the smell this is on the verge of emitting will almost undoubtedly convince you that some out-of-the-way closet is a far better choice. Anyway, leave the starter alone for
The Sitting (clearly, I have no idea what to actually call this step... anyway, 2 days at room temperature, followed by 1 day in the fridge)
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I just got back from my first ever trip to St. Louis, where a small group of us went for the 4th of July. First: the arch is cool. Very cool. It really looks pretty amazing up close, and makes for some awfully picturesque views of the city from downtown. Also, did you know you can go inside of the arch? I had no idea, and that fact alone makes it all the cooler. Unfortunately, the inside isn't all that spectacular: you get shuttled to the top in these tiny, claustrophobic, vaguely egg-shaped pods, where you have the pleasure of being crammed in a hallway with loads of other tourists, trying to peer out of tiny little windows that view either the downtown or the river. So, maybe you only ever need to go to the top of the arch once in your life.
Other highlights of the trip include: a most excellent lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant (my first time eating Ethiopian food, I'm quite sure), the bizarre yet fantastic City Museum (I really can't even begin to describe what that place is like, and sadly their website doesn't really do the place justice, either), and St. Louis' 4th of July parade (needless to say, much larger than my hometown's, and even though it did have three dancing purple cows (!!), it perhaps lacked some of the goofier touches I had learned to expect back home [random guy with the homemade 4-foot dinosaur model on a trailer in absolutely no context, I'm talking to you!])
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, while typing this I was just watching Nadal beat Federer in a truly epic Wimbledon final. That was a fun match to watch, even if I was a bit ambivalent about the result. This just really isn't shaping up to be Federer's year.
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Now, on the morning of the day we're going to bake this bread, we'll combine 1 cup of rye flour, 1/2 of a cup of warm water, and 1/2 of a cup of the starter. Incidentally, this will not use up all of the starter, and it turns out you can replenish the starter and keep it going indefinitely by adding equal amounts of flour and water to it (a process which, for fun, let's refer to as "feeding the dragon"), letting it stand at room temperature, and then putting it in the fridge. And when I say indefinitely, I really mean it. It takes all of two minutes to hard to find people claiming starters that are from the mid-1960's.
Anyway, at the end of the day, after dinner, stir the dough down. Then add 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 heaping tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of poppy seeds, and 3/4 of a tablespoon of caraway seeds. Pour in 1 1/4 teaspoons of yeast dissolved in 1/4 of a cup of warm water, and stir it all together. Add in 2 cups of all-purpose flour, and get to kneading. This dough is really a throwback to those mighty breads of yore, requiring a good, solid 15 minutes of rather aerobic kneading to work in enough extra flour (about 1/2 of a cup for me) so that the resulting dough has the right consistency. Once finished, place in a buttered bowl, cover, and let rest during the
First rising (1 hour and 45 minutes)
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Well, today I got to the end of yet another booklet of stamps. I'm not sure how many that makes since I moved out here...I think 3, but I haven't been keeping track. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that means I write more letters than the average person, although, as the UPU tells me, significantly less than the number of letters per US citizen sent if you count business and junk mail.
On the one hand, of course, it's just that I'm selfish, always happy when I see a letter waiting for me at the end of the day. Add that to the fact that my apartment lacks internet access (which has, sadly, led to a unfortunately lengthening of my email response times... sorry about that!), and the fact that I'm still slightly afraid of my cell phone, and old fashioned mail starts to emerge as a good way to keep in touch with people.
But I think there's another reason I like writing letters so much, and that's that I'm actually forced to plan them out. Whereas typing an email (or this blog, for that matter) is so quick, and everything is easy to shuffle around, letters take me an absurdly long time to write out (owing to my truly stupendous handwriting, as you all know). Which means that, more or less, I have to actually think about what I'm going to say. Think through how I want the letter to be structured, or if I want to try for a particular arc of the tone of the writing. Sort of all of the fun parts of writing a paper for class, but without the hair-pulling hours spent in the library. And, naturally, it's not as though I actually succeed in creating masterwork letters, or that I always plan so thoroughly for them. Just that, on the whole, I do much more of that when writing by hand than when typing away, and I think that's a good thing.
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Punch the dough down. While the dough is left reeling from the force of that vicious onslaught, butter a baking sheet and sprinkle liberally with cornmeal. Shape the dough into a ball, put on the cookie sheet, cover, and leave alone for about an hour.
As the end of that hour approaches, set the oven for 375 degrees. While it is warming up, beat 1 egg with about a tablespoon of cold water. Cut three parallel incisions (be sure to make them much too deep, as I did), and then brush the dough with the egg mixture. Bake for 30 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, cool on a rack, but cover with a towel while it cools. This supposedly keeps the crust from hardening too much.
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Tasting verdict: Actually, I really rather like this bread. It tastes quite like a rye bread, but the texture is so much lighter than that. In density it is closer to one of the egg-based breads, I'd say... which makes it very good for sandwiches (even if the rye flavor somewhat limits which sandwiches I can choose to make with it). All in all, I'm not quite sure if this cracks my top 5 "Breads I've Made" list, but if not it sure is close.
Currently eating: Since moving out to the Midwest it's been my goal to make for myself one new dinner dish every week. Well, of course, that hasn't even come close to happening, but it's a good goal, right? (I'd say the reality is only slightly more often than once a month) But anyway, tonight I made a Creamy Gorgonzola pasta sauce ("Oh, but I do love a bit of gorgonzola!") , and I have to say that I'm really quite pleased with it! (I should note that my attempts at making new dishes for the first time have historically averaged just barely above the threshold of edibility.) It gets top marks for being (1) easy, (2) capable of being made in the same amount of time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta, (3) fairly inexpensive, (4) a pasta sauce not made out of tomatoes (which I have all too often, it feels like), and most importantly, (5) delicious!
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