Pusstabrot

Always exciting to add another country to the "Where the Bread I've Baked Comes From" list, and it's Hungary this time! So, this bread gets going in a slightly unusual way (or at least, compared with most of the breads I make): start by roasting 1/2 of a heaping teaspoon of fennel seeds over medium heat in a small saucepan, and then try to use a large soup spoon to grind the seeds (a mortar and pestle might, admittedly, be more convenient here). In a large bowl, combine the fennel with 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar and two teaspoons of salt. Create a little well in the middle of the flour mixture, and pour in 4 1/2 teaspoons of yeast proofed in 1 1/2 cups of warm water, along with 2 tablespoons of canola oil. Gently stir in some of the surrounding flour to create a very thin batter, leaving most of the flour dry. Let this sit, loosely covered, for an hour, when the batter will have bubbled up out of the well. At this point, stir everything together, add another half-cup of flour, and get to knead what will turn out to be a very stiff, resistant dough. Put in a greased bowl, cover, and set aside on the radiator for the

First rising (1 hour and 20 minutes)
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Another trip home, another 8 airports (well, counting three of them twice, that is)... While I generally quite like air travel, this time I was generally less thrilled than usual, and all of the airports started blending together in my mind into one semi-continuous set of glass-steel-cement buildings, this one with a blue-glass-falling-leaf-mobile, that one with a giant wooden sphere, but otherwise not terribly distinguishable from one another. In part, I suspect that feeling is just the result of combining extra airports on this trip with having flown so much over Thanksgiving.

But, of course, that's not to say I didn't have my usual share of fun meetings, this time ranging from a Midwestern psychotherapist to a New England chemical engineer to a teacher at a New York Yeshiva. So, I ask, what is it about airplanes, I wonder? I mean, I consider myself a quite friendly but not terribly talkative person most of the time, yet somehow when traveling by myself I occasionally turn into a regular chatterbox. My current working theory is the novelty of having a completely contained, few-hour, start-to-finish relationship with someone...but I'm not entirely satisfied with that. Any suggestions?

Oh, I should add, one final highlight of my recent travel experience includes finally escaping the Bermuda Triangle of Air Travel that I call the metropolitan Detroit airport with only a tiny, insignificant in comparison, delay of an hour or two on the runway. Hurray!
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Punch the dough down and knead for another minute or so. Shape into a ball, put on a greased cookie sheet, cover, and again put on a nearby radiator for the

Second rising (45 minutes )
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Fake New Year's Resolution...the "fake" one, of course, because I think of New Year's resolutions in much the same way that I think of birthday wishes: namely, if you tell anyone else it just won't happen. So, for the fake resolution, I'm going to try to get back to some (slightly) more adventuresome cooking. When I first moved out here I was, for me, very good about this, trying out a new recipe maybe once a week or so. Since the end of last summer, though, I might have attempted all of one or maybe two new dishes. So, for the sake of saving my taste buds from further boredom, I'll try to resurrect the new-dish-a-week system. And if you (dear reader) would like to help out, I'd be thrilled if you emailed or posted a link to a favorite recipe I could try out. I have just a few vague rules...
1. Not too too much prep time (this one's a bit more flexible, but still...if it takes more than an hour and a half to prepare it won't exactly be easy to fit into the weekday rotation. Still, if it's super-tasty I'll give it a try on some weekend or other)
2. Preferably not super-spicy
3. Preferably super-delicious
4. No tofurkey (.pdf :-))
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15 minutes before the end of the rising, fill the oven's broiler pan with water and start preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Just before putting the bread in the oven, cut a half-inch-deep cross into the top, brush with a mixture of an egg white mixed with a tablespoon of water and a pinch of salt, and sprinkle with a fennel seeds.Bake for 50 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: Admittedly, not the most aesthetically pleasing loaf... I'm not really sure why half of the bread decided to explode out like that! Still, I can live with that because this loaf is just straight up delicious. The crust is nicely crispy but not tough, and the fennel flavoring is terrific...I'm not sure why I haven't made a fennel-spiced bread before, but now that I have, well....I want to eat rastons.