No-Knead Sourdough Bread: The Glorious(ly easy) Rematch

It would come as no news at all to those who know me that I am a stubborn, stubborn sort.

If something defies me, I will hammer at it until I have gotten it.  That goes for most things I have encountered so far, with the notable exception of tennis.  Notable because after having had friends and an ex-boyfriend try to teach me, owning decent rackets, and having taken a course in it, I frankly, suck at tennis still, for all I would love to play it.  But exceptions only prove the rule, and so it was that the no-knead bread that ought to be easy enough for kiddies to make, had dared to defy me.

Once.

Which, of course, resulted in frantic reading of everything I could find and alternative recipes on the internet, and interrogating bread-baking friends regarding their experiences.  And adjusting the flour/water balance some, and calculating a hydration percentage to check against something a friend had read in this very good book (Swedish, sadly no translation available – but I plan to both, get it and post recipes, so rejoyce!).  And, obviously, more baking.

And boy, did that make a difference!

The bread rose, and it puffed up further in the oven, and the crust crackled gratuitously as it cooled on the rack when it came out – and the crumb… it was truly impressive, just the right amount of moist chewiness and large and well-spaced holes.  This, this is what I had been going after in that previous attempt!  Moreover, I had used 2 teaspoons of dried (and pretty well pounded in a mortar) culinary lavender in the dough, so the aroma was utterly amazing.

If you haven’t ever used lavender in baking, I would really urge you to try – just please, for the love of little green apples, get the culinary-grade one.  You don’t want a mouthful of soap with your bread, and that is what you would be getting if you tried using something out of a potpourri sachet or something intended for a bath preparation!  But, I digress.

Now, after having made all the adjustments, it is a truly lazy-sofa-dweller-easy recipe for gorgeous bread, and the best part is that if you have a sourdough starter, it is also a completely painless, really novice-proof method for sourdough breadmaking.  One that is, arguably, easier than making bread with regular yeast and other methods.  Now, do I have your attention?

If you make it with sourdough starter, it will also keep like a sourdough.  Which is to say it neither molds, nor goes tough outrageously for several days when kept unwrapped, with just the cut side covered in foil, or in one of those neat bread bags that I do not have.  So not only is this easy, it is a good way to make bread that is not in a hurry to go off, making it a good option when you count pennies and do not want to waste what you have bought.  In this case, that is just flour and salt and the optional lavender – sourdough starter, while not free, only needs feeding about once a month if kept in the fridge, so it is virtually free as well.

Behold, the glorious remains of the no-knead bread!

Since my camera was not at home when the bread was cut open originally, and there was daylight around, it was photographed two or three days later, which has done it really no harm!

So, to the recipe (minimal as it is), which is this time NOT adapted from any website, nor do I agree with the original New York Times no-knead bread article – neither about proportions, the time to raise it, nor about the whole proofing-in-towel idea, which is frankly asking for a stuck-dough disaster.

The idea, however, is downright brilliant!

You will need:

• A bowl, a dough spatula, a dutch oven or clay baker or a bottom of a cast-iron casserole and a large steel bowl to cover it (for baking – do NOT preheat the bowl if using).
• To get the pretty stripes and domed shape, a banetton is really helpful.  I imagine you could also raise this bread on a sheet of floured baking parchment or a silpat (non-stick baking mat), and it would turn out fairly decent too.
• If using a banetton, you will need a bit of wheat bran or rye flour or whatever it is you use to powder it before using it for bread to avoid sticking.  I used wheat bran this time.

• Sourdough starter (about 50g, bubbling and awake).  I feed mine with some rye and some wheat flour, it appears to like the combo best, but a pure wheat one will be juuuuust fine!
• 475g bread flour.  I will experiment more with various flours, but pure white bread flour (about 11-12% protein) works fine.
• 1.5-1.75 teaspoon salt.  Iodized table salt works fine, though you can go fancier.  I couldn’t be bothered to grind my sea salt so that is what I used.
• 3.5dl (350ml or 0.35L) cold water.
• 2 teaspoons dried herb of your choice (lavender, oh yes, make it lavender if you have some!), pounded to soft shreds in a mortar.  Bashing is therapeutic you know!  I would say fresh would work too, just make it an even tablespoon then and chop finely instead of pounding.

• Note:  I use a 100% hydration starter so it can be counted as 25g flour and 25g water.  This brings us to 375ml water and 500g flour.  375/500*100=75% hydration.  If you want to adjust the size of the dough, keep the math in mind.  If you just want to use the recipe, it’s a useful thing to remember but not necessary as the quantities are already written above.

What you do:

• Put flour, salt, and any seasoning if using (lavender in my case) into a bowl.  Swirl with a dry whisk to mix.
• Whisk your sourdough starter into your cold water in another bowl.  Trust me you want to do this and not skip this step – since there is barely any mixing, left alone kneading in this method, you want to distribute the starter well into the dry ingredients from the start.  So whisk whisk till it’s all murky water and no large starter blobs clinging to bottom of bowl.
• Pour the water+starter mix into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon, silicone spatula or whatever.  It will be shaggy and not appear too wet.  Keep stirring and poking it till most of the flour is incorporated.  Or you can cover it and let it sit 10 min to soak through and then stir a bit, pushing bits of dough down the sides of the bowl if any get stuck there.
• Cover with plastic wrap (clingfilm), or put the entire bowl into a plastic bag and seal with a clip.  Put in non-too-cold place in your kitchen.  Doesn’t have to be very warm (don’t stick it on the radiator, but say half a meter from it is good, or on a counter).  Don’t get hung up on temperature as long as your kitchen isn’t freezing cold.
• Leave for about 8-12 hours.  If you do not intend to bake it the same day, leave out for 6-8 hours and then stick the bowl in the refrigerator till the next day.  If your dough was refrigerated, give it about an hour to come to room temperature the day after and then go to next step.
• Flour a board or surface generously and poke the dough out of the bowl onto it.  It will be somewhat sticky but it will not be liquid and it will not actually get stuck to anything.  Or shouldn’t.  It will flatten out some under its own weight.  Flour your hands and sprinkle the top of the dough with a bit of flour too, and do a single stretch-and-fold.
• Powder the top of the folded dough with a bit more flour, cover it with the plastic wrap you used on the bowl (unless it is wet then get a new piece), and leave it be for 30 minutes or so.
• Sprinkle the banetton with wheat bran, or flour a baking parchment/mat.  Pick up your dough, lightly shape it into a ball with your hands, and rest it seam-side down if using banetton, but seam side up if you are using baking parchment or a mat.
• Cover with a towel and allow to rise for 1.5 hours or until approximately 1.5-2 times the size.  About an hour into the rise, pop your dutch oven, pan or clay baker into the oven and begin preheating it to 250C  (yes, that high).
• When the dough is ready and oven is preheated (read this post about safety and handling of really hot cookware for baking!), invert the banetton onto a piece of baking parchment or gently slide the dough off the mat onto baking parchment right-side up (silicone mats are not rated for the sort of temperature we are talking here).
• Take the hot dish out of the oven USING THICK MITTS! and place the baking parchment with dough on it inside.  Edges sticking out are not a problem.  Cover with preheated lid, or the upside-down bowl if using.  Stick back into the oven.
• Bake for 30 minutes covered, then remove the lid or bowl (latter may need a bit of help with a spatula stuck under an edge to lift), reduce heat to 190-200C and bake for a further 15-20 minutes uncovered until the bread is no longer pale.
• Remove from oven and out of the baking dish and cool on rack for 2 hours minimum before cutting.

Trust me, the wait (and lack of effort) is worth it.

Red Chili Con Carne for Dark Stormy Days

I’ve needed a bit of a rest after the activity of the parties, the guests, and running around all of previous weekend.  In addition to this, a couple of cyclones with reeeally low-pressure zones have passed over Sweden in the past week, rendering me into a tiny ball of hibernating creature in a pile of blankets.

So, I have spent the remainder of the week recuperating, reading books for my university, and eating comfort food.  What food?  Well considering that I am a huge fan of chili peppers and I love all things meat, and legumes are my friend – chili con carne of course!  It’s warming, it’s comforting, it’s filling and full-bodied and spicily aromatic, it’s thickly meaty and it’s simply gorgeously red – well, at least this one is!

... and it's holiday-colored to boot!

I’ve heard it (rightly!) said that there are as many ways to cook chili as there are cooks, and in fact there are more, because there are different kinds of chili that I make depending on what’s in the house and what I feel like, and in fact I’ve written about white chunky chili with black and white beans before (and the post linked has a lot of good info about stews and beans in general), and that one is wonderful.  But just because I love the black formal dress, doesn’t mean the red cocktail one languishes forgotten – and so this week, I made my glorious(ly easy) red chili.  Because tomato marries amazingly with the meat and beans and chili peppers and because when the weather is gloomy, this is what you need.  So, in my enlightened opinion, you should make it.  Seriously.

Now, before I go any further, please let me (again) admonish you to use good quality dried beans.  Beans are, for some reason, regarded as culinarily interchangeable in terms of where and how you get them (canned, packed, dried, whatever).  That is not true.  Neither is it true that beans all taste the same or have the same texture.

Pinto beans - thank you, wikipedia!

Having lived in the USA, I love pinto beans.  Not only are they bead-jewellery pretty, but their skins are not tough (compared, for example, to red kidney beans, which are), and they are wonderfully tender when cooked, which makes them (in my view) ideal for thick stews and chili.

Now, in the case of this chili, it is not of paramount importance which beans you prefer, but the quality of them, and the pre-soaking does matter.  Yes, you can buy the canned or packed versions, but they will not be the same simply because they always have firming agents added to prevent the beans from disintegrating while in aseptic storage (in the can or tetrapack), and that degrades both their taste, and more importantly, their texture.  I am not here (today) to preach about the evil of the food additives, but in this case, just about the fact that this specific one makes you compromise on the quality.  Your choice.

So, if you do want to follow my suggestion, this will involve overnight soaking of beans.  But, fear not – you need not stand over them all night!  A pot of cold water and the fridge do all the work!  No, really, they do!  And besides, cooking the beans at home after soaking reduces, the, ahm, less fortunate gastric effects of eating them, which is a good reason to do it all on its own!

So what do you need to make this?  (Makes a 2L pot of chili – feeds 4, or 2 – twice)

• 1 cup (2.5dl) dried beans of your choice, soaked in cold water overnight, drained and rinsed.
• 1-2 onions (depends on size of onions and how well you like them), peeled and chopped.
• 5-6 tablespoons of cooking fat of your choice.  I swear by rendered bacon grease, but butter or olive oil, or a combo of any of the above will work.
• ~ 500g ground meat.  I prefer to use blended beef and pork for more tenderness and flavor.
• 1dl white wine (optional but good!)
• Up to 1L of stock or boiling water with some meat or chicken fond in equivalent amount
• 1 box crushed tomatoes (about 500ml)
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1 large red chili OR 1-2 teaspoons of chili flakes OR the one fresh chili and some chili flakes, OR 2 red chilies… it all depends on your capsaicin tolerance (and mine is pretty high).
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of ground chipotle (smoked dried red jalapeno peppers), chipotle paste, or smoked hot paprika.
• 1-2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• A pinch of dried culinary lavender (optional but oh so gorgeously great – it goes amazingly well with chili pepper!)
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder or granules (entirely optional, but I am a garlic nut and it tends to bring out the flavor of the fresh garlic used more… MORE!!!)
• 3-4 bay leaves
• Sea salt to taste
• Some fresh oregano, parsley or coriander leaves (to serve)
• Sour cream or 10% fat turkish or greek yogurt (to serve)

What you do:

• (Skip this and next steps if using canned beans, just drain and rinse those) The night before, rinse your beans under running water, place in a bowl or pot, cover with a lot of cold water, put the lid on or plastic-wrap the top of bowl, and put in refrigerator (to prevent sprouting).
• When ready to make chili, drain, rinse again, and put in the pot with some cold water.  Bring to a boil, drain, rinse, replace water with fresh cold water, and then cook until nearly tender (this can be as little as 20 minutes or as long as 1 hour depending on your beans).
• While beans are cooking, preheat a large soup pot on medium heat, and add 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, butter or bacon fat.  When hot, add the onions and cook them slowly until they begin to caramelize (are translucent and get browned edges).
• In a frying pan (nonstick is ok), heat 1 tbsp of aforementioned fat on medium-high heat, and fry the ground meat until it’s browned.  Shove to the side, add garlic and chili (fresh or dried), and fry for a minute or so, then mix in and fry another 1-2 minutes on medium heat.  Turn heat off and add to the pot with onions as soon as onions are ready.  Rinse frying pan with a bit of boiling water or deglaze with wine and add to the pot.
• Add the chopped tomatoes (and if you have any sad-looking aging tomatoes in your fridge, they should get chopped and added too), the chipotle powder or paste, cumin, oregano, (optional) garlic granules or powder and bay leaves.  Add the nearly-done and drained beans, and enough stock or water+fond to nearly cover the meat and beans, and stir.
• Bring to a very low simmer, turn heat to low, cover and allow to cook, stirring occasionally, for about an hour, 1.5 hours is better.
• Taste, adjust seasonings, fish out the bay leaves if you can find them (or else you can do that when you eat, no huge deal), and add the lavender (if using), crushing the florets in your fingers.  Stir in.
• Place a heaping tablespoon or two of sour cream or yogurt into the bottoms of your serving bowls, ladle the chili over, and sprinkle with greenery.
• Take to sofa, pull the throw over your lap, lay a napkin on it, and go at it.

Bring along a huge mug of coffee, and listen to the wind howling outside.  There you go, gloominess and chill negated.

Scampi with Sherry and Lavender

Many people use lavender – as perfume, or bathing, or a variety of other things, but have you ever considered using it as a seasoning?

Lavender is part of the same family as rosemary, and as such, generally works fine in any dishes where rosemary can also be used.  It has a strong, sweet but a little harsh scent (familiar to most if not all).  A small caution for using lavender in food – it can turn slightly bitter if you go too generously with it.  Use the same guideline as you would with hot spices – try a little and gradually increase the amount if you feel it’s not enough.  On the other hand, because of how strong the fragrance is, a little really does go a long way.  There is no need to pour it on by the teaspoonful – a few dried flowers scattered over your meal do more than enough to impart the flavor.

This is a dish of giant prawns in which I incidentally decided to use up some slightly-softening tomatoes and a bit of sourdough bread from the day before which was going slightly stale.  The reference to “scampi” is not in terms of what species of crustacean I use, but the American prawn or shrimp dish, of which this is a more robust variation.

It takes nearly no time, tastes fantastic and uses up leftovers all at the same time.  It can go really well paired with a salad of some sort of bitter greens such as baby leaf salad or arugula, but it’s just fine as it is on its own as well.

What you need (feeds 2):

• 8-12 giant prawns or 300g tiger or whiteleg prawns (the commonly sold varieties), shell cut on top, and deveined.
• 2 tomatoes
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• Pinch of red chili flakes
• Pinch of dried culinary lavender buds. Note: when buying lavender, please make sure it’s untreated and suitable for consumption.  Spice shops and gift shops in botanical gardens will frequently stock it, but I am sure it is possible to get culinary-grade lavender on the net as well.
• 75ml sherry (not sweet, I use Amontillado)
• Sea salt to taste
• 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• A few slices of sourdough or other crusty bread with strong crumb (somewhat stale ok).  Really, you can probably do this well with just about any decent bread, but for the love of little green apples, please, please don’t try this with the insipid white spongy bagged … stuff (I hesitate to call that bread), it will disintegrate on contact with liquids and you will get disgusting mush.
• Some chopped flat-leaf parsley to decorate (entirely optional).

What to do:

• Drain your defrosted and deveined prawns in a colander.
• Preheat broiler (top grill) of your oven to 220°C.
• Blitz garlic in a food processor to small shreds.  Add tomatoes and blitz to a coarse slurry.
• Add sea salt, chili, lavender buds, sherry, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and blend to combine.
• Place your prawns in a bowl, pour over the sauce you’ve just mixed, and swish around to combine.  Ensure all prawns are at least moistened by the sauce.
• In the meantime, cut up the bread – reserve a few of the nicer slices for toasting and cut the rest up into 2-3 fingers lengthwise each.  Drizzle the slices reserved for toasting with the remaining olive oil on both sized (use more if needed) and allow to rest.
• Pour the prawns and sauce into a ceramic or glass baking dish and spread out into a single layer.  Add the cut-up fingers of bread at a tilt (close to horizonal) in a sort of a falling-domino pattern around the edges of the dish, submerging the edges of them in the sauce.
• Place a non-stick frying pan on medium-high heat to preheat.
• Place the prawn dish under broiler (about 2nd rack from the top of the oven) and cook until the prawns are red and curled up, with edges beginning to char lightly.  The time will depend on your oven, how far the rack is in it, and how large your prawns were, but at a guess, they can be ready in as little as 10 minutes or as much as 20 (my giant ones took a while).
• While the prawns cook, lightly toast the reserved drizzled-with-oil bread slices in the pan and arrange them on plates.  Sprinkly with flaked sea salt and some lavender buds if desired.
• When the prawns are ready, remove from oven and plate the prawns and the sauced bread quickly.  You can sprinkle them with a little chopped parsley if you like the look of greens among all of that gold and red, but I was happy with it as-is, with a few piercingly purple-blue lavender buds scattered on top.

Black tea with a touch of honey or coffee will work equally well with this.  Or, if doing this for dinner, a crisp white wine would work really well too.  The sauce, for the record, tastes utterly amazing and the toasted sourdough is great for sopping it up after the prawns are all gone.  Just thought you should know.  ;)