Yesterday, I thought to myself, "Self, you sure would like to make some good crusty Peasant Bread." "Yes, I would," came my reply. So I went a looking on the Internet. After about 20 minutes of research and skimming recipes, I realized that a good crusty Peasant Bread might not work out with the tools I have in my kitchen. This was a problem, because, as my wife will tell you, I get so OCD when I get an idea like this in my head, that I will dwell on it until I find some way to improvise around the obstacles and give it a whirl. Now, before you start thinking that I have oodles of motivation and ingenuity, let me just say that giving it a whirl and failing epically is usually enough to kill the dream. I only try, try again when conditions are right, planets align, etc. But until I actually give it a try, I am in obsession land.
Luckily, I stumbled upon a website that mentioned using a dutch oven to overcome some of the obstacles of a limited kitchen. This guy's site: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/baked-good/noknead-bread-recipe-multigrain-peasant-bread-107657 (or it might be this gal's site for all I know, I kind of got in and got out once I skimmed to what I needed) discussed the challenge of getting a crust good and crusty with just a conventional oven. Apparently, it has something to do with humidity. But a slow rise method and a dutch oven are apparently the magic ingredients to crusty crust success. Now, I am sure that some skeptic might suggest that there is a very scientific explanation for why it works, but I believe it is magic. And it is simple. The recipe is crazy simple and cheap: 1/4 teaspoon dry active yeast; 1 1/2 cups of warm water; 3 cups of all purpose flour, and 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt (plus a little corn meal for dusting). That's it! Four ingredients and one sort-of ingredient. Are you kidding me? It has to be magic. And I guess it makes sense, since it is Peasant Bread, that it would be cheap to make. And magical. Because peasants believe in magic.
Oh, and don't forget the mystical dutch oven. I have owned a stove top dutch oven for years and I cook all kinds of stuff in it. And when you think of it, it does resemble a cauldron. And thanks to this website I found, I am like Harry Potter working with the Half Blood Prince's old Potions book. How is that for a contemporary pop-culture reference?
Anyway, you get a big mixing bowl and you dissolve the yeast in the water. Now, I know it says "warm" water, but if I really were referencing the old Potions book, here is where you would find "warm" lined out and replaced with "hot tap water." I think "warm water" in recipes involving dry active yeast is one of those dirty jokes bakers in the know play on novices, because I have never been able to get dry active yeast to get active with what I would call "warm" water. It gets active, in my experience, with water the temperature that I would wash my dishes in. Now you may have a different experience, and I won't question how magic works in your kitchen, but in my kitchen, hot tap water does the trick.
To the yeast water, you add the flower and the salt. And you stir it up with a wooden spoon (because wooden spoons are more magical than other kinds, and because you really don't want to beat this dough up very much). You stir it up until it is all clumped together in a sticky and shaggy ball. Then you cover the bowl with plastic and forget about it for 12 to 18 hours.
Really.
12 to 18 hours.
I mixed it up in the late evening and then went on to the next step when I got home from court in the early afternoon the next day - which was today. I liked how this turned out so much that I made it again tonight, this time around 6 p.m. Since I don't have court tomorrow and have decided to take much of the day off, I will be finishing this one up tomorrow after I work out in the morning.
Apparently, this slow rise, and being gentle with the dough, infuses it with Patience and Love magic. After it has risen (and by "risen" I mean "spread out more than up") it will have little popped bubbly pock marks all over it. And your love and patience and magic will now bring it through the post pimply scarring phase on through to the mature and crusty phase. You will lightly flour a working surface, if you can call what comes next "work." You dump the blob out onto the lightly floured surface and you sprinkle a little flour on top of it and then you gently, and lovingly, fold it over into itself twice. And if all this magic has given you foresight, you didn't get rid of the plastic wrap that was covering the bowl and you lay it loosely over the top of the gently folded dough and let it rest for 15 minutes.
During the rest time, you get two clean dish towels out, lay one on the table next to the resting dough, but quietly so as not to disturb its slumber and you sprinkle corn meal over the surface of the dish towel. When the rest time is over, you take the plastic wrap off of the dough, get a little flour on your hands, and gently form it into a ball. You then place it seam side down on the towel. The seams are formed by tucking under the edges as you gently form the ball. You then sprinkle the top of the ball with some more corn meal and gently lay the other dish towel over the ball. It now gets to take another nap for about two hours, during which it will actually rise. If you don't have corn meal, you can use flour, but I strongly urge you to go with the corn meal. It is important to the magic. It is like adding the counterclockwise stirs in the Liquid Death potion. Harry Potter again. I'm a nerd.
About 20 minutes before the two hours is up, turn on the oven to 475 degrees and put the dutch oven, lid on, in the oven to preheat. Give it the full 20 minutes. Then take the dutch oven back out, take of the lid, and get ready for the tricky part.
Gently take the top dish towel off. Gently lift the corners of the other dish towel and bring them together like a stork's bundle and lift while sliding your other hand gently beneath the bundle. Take it over to the dutch oven. You are going to upend it now into the dutch oven, so the seam side ends up. BE CAREFUL - IT IS REALLY HOT!
I cannot express the absolute horror I experienced when I upended the dough after all that gentleness and the dough went, "Plop!", and collapsed a little bit. But don't worry. It keeps you safe from a burn, and this is where the magic happens. And don't worry about all the corn meal that ends up in the dutch oven either. Just put the lid on, return it to the oven, and trust the magic. Leave it in there for 30 minutes. Then take the top off the dutch oven and let it bake for another 10 to 20 minutes until it is nice and golden brown. Be careful when you take off the dutch oven lid. The lid on mine and sealed up a little due to the humidity inside, or evil spirits - I'm still not certain - and I burned the hell out of my knuckle when I gave it a yank. But it was all worth it, because inside was this:
The one in the front. The one in the back is the other loaf I baked during the nap I gave my Peasant Bread dough. That one in back is Pumpernickel. And it is really good. As you can see, the loafs are on a cooling rack. That is where you put the loafs when you take them out of the heat.
Like I said, I got a little OCD on the whole artisan bread idea, and I really love Pumpernickel bread. So I looked up some recipes for it online. None of those recipes called for slow rises and dutch ovens. But magic was in the air anyway and I made that bread in the two hours I was waiting for the other bread to rest and rise.
It is getting late, so I will continue this tomorrow and tell you how I made that bread too. I also threw together a dinner of Fettuccine with Sausage and Steamed Clams. I had to have something to dip the bread in, right? It was all awesome and I will tell you how I did it, I promise. But this is all I got tonight.
