I enjoy reading the daily newsletter from the cooking crew at the NY Times. Always some interesting new ideas and recipes to try out. From today there’s Melissa Clark’s new sheet-pan dinner of roast chicken, plums and red onions.
Sam Sifton comments: “She came up with it as a dish appropriate to Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins on Sept.18, but it’s outstanding whatever your faith or lack thereof.”
Will have to try it while the plums are still in season.
Wednesday is often the newsletter’s no-recipe day. A day for improvisation and experimentation. Make something tasty based on what you know from what you have. He writes:
There’s a joy in that, in seeing where an idea takes you, rather than following a script. (At least sometimes. I wouldn’t freestyle a loaf of bread.)
When I read the newsletter I had just taken a very improvised loaf out of the oven And now I’ve just tasted it. Delicious. Great texture, good crust, a bit of a funny shape in places but there it is.
And what was in it – well, a homegrown, freestyle, one-off mix of whole wheat (2 cups) and all-purpose (one cup) flours and a mixed cup of steel-cut oats, oat flour and dark rye flour with a spoonful of gluten. About two cups of water. Two glugs of olive oil, a little salt and half a teaspoon of yeast. Mix up the dry stuff. Add the wet stuff and follow the basic no-knead bread procedure.
Needless to say – as a complete bread-making beginner, I am feeling a little smug. No doubt my comeuppance is as close as the next loaf.
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Dive into the world of international cuisine with the Best cooking recipes for authentic Smoked Salmon Bagel Sandwich.
And for the vegetarians...?
This is a great inspiration for me. this bread looking good and delicious
How delicious! Traditional Australian stockmen made damper (bread) over a campfire with very basic ingredients. The recipe is rather upmarket now but the original was tasty, spread with golden syrup.
All bread is - basically - flour, water and yeast. Apply time and heat. It's the simplest. I recently followed a recipe for a loaf to be cooked on a grill. Turned out tasteless like so much bread is. It's all about the flour I think. And dampen with golden syrup - as an ingredient or on the finished item - sounds delicious.
I read a few days ago that sales of yeast have gone up 600% since the pandemic began. I always bake my bread and have had more trouble finding the white whole wheat flour I prefer.
People like me have been part of your problem Elizabeth! (Sorry!) I had never baked a loaf until this March - using up some flour and yeast I had bought years ago with the ambitious plan if finding time to bake. By the time I had used that little stash up, everyone else was also baking. Flour and yeast were impossible to find unless you got really lucky. The supply chain seems to have settled down now and I haven't had too much of a problem finding what I want for a month or so. So now I'm experimenting with different flour mixes - a little buckwheat here or little potato there. Then sometimes switching in some extra ingredients - olive oil or butter, honey or brown sugar, ginger, powdered milk, etc. Some mixed results but as I never keep records of what I've done, baking bread has a kind of serendipity to it. I never know how well it will turn out.
Steel cut oats? Fascinating...Rye flour? Whole wheat..is that what we call wholemeal? Living with a non.baking celiac has clearly limited my horizons..
Bread was never in short supply here though good bread is always in very short supply. I recall those hefty tin loaves the baker left in our bread box by the street door.. that bread cut into soft but substantial slices..cant get that anymore..its half air and goes to concrete in a day. ..baking does sound fun and inventive..
Steel-cut oats are the stuff they sell for "authentic" porridge. Not the Quaker Oats-cook -in-five minutes stuff but oats that take 20 minutes or so to cook.
Oatmeal flour is that only ground up. Rye flour is used to make rye bread and is generally available but not always at supermarkets.
Whole wheat is a bit of a deceptive expression as many things are permitted to be labeled whole wheat that are not completely whole wheat. And yes - the equivalent would be wholemeal. Think Allinson's.
Best commercial loaf that I regularly had was Letheringsett Wholemeal which used to be sold at the Owl Tea Shop in Holt. Delicious bread. Tasty, satisfying and not doubling as a doorstop. I know that mill is back in operation and selling flour but not sure it is still possible to get that loaf.
From Stein to bread! Always something to chew on!
Very punny!
This is inspiring. I think I need to be a little more adventurous. That bread looks delicious.
I've always taken a mud pie kind of approach to cooking. It's probably why I will never be a good baker because precise measurements seem to really matter with cakes and pastry.
I cant even imagine what those ingredients are let alone where one would get them but I bet it's a loaf with taste and substance like loaves of yore. Suddenly my world is full of people making bread..I wonder what it all means..is it simply time available or some anxiety kneading or creative needing. Obviously not for our gluten free house but sounds delicious.
What do you mean you can't imagine those ingredients? Nothing mysterious about various flours and yeast! The only one a bit hard to find maybe the gluten (to make up for the non-wheat flour components.
As to the why - well back in ye olden days of early closedown and hunkering and lockdown - there was no going to the shops. So no bread unless you made it yourself. And people had time on their hands. And had thoughts of basic survival And then it was impossible to find flour. And then you couldn't find yeast anywhere so everyone with flour started sourdoughing and etc.
This too shall pass.
Yep. It turned out well. Lucky!
Looks good, Josie!