I wanted to talk to you about Turkish breads. Not yet it seems. I had an unfortunate attempt at the chickpea leaven bread when you crash chickpeas, mix them with water and let them sit covered until a dense froth appears on the surface of the starter and the natural yeast forms. It took 3 days instead of 1, so I am trying with fresher chickpeas next time. I also bought a book I was chasing for a long time “Ekmek” (Bread): it was published in a humble series of single-topic brochures with some of the most substantial texts and recipes I have seen on the Turkish bookshelves. I opened the book and - what a scandal! - the author talks European-style sourdough. Really, this country needs more pride about its food and - very urgently - about its bread! So meanwhile I continue meticulously study Hamelman’s Bread. I got the courage to play with the recipe and present one today. Enter potato bread with roasted onions.
… in which my obsession with potato bread is explained
I first came across this bread when Elena, my lawyer-turned-chef friend, baked it this new year eve. I was not convinced when she announced the plan: while potato sounded vaguely appropriate (it’s a starch after all just like the flour) a generous serving of onions Elena asked me to caramelize got me alerted. Not for too long: when the loaves cooled down I joined other family members who stood - shoulder to shoulder - around the loaves: we were gobbling down piece after piece, exclaiming “Sooo good!” now and then and entirely ignoring appeals of my mother-in-law to get some upstairs for the dining guests. Elena’s potato and onion loaf tasted just like the famous pies of my grandma that she religiously baked on any occasion (and there were many in our large family) and we were eating them as religiously. Minced meat + onion, boiled eggs + spring onions and potato + onion were the savory combinations I grew up with. And who ever forgets the taste of their grandmother’s baking?
..in which we speculate on the preferment business
When I stumbled upon the recipe of potato bread with roasted onions in the Hamelman’s book I prepared the preferment that very same evening. In my last post I mentioned an exciting learning: preferment is a low effort way to boost the flavor of your bread many folds. Instead of maintaining a sourdough culture you spend 10 minutes before going to bed to put together a preferment. For Hamelman’s pain rustique I used poolish (half-yeast, half-water and a tad of yeast), a mixture that is seriously bubbly and aromatic when you find it 12-16 hours later at room temperature.
For the potato bread Hamelman suggests another type of preferment: pate fermente, essentially a piece of (old) dough. Professional bakers save a small piece of dough when a batch of, say, baguettes is made to use next time and so on: imagine how much energy and dedication is accumulated in a piece of pate fermente over years. At home you can do the same but since we don’t bake often keeping that old dough live and kicking is hard. But you can make a bit of dough and leave it to ferment for 12-16 hours at room temperature. After trying I think I am going to stick to poolish: I love its bubbly look and ability to integrate with the rest of the dough (naturally, it’s so liquid).
.. in which whole-wheat flour is discussed
Besides changing the type of preferment I decided to skip the whole-wheat flour. Whole-wheat flour per se is a rather glorious thing. White flour is mainly comprised of endosperm, largest part of a wheat kernel when it comes to volume and lowest in nutrition. Endosperm stores starch and protein/gluten, both being critical for the dough development. It is gluten that provides strength to the dough; it is not unlike the Soviet policy of checks and balances - gluten allows the dough to stretch but also to bounce back. What white flour does not include is the mineral-loaded bran (outer layers of a wheat kernel) and germ rich in fats and nutrition.
Whole-wheat flour includes it all - endosperm, bran and germ - which means more taste and goodness but also a different behavior. Coarse particles in the whole-wheat flour make it harder to make smoother dough because they impede forming of the gluten networks. Potato chunks and onions slices sticking out were enough of complication already to have coarse flour on the way to the silky smooth dough, so I thought I can remove the while-wheat flour for now. Removing the whole-wheat flour from the formula also reduces the final proofing time since white flour dough develops quicker. I got ready to adjust the recipe.
.. in which the simple rules of bread-recipe creation are revealed
Bread making is not unlike the rocket science, which is the good news because there are formulas. Every bread recipe is essentially a formula with many variables: you can play with each as long as the equation stays true. A bread formula starts with hydration - how much water you use relatively to the flour. There are some highly hydrated doughs, take ciabatta: for every 100 gram flour you are adding 73 gram water meaning 73% dough hydration. The dough is sticky and hard to handle but then your bread comes out with those giant holes everyone is after these days.
For my potato bread with roasted onions I thought I’d keep the water/flour ratio (188 g water (266 g white flour + 47 g whole-wheat flour) the same (60%) and divide the new quantity of white flour (266 g+47 g=313 g) by two and get the amount of flour in preferment/poolish (156 g). Water in preferment equals flour (156 g) and then I’d subtract the poolish water from the total water (187-156=31 g) to get the quantity of water for the dough. Easy! I was jumping with joy - experimentation in bread making is possible after all!
… in which things get complicated
What I did not take into account that whole-wheat flour absorbs more water than white flour and even with the same level of hydration the texture of the dough will be different. Since I substituted whole-wheat flour with wheat flour one to one and did not cut down the quantity of water the dough came up decidedly sticky. In the original version of the potato bread recipe with 15% whole-wheat flour the dough continued being rather stiff until I added the onions.
With my adapted recipe even a super-duper technique of mixing dough by hand traditionally applied by French artisan bakers and demonstrated by Richard Bertinet (which you must watch) did not help: the dough was smashing against the counter and taking shape for the first 4 minutes but after that it became harder and harder to gather. When I added onions it became an ultimate disaster. I felt as if I was getting nowhere.
… in which a happy resolution takes place
I thought of possible reasons for this sticky dough besides the whole wheat factor. I have measured everything twice so I could not get wrong with adding too much water. I wondered if I did not roast the potato and onion to the point they would lose more liquid and the vegetables brought additional hydration to the dough.
By hook or by crook I managed the dough: I relied mostly on my bench scrapper to stretch the dough and fold it rather quickly. Later on as I read about handling very sticky dough I understood I was - without knowing - applying a technique very similar to this. Searching for explanations I also started paging through the Tartine Bread (I am never patient enough to focus on one book per time). I figured that Chad who had created his dough highly hydrated (read - very sticky) applies a different approach to forming the dough: he stretches and folds the dough with a bench scrapper right in the bowl and instead of long mixing focuses on longer resting time giving his dough a freedom to form on its own.
A simple change in my bread formula brought me to an extensive discussion of different mixing techniques. It looks rather typical for bread baking: as the road forks you can take either direction because either way is safe - you continue learning.
Potato Bread with Roasted Onion
Source: Adapted from Hamelman’s Bread
Ingredients
For poolish (preferment):
- 156 gram all-purpose flour
- 156 gram lukewarm water
- 2 gram yeast
For dough:
- 156 gram all-purpose flour
- 31 gram lukewarm water
- 2 gram yeast
- 8 gram salt
- 150 gram raw onion (measure 93 gram roasted onion)
- 140 gram raw potato (measure 78 gram roasted potato)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Directions
- Prepare preferment (poolish): In a large mixing bowl combine flour, yeast and water. With a bread scrapper mix well, cover with the cling film and leave to ferment for 12 hours at 25C/77F (best accomplished overnight).
- Roast potato and onion: Preheat the oven to 450F/230C. Slice onions thinly and slice potato into a 1 cm (1/2 inch) thick chunks. Place in two separate bowls, add 1/2 tbsp olive oil into each and toss well to coat each piece of vegetable in oil. Transfer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Onions should be separate from potatoes and in a layer thinner than 1 cm (1/2 inch); otherwise your vegetables will be steaming rather than roasting. Leave plenty of room between potato slices. If you make more than one loaf you will need two separate trays to hold all the potato and onions comfortably. Roast for about 30 minutes (onions may take less), or until deep golden brown. Cool down, slice potato in chunks and measure the quantities required for the dough.
- Combine preferment with the dough: Combine flour and water of the dough as well as potatoes and mix in the preferment until well combined. Use bench scrapper to clean the sides of the bowl. Now let it to be (covered) for 20 minutes for the dough to “gather its bearings” (process called autolyse): it will be much more cooperative after that.
- Knead the dough: Now add the yeast and salt to the dough, mix well again and transfer onto the counter. As the dough is going to be rather sticky you should use stretch and fold technique: you are going to turn your shabby dough into a plump envelope. Slip the bench scrapper under the right side of the dough and stretch the dough to the right and then flip the dough over to the center. Repeat the same move from the upper part of the dough, then left, then bottom. After a full circle with a neat (ok, not so neat but much neater pile of dough you had in front of you just a minute ago) envelope of dough continue stretching and folding in the same fashion until the dough gathers really well, becomes cohesive and feels smooth (about 7-10 minutes). Tap the dough forcefully, place the roasted onions on top and continue your stretching-folding routine until the onions distribute well. Believe or not but you will not need any additional flour to handle the dough (otherwise we could have just added it in the beginning, right?)
- Bulk fermentation: Transfer the dough into a lightly seasoned with flour bowl (with the seam apparent from folding up) and cover with the cling film. Leave covered to ferment at 25C/77F for 70 minutes. During the fermentation do the folding in 20 minute intervals: take the dough out of the bowl onto the counter (with the seam up) and repeat the envelope making: stretch and fold from the right, from the top, from the left and from the bottom of the dough. Place the dough back into the bowl (seam up) and cover. The folding helps development of the dough tremendously, and you are going to be truly happy with how your dough looks in 70 minutes.
- Shape your loaf: Take out your dough onto a slightly seasoned with flour working surface seam up and tap it with your whole flat palm forcefully - from the right to the left - to push out the air. Do one round of folding again and turn the dough upside down: now bend the fingers in your both hands to get their fingertips touch and start rotating the loaf gently inside the frame of your palms to round it. With a VERY sharp knife (of even best - razor blade) score the loaf and place on a floured kitchen towel and cover with another towel.
- Final fermentation: What I love about this dough is its short final fermentation - just 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 230C/450F and place a shallow cast iron pan inside. I use a cast iron pan (without a lead) as a baking stone: it retains heat pretty much like the base of a stone oven and helps produce a superior bread. No drama if you don’t have a cast iron pan for starters, but as you bake more and more you’d start considering one.
- Baking: It’s time to get extremely concentrated and careful - we are going to deal with very hot oven full of steam. You steam the oven right before you load the bread in; steam helps increase the volume of the loaf and get the beautifully colored crust. Splash a quarter cup of water on the bottom of the oven: be careful and stay aside as the hot steam will be coming out immediately. Close the oven for a few moments. Now load the bread into the preheated cast iron skillet and place a tray with hot water at the bottom of the oven. Potato bread bakes about 40 minutes at 230C/450F; because of sugars in potato and onion the crust may brown too quick so you may need to lower the temperature of the oven to 225C/440F as you bake (I did not). In about 20 minutes open the oven (careful, lots of hot steam coming out!) and place a metal spoon to keep the oven only slightly open: the bread will be finished in the drier oven. Once done, remove the loaf from the pan, tap on the bottom to get that characteristic shallow sound (“I am baked”) and place on a rack to cook thoroughly (!) before eating. The cooling may take up to 2 hours. Those may seem the longest hours of your life, but they are full of anticipation and that light - barely noticeable - cracking of the crust as the dough cools. Hearing that sound for me is the most satisfying part of baking bread at home. After eating that bread, of course.
