Turkish Countryside Bread

My most favorite part of the workshop we ran earlier this September with Dave Hagerman was the morning we spent at the house of our family friend Crazy Ahmet. It started to rain the night before. In the hills it does not drizzle - it pours with all its fierce, and the sound gets magnified by the giant pine-tree branches, the roofing slate and the fat soil. At 6 am when I came to the kitchen to shape the loaves of the Turkish countryside bread I wore my winter attire - a hat, a fleece jacket and my husband’s winter trainers. I recalled my first - and unexpectedly cold - winter in Sapanca when I was baking a lot, mostly intuitively and still with good results. Now my bread intuition is backed up by the many loaves I made working through Jeffrey Hamelman’s book.

At 7 am people started gathering at the restaurant warming up with the freshly brewed tea, looking through the gray mash that enveloped everything around and still not believing in the garden breakfast planned for today. “Do they have a covered area?” many delicately inquired. It did not even occur to me that something can wrong with our plan. And well, nothing did.

We slowly drove down the road worn down and at times shamelessly damaged by the too much construction going on around, and 20 minute later we got off to the pouring rain in front of the Ahmet’s house.

We know Ahmet and his parents through my mother-in-law who has known them for at least two decades. She remembers Ahmet as a teenage boy running around before he became the “Lord of the Roots” who spends most of his time in the forest looking for whimsical snags that he fashions into furniture. His mother is Abkhaz, and the father is Circassian; their both families arrived to Sapanca in the second half of the 19th century when the Russian Empire started conquest of the Caucasian region and many indigenous ethnicities were pushed out of the area only to find home on the other side of the Black Sea. Ottomans cordially welcomed them to inhabit the Siberia of the Empire - the less populated Black Sea shore. While the memories of the motherland vanished in the family the food traditions did not, and the mother still makes Abkhaz and Circassian-style cheeses both of which have become signature local flavors of the Sakarya region. We came to see her cheese-making routine.

We exchanged rushed greetings and kisses with the hosts and got down to work. The mud oven in the garden was newly fired with the long branches of the garden fruit trees (first time after two years, admitted Ahmet), and Ahmet’s mother, Neriman Teyze, ushered us all in the shed to milk the cow. The vigor of the rain only grew, and soon all our workshop participants filled the shed. The shed was dark and lit only by the scarce light sieving through the gaps in the log walls. Neither the pour light nor the smell of the cow dung discouraged anybody. No one dared to break the silence of a significant moment - seeing someone so grounded and so connected to the land and a simple yet only certain ways of being and making food. Neriman Teyze continued milking cow to the only two sounds - the shutters and rhythmic splashes of the milk against the bucket.

I left to look after the oven: the breads have proven in the small round trays and had to be baked soon. Me and Ahmet continued feeding the long fruit branches into the oven until his mother arrived with a bowl of milk followed by the participants. The rain stopped. Neriman Teyze immediately took over. She acted just like my mother-in-law (and often, myself): no one will do it quicker and better than me so you, girl, go and fetch that bowl. She inspected the breads and noted with satisfaction, ‘Güzel kabarmışlar’ (proved so well). She continued feeding logs in the oven. I asked her how she knew the oven was ready. She replied that she was waiting for the oven dome to turn white. And finally, it did - from the ashes of the burned woods. I sprinkled the breads with nigella seed (çörek otu, how we call it here), and she sent them to the oven one by one and then closed the oven with a well fitting metal screen.

Meanwhile, Neriman Teyze was attending to the milk. A small soba (log-fired stove that also serves as a heater) was hot, and she poured the milk in a large pot. Little bit of old whey and lemon juice, and the simmering milk started to curdle. Then Neriman Teyze ladled the curd into a sieve, pressed it with another heavy dish and left so. “How old are you?” someone asked Neriman Teyze after observing her confident moves. “72″, she replied. “And my husband is 83″. Wow! “What are you doing to stay young?” - all the women inquired at once. “I do everything” - she smiled. “I hardly sit. There is always work around the house and garden”.

Indeed, Neriman Teyze’s house is the cleanest and least cluttered house I have ever seen. And mind you, there is no young bride around who would be sharing the workload. It so natural for her to keep the place immaculate that as a guest you too feel neat, light and easy that you never want to leave.

Özgür arrived. Neriman Teyze told him motioning to the oven, “The breads have not proved well”. He picked up the joke, “Really?”. She opened the oven to show him the result of the oven spring - risen breads with a formed crust that started browning. “Look”, she said laughingly, “If the bread did not turn well I would have separated you too”. In her typical witty manner she meant that as an older woman she had a right to act like a mother-in-law and test my cooking abilities that were important to keep my husband happy and the family strong. I guess she also meant that she was pleased to have me around that morning and she too wanted a bride and a helping hand in her house.

The skies cleared completely, and I ventured into the garden to pick up peppers and tomatoes for breakfast. The garden was orderly and lush reminding me of my grandparents’ where we used to pick up vegetables and fruits just before eating them. I sliced the vegetables and the Abkhaza cheese - your saltier and denser mozzarella - that Neriman Teyze prepared the day before (the Circassian cheese she made that morning was meant for börek we were cooking for lunch). We took out the jams, butter and olives we brought with us. The tea was brewed. It was time to check the bread.

Neriman Teyze removed one loaf from the tray, I tapped the bottom and heard the pleasing hollow sound proving we were ready for breakfast. I sprinkled some water over the crust from a tap in the garden. “Don’t be afraid, brush it with a lot of water”, Neriman Teyze was already near me supervising this important step too. After brushing the loaves with water I wrapped them in the cloth and let them “catch their breath”, but not for too long because the anticipation was growing. The bread was still too hot to eat, and so we tore it into pieces instead of cutting. Özgür tore the first piece revealing well-baked pale-golden crumb with irregular holes - exactly what I hoped for, and for me it was like cutting a red ribbon at the opening. Özgür spread a good slice of butter on top, a spoon of jam and brought the piece to Neriman Teyze. “Wait, I will not eat on the go!” she insisted on cleaning up before she came down for breakfast.

While everyone was helping themselves I was contemplating the rewards of bread baking that are apparent even at home but taken to a different level when you bake in an oven like that. I told Özgür my call was clear, and I was opening a bakery (which I would have totally done unless I knew the hazards of being a professional cook or a baker too well). Neriman Teyze emerged near the breakfast table, took a bite and winked at me, “So, partner, are we opening a bakery?”

Tepsi Ekmeği (Turkish Countryside Bread)

Based on Jeffrey Hamelman’s formula
Makes 2 loaves

Note: This dough might be initially difficult to handle due to the high hydration (73%). Use a bench scrapper for handling the dough and resist the temptation to add additional flour at any stage.

Ingredients

Pre-ferment:
190 g all-purpose flour
100 g lukewarm water
1 g fresh yeast

Final dough:
Pre-ferment
1130 g all-purpose flour
860 g lukewarm water
15 g fresh yeast
22 g salt
Vegetable oil, for greasing the baking trays

Directions

Prepare pre-ferment: With your hands combine the flour, water and yeast in a medium-size bowl, until the ingredients come together. Cover with a cling film and let sit at the room temperature for about 8 hours, until the pre-ferment increases in volume 3-4 times and domes.

Prepare dough: Measure the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Place the water and crumbled fresh yeast in the well. Add the preferment in the flour well too and start mixing by incorporating more liquid into the pre-ferment. Once the pre-ferment is so liquid you can’t handle it start incorporating the flour. When all the flour is absorbed start folding the dough very gently: with a bench scrapper stretch the right side of the dough and flip it over to the middle of the dough pile. Continue gently folding from the top, left and bottom in the same fashion for about 5-7 minutes, until you feel that while still formless the dough has got a muscle. Cover with a cling film and leave to proof in the fridge for about 6 hours (great for overnight).

Form loaves: Take the dough out of the fridge and very gently do 2-3 rounds of folding. Generously grease the baking trays with vegetable oil. Divide the dough between the trays and sprinkle each with a plenty of flour. Cover with a clean cloth and let proof for 1.5 hours.

Bake bread: Preheat the oven to 230C/445F. Steam the oven before loading the breads in: place a tray filled with boiling water to the bottom of the oven and spray the oven with cold water. Bake the breads for 20 min, then remove the tray with water and continue baking for 15 min longer. When the breads are baked tapping the bottom of the loaf should produce a hollow sound. Sprinkle the tops of the loaves with water, wrap the breads in a clean cloth and let sit for 30 min. Remove the cloth and let the loaves cool completely before cutting. Store tightly wrapped in a clean dry towel.

Photo credit: All the photos on this post were taken by my sister Tikhonova Svetlana who was diligently shooting and filming the workshop.