I'm certain the expert could tell on sight which ones were more expensive and he takes us through his analysis to have a show. I watched this on a 13" laptop and I could tell immediately on sight, I got them all right, and he's an actual backer with a ton more experience.
Jim Lahey is the baker that Mark Bittman visited for the NYT to have him describe his no-knead method. That video changed the way beginner bakers approached making bread across the whole country. There are dozens of videos on YouTube of home bakers using this method.
Lahey uses 1/4 the usual amount of yeast, brings together the flour/water/salt mixture and allows the exceedingly shaggy dough to proof overnight. During that 8-12 hours the yeast multiples and the dough takes on a sourdough aspect. The dough is dumped onto a work surface and stretched in four directions and folded onto itself for a stack of five layers.
Bittman edits out an important step. Lahey allows the folded dough to proof another twenty-five minutes. That step is excluded from the video.
The dough is plopped into a casserole dish preheated to maximum hotness, and covered with the dish's lid. Glass containers work, cast iron works, pots similar to cast iron work and clay cloches also work.
The result is outstanding. People like it because they don't have to knead the dough, but honestly, that's the fun part. You can actually feel the dough change in your hands as you go. Even so, a lot of bakers knead it a little bit to shape it. Lahey makes it look super simple while home bakers do more dough-shaping for a more attractive result. They're all over YouTube.
Time does the kneading. Full autolyse occurs. The yeast multiplying makes movement within the dough over hours.
Mark Bittman is TV's The Minimalist. In a later video Bittman shows that failed to internalize the key point that Lehay was getting across to Bittman's viewers.
Bittman wanted to use more yeast like ordinary bread and do the whole thing much more quickly. Where Lehay emphasizes time as an essential ingredient, Bittman wants to reduce time. Yes, it will work. They're both extra-hydrated doughs and they're both baked at high temperatures and both backed inside a cloche. But the loaves with forfeit their faint sourdough character.
anecdote alert
It's been decades since I've bought mass produced bread.
Lie ↑. I bought a loaf about ten years ago. Two actually. They had a two for one sale. Ate one piece of bread and threw away both loaves. It was disgusting. Truly.
But that was the bread I grew up on. That's what I understood was bread.
My dad's mother, British, always had the weirdest loaves of bread. Barry and I didn't even consider them real bread. They were smaller loaves and cut more thinly. Some had grain floating around in them. They were awful.
But that was actually real bread. I do not understand why my dad did accept American mass produced bread. Apparently he was thoroughly Americanized.
My dad used to brag about his aunt by marriage who made a week-worth of bread every Sunday in Scranton Pennsylvania. Apparently they ate a lot of bread. I think he said she made four loaves every week. He kept bragging about her, how their house always smelled of baked bread every Sunday and how outstanding she was for doing all that. How she never used a recipe, how she had it all down.
Finally, after the ten millionth time he recounted her bread excellence, I said, "So?"
He looked at me stunned for being so dismissive.
I'm just a regular guy and I've been making my own bread for decades.
Whenever I want a sandwich I think:
Step 1: make bread.
The kind of sandwich determines the kind of bread.
Right now I'm munching on the best bread ever. I used 1/4 whole grain that had been malted for the beer they make downstairs. It's inert. It does not behave as untreated flour. I milled it myself here at home and it's aroma is fantastic. With 3/4 standard bread flour the dough comes together quite rapidly. This loaf has milk and eggs. It was supposed to have butter but I forgot to put it in. It was baked at high heat in a cloche not a pan. I've been cutting off slices all week and I must say it is perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment