Hi Everyone:
Tonight my world was opened to the wonders of home-cooked sourdough bread. I have previous experience cooking the Cooks' Illustrated No-Knead bread, where you substitute beer for water to imitate more complex yeast. I am happy to report that there is simply no comparison. This is the best bread I have ever tasted! And it came out of my kitchen!
I've been traveling and living abroad for about three years now, so I've only recently gotten around to making sourdough. My first sourdough starter, Jake Jr. (named for our wonderful host), met an untimely end when he developed a mold infection. Guess I didn't clean the container as good as I thought. But the second starter, Alf (short for Alpha) is a strong one. I made Stella's basic sourdough bread recipe with just a few modifications. First off, I made a smaller loaf (.75 loaf), since my oven here is rather small. I also like my breads a bit more rustic, so I added 25g more of whole wheat flour and took out the corresponding amount of white. Finally, since I had only AP and no bread flour, I subbed 5g of wheat gluten for 5g of the AP (is that cheating?). I have the gluten so I can make seitan every now and then. For the pattern, I tried to do a boule style cut of 5 straight cuts across the top, but it didn't really come out. I think I didn't cut deep enough. My dutch oven is in storage back home, so I used the liner from my slow cooker. I also stupidly used the cover from it lined with foil and managed to melt off the plastic handle in the process (photo below). I served the bread tonight with hummus, olive oil and zatar, soft cheeses, and butter. Big success! The bread has a very deep and complex flavor, is just the right amount of chewy, and has that this, crackly but not hard crust. Impressed the hell out of my wife. Tomorrow morning I'm going to do soft boil eggs and bacon with the bread (not sure whether to toast as is traditional or leave the delicious bread to speak for itself).
As a bonus, I'm including a photo of my healthy version of the chicken roulade (no fry) that I made to get some protein as a first course. I use a local chicken spice blend from the spice market and stuffed it with some lomo I brought back from Spain (usually I use bacon), goat cheese, and dried apricots. I served it with pickled cabbage on the side. It is one of the best looking and tasting results I've gotten for this dish, so I thought I'd share it too.
Thanks for the knowledge, Jacob! Anyone who has any feedback/ideas for further modification, give a shoutout.
