Versiones: pan de chalota y aceitunas negras

Uno puede meterse en la cocina sabiendo claramente qué es lo que quiere hacer o para improvisar. Cuando te pones a hacer pan, puedes poner en práctica una receta específica o hacer lo que puedas con los ingredientes que tienes a mano. O puedes hacer una versión.

Inspirada por el eliopsomi que Juan hizo en diciembre, preparé hace unos días algo parecido pero no exactamente igual. Quería preparar un pan de aires mediterráneos para acompañar unas patatas con costillas que iba a compartir con unos amigos que venían con niños a casa. El aroma del ajo del eliopsomi, que para mi gusto es lo que hace tan especial ese pan, me pareció un poco arriesgado, por lo de los niños (tres niñas muy majas, en concreto), así que decidi sustituirlo por chalotas. Tampoco tenía menta, así que puse tomillo del huerto. Y sustituí parte de la harina de trigo por centeno integral.

La verdad es que la chalota (puse dos) nos pasó básicamente desapercibida, pero el pan quedó muy jugoso y rico. Los invitados, tan amables, lo ponderaron mucho y debían ser sinceros porque la hogaza no pasó de la comida.Qué majos.

Pain de campagne con semillas de alcaravea

El pain de campagne es un pan artesano francés, con forma de hogaza y que suele llevar una parte de harina integral, sea de trigo o de centeno. Es un pan rústico de aspecto y muy sabroso. Richard Bertinet, que es panadero y francés, así que algo sabrá de esto, dice que el centeno combina muy bien con la alcaravea, una hierba cuyas semillas tienen una forma similar a la del comino que yo tenía ganas de probar en el pan. Las que he usado son orgánicas y viajeras, porque han venido conmigo desde Belfast (vaya, ahora que lo pienso, quizás el viaje en avión les haya hecho perder un poco de su buenrollismo ambiental). Por alguna razón, aquí no he encontrado semillas de alcaravea en ningún supermercado, quizás no haya buscado bien.

Esta es la receta para una hogacita pequeña:

170 gr. de harina de trigo
65 gr. de harina de centeno integral
120 gr. de masa madre de trigo
150 gr. de agua
7 gr. de sal
Tres pellizcos de semillas de alcaravea

La alcaravea tiene un sabor anisado que se hace notar, así que si no os va mucho ese matiz, usadla con mucha moderación. Mis tres pellizcos fueron borderline, uno más y el pan habría quedado demasiado intenso.

Hice amasado francés, por aquello de mantener el espíritu nacional del asunto, pero la masa resultó ser bastante manejable, así que un amasado tradicional creo que también habría sido posible. La primera fermentación fue de tres horas y media y la segunda de cuatro horas. Al volcarlo, su aspecto agalletado (¿qué os parece el palabro? ¿se me entiende?) me hizo temer el fantasma de la sobrefermentación, pero fue una falsa alarma. En el horno todo evolucionó favorablemente.

Por supuesto, yo sigo con la técnica de la bandeja de agua para crear vapor. Una vez que la pruebas y ves los resultados, ya no puedes dejarlo...

En nuestra permanente búsqueda por ganar popularidad, publicaremos también esta entrada en nuestro blog amigo Wild Yeast.

pain á l'ancienne and au thé

the bread I bake this week had two reasons. First one, as my last post said, I propose to bake this month a bread with tea, with any kind of tea and any kind of technique.

I am a user of El foro del pan, a spanish bread forum. I read and check it frequently because you can find anything about bread and its ingredients, techniques, etc, and you can find there people who knows quite a lot about bread and they are always up to help you. Highly

recommended. This week one of the users propose to everybody bake this famous and nice bread, pain á l'ancienne. I have to admit that it is one of my favorites and you can see it in this blog very often, as Lidia is a big fan as well.

So I decided to join both proposals in one and I bake this pain á l'ancienne with tea. I used both same ingredients and technique that Ibán asked in his post (click here to check it out):

565 g strong flour

11 g salt

15 g fresh yeast (slightly more than Ibán recipe)

455 g cold water

And now my modification, simple anyway. I added a tea bag in the cold water and left it there for 10 min. As the water was cold, the final result was a very light brown water. I didn't want to add a strong tea flavor to the bread, but more some back light flavour.

I folded 4 times the dough waiting 10 minutes between each one. I have to say that the house was very warm, and by the time I put the dough in the fridge, this one had fermented some. Then I kept the dough for 48 hours in the fridge.

After those two days, I took out the dough (it had doubled in the fridge) and cut it in three pieces. Waited one hour before putting it in the oven, so the dough fermented again. Here you can see a picture of the dough before placed in the oven.

Oven at 250 celsius degrees for 12 minutes with a tray of water and then without of the tray at

190 degrees for another 20 minutes. I allowed the bread to cool down a few minutes in the oven off with the door open.

The result was a really nice bread, as usual pain á l'ancienne is. This time the only different was a very light tea flavor, not strong to be predominated but enough to taste that characteristic bitter flavor, but as I said just very light, so sweatiness was more predominated.

I am very happy in general with this bread but I am going to bake another one where the tea is a stronger flavor so we can really say it is a tea bread. So people, I want to see yours. Bring them on!

Tea

picture by Romain Guy

Ok lads, new year, same blog but with some news. As I said in the last post, Lidia visited me last week here in Belfast for a few days. We had a fantastic time and even if we didn't bake any bread we were talking about bread almost everyday.

I came with a idea to spark the blog this year. Each one of us is going to propose with an ingredient, a technique or a type of bread (or any other baked product) so the three of us (and anybody else who want to join us will be more than welcome) has to bake with that ingredient, technique, etc that month.

As I came with the idea, Lidia told me that I should be the first one. Fair enough. So for January I thought that it'd be a nice start use one ingredient that it is not very common in bread but I am sure all of us enjoy: tea. Like bread, tea is a whole world (and I'd say a whole universe in this country).

So let's start thinking in what are we going to bake. I will post mine during the weekend, it is already in the fridge. And Almudena and Lidia, I am looking forward to see what you will propose for the following months.

Tourism, the rugby match and the bread

Lidia came this weekend to visit me in Belfast. Very happy. We did loads of things and had a great time. Yesterday we went to the botanic gardens, including the glass house and the Ulster Museum.

But we did some gastronomic tourism and of course some bread was target. St. George Market runs on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays, and basically you can find different kind of foods, from curry to sausages to fresh fish and meat to paella. But many of these tends are baking ones. Scones, tarts, cakes, and all different kind of breads: some from ireland and the north, like Irish soda or potato bread and international ones like focaccia or baguettes. Our eyes went straight to a sourdough fig and cranberry loaf. You can see in this picture the shop and the owners, with all the different breads they sell. Special attention please to the blueberry scones at the bottom, they look amazing.

Back to the house, we rest for half and hour and went to one of the best times we spent together during this days: rugby match in Ravenhill. Ulster played with Benetton Treviso (we won, 32-13, go Ulster!) and had a amazing time there. First part was very good, second part a little more quiet and the third part (that's what you call after the match, when you basically drink beer) was maybe the funniest. We stayed in one of the stadium bars, chatting with different people, including some of the ulster rugby players.

Of course, after a few beers (just a few, I promise) we went back home starving, so we decided to attack the bread we bought in the morning, with some sardinian pecorino cheese that my friend Gianmaria gave to me a few days ago and roasted chestnut chutney. Check the pictures here. We ate them all.

.