BREAD

The week before Easter spectacular processions fill the streets of Madrid, with insanely heavy statues being carried around, people in traditional costumes (the famous pointy hoods that the Ku-Klux-Klan copied) and bands playing sad tunes for the death of Jesus Christ. Too bad it rained this year, so some events were canceled; but there were still a lot of impressive sights.

The city is now back to normal, after the Sunday of the Resurrection. In Italy instead the religious calendar is a bit different and today was still a holiday: the Angel Monday, called in a more informal way Pasquetta (Little Easter). It’s the day that somewhat marks the start of the spring, and it is generally devoted to picnics - or more often to traffic jams, since most Italians take the car to reach their picnic destinations.

In my hometown tradition dictates that during Pasquetta you eat simple food, such as boiled eggs, salame and bread. I had eggs and salame in my fridge, so it seemed appropriate to try and make bread.

No-knead bread

Now, if you ever tried to make bread you know that the whole thing can be rather unpredictable: the kind of yeast, the kind of flour, the temperature of the room can affect in one way or the other how your bread will rise; and even the oven and the way you bake the dough can make a lot of difference. Plus there are zillions of different processes out there: you can use pre-fermented masses like poolish and biga, you can knead the dough various times with long pauses for rising in between, et cetera.

But then, around 5 years ago a professional baker called Jim Lahey showed a New York Times interviewer something he called “no-knead bread”, basically a super-easy way of making good quality bread at home. The recipe became very popular, was discussed and quoted by countless food blogs – so maybe you know about it already. Me, I missed it at the time (to be honest I wasn’t particularly into cooking, back then), and I wish I hadn’t, as my bread baking experiments would have benefited immensely from it.

The way I usually make bread nowadays is based on that recipe, with some adjustments mainly due to local products availability. Note that the rising will take a minimum of 14 hours, so you will obviously have to start the whole thing one day in advance. Also, you will need an ovenproof pot with a lid – a cast iron one, for example.

Ingredients

400g strong wheat flour, or harina de fuerza. Can be found at Carrefour and other big supermarkets

1 full teaspoon of salt

10g fresh yeast, again can be found at Carrefour

Some olive oil

270ml of lukewarm water – which in terms of volume is about half of the flour

How to

Crumble the yeast into the water, then mix with a spoon until the yeast is completely dissolved.

Put the flour in a big bowl (as the dough will greatly increase in size with the rising); throw in the salt, throw in the water with the yeast and start mixing with your hands until you have a dough with a uniform texture. It shouldn’t take long, maybe a few minutes.

Cover the bowl with a wet towel and let it rest for 12 hours, at warm room temperature. The dough should become double the size, with bubbles on the surface.

Grab a clean cotton towel, put it on a work surface then coat it with flour - you can use regular one, semolina or whole wheat, they all give nice results.

Put some olive oil on your hands, so the dough won’t stick; grab the dough then fold it on itself a few times. Transfer it on the towel covered with flour, leaving the seam side down (i.e. the “lines” made by the folding should be touching the surface, while the smooth side of the dough should be up). Coat the dough with the same flour you used for the towel, then cover it with another towel. Let it rise for at least another 2 hours, better 3 or 4.

Some 45 minutes before starting with the baking put your empty pot (with the lid) in the oven, then set the heat to maximum. The pot, by the time you are ready to start, should be blazing hot.

After 45 minutes, make sure to protect your hands adequately, then open the oven and remove the lid from the pan. Remove the towel covering the dough; put your hand under the other towel, pick up the dough and throw it in the pot seam side up (careful not to throw in the towel…). Put back the lid and close the oven. Leave to bake for half an hour, then open the oven, remove the lid again and bake uncovered for another 15 minutes or until the crust of the bread has a nice brown color.

Take the bread out and let it cool for an hour or so before cutting it.

The pot does the trick

The guy that came up with this system was stressing a lot the fact that this way of making bread is especially easy, as it requires almost no kneading. To me, the real stroke of genius was actually the use of the pot: it keeps the steam inside and makes sure the loaf gets soft inside/crunchy outside. Without it, bread cooked in a conventional oven would tend to become dry and parched.