Pickled Beets and Sourdough Bread
October has begun and with it, the cleaning out of the garden. The last of the Summer beets were dug up, their tops and stems set in the dehydrator for Winter chicken feed, but the bulbs, the heart of the beet, was trimmed of all but it’s roots and an inch or so of it’s top, washed, and set in a pot of boiling water for twenty minutes or so. Once they were knife tender, they were strained and left to cool and there they sit, waiting for me to do something with them. But I decided to write instead. Who wants to peel a hot beet? No. They can wait the hour or so it will take me to write this and set some vinegar and sugar to boil, which will be their bath (hence, the pickled part of pickled beets). I like to can them in smaller jars–a quart of pickled beets feels too intimidating to manage on a cold Winter’s day. No. they will be set in pint size jars–just right to accent a nice spinach and goat cheese salad some time in January.
Other things are happening in the Farm Kitchen while I write. The sourdough which was begun yesterday morning is quietly baking away, waiting for the moment the timer dings announcing to me and it that the lid of the cast iron Dutch oven must be removed. We don’t want a repeat of the last time, do we? No. We do not. It turns out if you leave the lid ON your sourdough bread, it will steam all right. Steam and nothing else. That beautiful crust that crackles before finally giving way to clouds of soured-softness when bitten into will not happen. It simply will not.
No. For proper sourdough, there it a pro-cedure-one that must be followed, or else (or else no crust that crackles into clouds of soured softness, that’s what).
Now. I don’t want to intimidate you. To make sourdough is simple. Long, but simple.
I’ve touched on it here at sometime or another, but I suppose it bears repeating. You will need a starter. No. I will not go over that again. It is a time consuming process. Feel free to buy one, or search back through for the post on ‘a good loaf of bread’. I go over it in detail there. You just need to know that for this bread, you will need it.
You will also need one pound of flour–all purpose will do as well as any. To that ten ounces of room temperature water is added. This is stirred together and set aside for an hour. Once that hour is up, a half cup starter is added, along with a quarter cup raw honey and two teaspoons salt. This is stirred in as well, and left to sit for a (nother) hour.
There is a technique called pulling and folding, in which the dough is grabbed at the edge, stretched up, and folded over on it’s opposite side. This is a new way of working with dough, and I prefer it for sourdough breads where those large air pockets are what you want to see. The lack of kneading and punching down keeps all the air in the dough, where it belongs. And I’m bringing it up here because at this point in the process, the dough is pulled and folded twenty or so times, covering all angles. It is then left to rest for a(nother) hour. At that time it is pulled and folded once an hour for four hours. the dough should begin to be looking smooth at this point. It is then set on an oiled counter, covered with a bowl, and left by itself overnight.
In the morning, it is pulled and folded one last time, forming it into a ball. This ball is placed in a well-floured Dutch oven and set in the fridge for a minimum of three hours, up to another day. When you are ready to bake, the Dutch oven is removed from the fridge and the top of the dough slashed with a knife in a decorative way. The lid is reapplied, and the Dutch oven placed in a preheated four hundred and fifty degree oven, where it will sit happily for fifty minutes, at which time the lid is removed and the bread left in uncovered for an additional ten minutes or so–until the crust is deep brown. The bread is taken out of the oven and left to sit on a cooling rack.
It is a bit extra, I know, and appears to be a lot of work. But not really. Not, if you are in the Kitchen, anyhow.
