Something Old, Something New

In a step back from my “Mid Century Modern” cookbooks, this weekend I’m exploring a modern/ancient foodway. Modern because it’s a recipe that I got from The Internet and because it’s quite fashionable right now. But ancient because it’s bread. Simple bread. The kind a peasant might throw together and still have time to harvest the grapes or turnips or what have you. I’m talking about Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread. It’s got 4 ingredients: flour water salt and yeast, and requires about 15 minutes of work. Hours of rising and baking time, but seriously no kneading.

I first tried this a few weeks ago working directly from the recipe that was in the New York Times a few years back. I learned a few things along the way. Well, no. I learned One Thing. Active Yeast ≠ Instant Yeast. Okay, okay rookie mistake. But when you go to the store and the only kind of yeast you see is Active, you figure that must be what the recipe called for. There was no mention of it being hard to find and I’m in a Safeway store, not exactly a tiny, limited options kind of place.
But when my bread seemed to be taking twice as long to do what the recipe said it was I looked into it further and discovered that there is a difference. Apparently yeast comes indifferent levels of liveliness and instant is the liveliest.

So yesterday while Matt and I were out and about scouting locations for Flat Stanley photo shoots, we were in midtown and I remembered that Jenny had mentioned the Natural Pantry probably has Instant Yeast. So in we went. The Natural Pantry is an alternative grocery store. It moved into one of the spaces left empty after the grocery wars of a few years ago. The first thing I noticed on entering was the smell of incense.
We moved quickly through the store, looking for baking supplies. I stifled my urge to stop and look at all the weird and wonderful products on the shelves (Dr. Oetker’s Trio Treat anyone?) We found a baking aisle but there was no yeast there. Alternative flours and sugars of various refinements, but no yeast. We scanned the aisles again. No yeast of any kind. I lost Matt somewhere along the way. I finally found a young woman restocking the organic lip balms and she brought me to a refrigerated case where I found a one pound brick of Instant Yeast. Refrigerated! Of course!

Okay, so I’ve got my instant yeast. But rather than make the same recipe again, my impatience gets the better of me and I go for the newer, quicker recipe. Only four hours of rising! Since I get started at about 5 pm, this means fresh bread at around ten pm. Matt asks if I need any help, but it’s really just a matter of stirring the ingredients together and letting them rise.

The recipe states ‘warm room temperature, about 70 degrees’. None of our rooms is regularly kept at 70 degrees. Unless the fireplace is going, we’re in more of a 60-65 range. I want to stick as close as possible to the recipe, so I turn up the thermostat in the reading room to 70 and use that as my proofing box.
About five hours and two steps later, I have my rustic loaf of bread. It has thick, crisp crust. I would describe it as heavier than chewy. The loaf I made a few weeks ago with the longer rise time and wrong kind of yeast was chewier and tastier. Maybe I should have baked this loaf a little longer? Matt was not terribly impressed, but he was really in the mood for chicken wings anyway.

I am next on the list for Jim Lahey’s book at the library, so I’ll see what kind of improvements I might make next time. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to whip up a loaf that would work for the Welsh Rarebit.