Sourdough Olive bread

No special equipment or technique required, just your hands and some planning ahead. To have a freshly baked loaf on Saturday morning you need to start the process Thursday evening by waking up your starter. Then on Friday you mix, fold, pre-shape and shape. Sounds like many verbs, but each action takes under 5 minutes, fermentation and proofing takes time. But the result is so rewarding!

Ingredients:

Active leaven – 100 gr
Room temperature water – 350 gr
All purpose flour 450 gr
Whole wheat sprouted (spelt) flour – 50 gr
Chopped olives (2-3 tbsp)
Salt – 10 gr

Directions:

Mix 20 gr cold starter with 50 gr water and 50 gr all purpose flour into a jar (or tall container)
Leave on a counter top overnight (10-12 hours at least or till it raises 2.5-3 times in volume)
In a bowl mix your active leaven with room temperature water
Add flour, salt, chopped olives
Mix everything with spatula just to incorporate
Cover with plastic wrap and leave in warm place for 30-40 minutes

Fold the dough 4 times every 30-40 minutes (depending on how warm is your house). You should feel the dough elasticity increase with every folding.

Leave it on the counter top for the bulk fermentation for a couple of hours.
After 2 hours (the dough should raise about 40-50%) put the dough onto working surface lightly dusted with flour.
Using the scraper pre-shape the dough onto a ball by pulling a dough from each side and flipping each side into the center (letter fold) Leave your ball sim side down to rest for 15-20 minutes

Prepare your proofing bowl or basket, it can be any bowl lined with tea towel sprinkled with flour (rice flour is best for that, but any flour will work).
Make a final shaping into a boule or batard and put the dough inside your vessel seam side up.

Leave on the counter top to proof for another 2-3 hours till your dough rises about 20-30%
Put it in the fridge overnight for cold fermentation.
The next morning place your heavy pan (dutch oven works best) into the oven and heat it for about 20-30 minutes to 500° F
When the oven is pre-heated pull your dough from the fridge, flip it over the piece of good parchment paper.
Using very sharp knife make a cut in the dough so it can raise
Sprinkle with some herbs or spices of your choice (optional), I use bread dip blend
Using gloves very carefully remove hot pan from the oven, open the lid. Quickly place your dough inside, cover the lid and put the pan back into the oven.
Bake on 500° F for 20 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 20 min (or till your bread is golden brown)
Remove the bread from the pan and put on the rack to cool. Let it coll completely before cutting.

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Legendary Russian Rye bread – Borodinsky

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Very famous ballerina Maya Plisetskaya once said “People didn’t invent anything better than bread and butter”. I am sure this is the bread she meant

Legendary Rye Bread (Borodinsky)

First thing first: you will absolutely need this product – fermented rye malt. It is this powder that adds that sweet & sour almost umami flavor that distinguishes this bread from any other. I couldn’t find it on Amazon, but it is available on Etsy and ebay from several vendors. The delivery can be long (2-3 weeks), it may come from Kazakhstan or some other distant place.

Here is the picture:

The rest of the ingredients are all wildly available:

For Leaven(for the night):

starter from the fridge – 70gr
room temperature water – 70 gr
rye flour – 70gr

For Brewing (for the night):

Rye flour – 80 gr
fermented malted rye – 25 gr
ground coriander – 6 gr (1 1/2 tsp)
boiling water – 250 gr

For Initial Dough:

all leaven
all brewing
rye flour – 170 gr
room temperature water – 50 gr
yeast – 0.5 gr (optional)

For Final Dough:

Molasses – 20 gr
Room temperature water – 80 gr
Sugar – 30 gr
Salt – 10 gr
Rye flour – 100 gr
Whole wheat flour – 75 gr
Coriander seeds (whole and/or crushed)

Directions:

The bread is done in 4 main stages:

1st stage – leaven:
- Mix your starter with room temperature water, the add rye flour, cover and leave overnight on the counter
2nd stage – brewing:
- Mix well brewing dry ingredients
- Add boiling water, mix well so everything is incorporated
- Place in 60° C or 140° F oven ( or on some heating pad) for 2 hours. Leave it in the oven after turning it off overnight

3rd stage – initial dough:
- In a big bowl combine leaven, brewing , flour and water. Add yeast if you want the dough to rise faster, I skip it.
- Cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm place (28° C or 82° F) for an 3-4 hours
4th stage – final dough:
- mix well water, molasses, salt, sugar till salt and sugar dissolve
- Add your wet ingredients to the dough
- Add both types of flour and mix the dough well with spoon or wooden spatula
- Cover with plastic and let it raise for another hour

Prepare the baking form by covering it with the parchment paper
Using wet hands extract the dough from the bowl, shape it a little and place into the baking form.
Press the dough into all corners of the form with your wet hands
Sprinkle with coriander seeds and press them a little
Leave it to raise for an 1-2 hours
You can bake it after raising or put in the fridge overnight.
Preheat your oven to 250°C or 500° F
Bake for 10 min then reduce temperature to 200° C or 450° F and bake for another 55-60 min

Lekach – Honey Cake

This traditional Rosh ha-Shana dessert was one of my mom’s favorite. She never wrote down the recipe, and every store bought honey cake I tried in Israel was so unimpressive – they were too moist, or too sweet or too heavy, mostly all of the above. As I was leaving Israel my dear friend wrote me his mom’s recipe which I implemented several years later and the result was the closest one or even better than my mom baked (honestly by then I didn’t remember what it was, but I am sure my mom would approve) – it was soft, light, airy, fragrant, full of but not overloaded with walnuts, melting in your mouth. Absolutely fantastic with coffee, and worth documenting. So here it is … I will still keep that small piece of paper with my friend’s handwriting as long as I live.

Ingredients:

5 eggs at room temperature
Sugar – 3/4 cup
Honey – 1 cup
Baking soda – 1 tsp
Sour cream – 1/2 cup
Milk – 1/2 cup
Vegetable oil ( I use light olive oil) – 2-3 tbsp
Flour – 2.5 cups
Salt – 1/2 tsp
Ground ginger – 1 tbsp (my addition to the original recipe)
Walnuts – 1 cup

Directions:

Separate yolks from white
In big bowl whisk egg yolks with honey
Add sour cream and vegetable oil, keep whisking
Add milk and whisk again
Gradually mix in flour mixed with soda
Add walnuts to batter
In a separate bowl whip egg whites with 1 cup of sugar with hand mixer
Gently fold whipped whites into the batter
Pour batter into greased baking form (batter should be liquid)
Put into preheated to 375 °F oven
Bake for 55-60 minutes

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Very special dessert for very special occasion

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Here is the elevated version of this double mousse. Not that it’s just in a high glass, it’s black currants instead of red that results

Grilled Eggplant Spread

The best tastes of summer in one dish, just grill, chop, add olive oil, salt and pepper.

And if you don’t have peppers – t’s fine too. Actually my mom was doing it with just 3 ingredients: eggplant, tomatoes and onion. The amounts are very flexible, but the important is – don’t use a blender, it should not be pulverized, just finely chopped.

Ingredients:

1 Midsize Roasted/grilled eggplant
1 Large Roasted bell pepper, red or yellow
3 – 4 mid size tomatoes or use 2 small ones
1 Shallot
2 gloves of garlic
1 tsp of Salt 1/2 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup Olive Oil

Directions:

Peel grilled or roasted eggplant (grilled is always better), poke eggplant with a fork before grilling/roasting so it doesn’t explode
place it in the sieve to drain extra liquid.
Chop the eggplant into small chunks about 1/8 inch.
Do NOT use food processor, it completely changes the taste.
Peel tomatoes, use your knife to bruise tomatoes (forcing the juices to the skin) so it’s easier to peel and chop them to the same size as the eggplant
Chop grilled bell pepper. I leave the skin on intentionally, it is part of the taste in my opinion.
Finely chop shallot and garlic
Add salt, pepper, olive oil and mix it all together with a fork or a spoon.
Check for seasoning and add if needed.
Serve room temperature as a dip with bread, the best way in my opinion to consume it – as side dish with any meat or fish.
To see the details click here:

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Mozzarella replaced with feta cheese, basil with cilantro. Happy Summer!

Looks fancy, tastes delicious, cooks fast!

Ingredients (2 servings):

Small onion or shallot
Zucchini 2 medium
Sour cream – 1 tbsp
Chicken/vegetable broth – 1-2 cups
Light olive oil – 1-2 tbsp

Directions:

Chop onion/shallot
Chop zucchini to half inch cubes
Put your pan on a medium high heat, add olive oil
Start frying onion
When onion is translucent add chopped zucchini to the pan, mix with onions
Saute zucchinies with onion for about 10 minutes, till golden color, stirring occasionally
Add sour cream, mix in with the vegetables
Keep sauteing for a couple more minutes
Pour stock, bring to a boil
Add salt and pepper and turn the heat off.
Puree with emerging blender or pour the soup into a regular blender and puree.