daily soap and bread
the day before yesterday i made my last batch of soap and decided my short career as a soapmaker would have to end because while making soap can be great fun it's also very dangerous.
soap is basically made out of fat (vegetable or animal) and very concentrated lye. so you have to be really careful (wearing goggles and rubber gloves) while mixing together everything and you have to religiously clean every surface, pot, container and spoon the lye or the finished product could have come in contact with.
what it boils down to is that for me personally the risk involved simply isn't worth it. working with lye and "raw" soap in the kitchen obviously isn't a major problem for a lot of people but i get too paranoid doing things like that. so goodbye soap making!
the good news is that now - after a lot of cleaning - i can use the huge stainless steel pot i previously used for making soap for cooking larger amounts of pasta.
oh yes, and we took a trip to the naschmarkt. i was overwhelmed with the smells, the food, fruit and vegetables offered ranging from local produce to indian, chinese and lots of turkish/greek specialties.
among other things we bought olives, egypt style sheep's milk cheese, turkish flatbread, baklava, falafel, tamarind paste and curry leaves. so much for local eating. *lol*
and another major investment (at least for a poor student ;-)) was made: i finally bought a mortar big enough not only for grinding spices but for making pesto and indian spice pastes too.
olive bread:
- 4-5 cups of white breadflour
- 1 7g-sachet of dried yeast
- 2 heaping handsful of black olives
- a little salt (not too much, olives are usually salted!)
- 2-3 tablespoons of good quality olive oil
- water as needed
mix the flour, salt and yeast. pit olives and mix with the flour. add olive oil and as much water as needed to form an elastic, non-sticky dough. let prove until doubled in size, form desired shape, brush with olive oil and bake at 150-180°C (do not preheat oven!) for 30-40 minutes.
currently, i am baking this tomato bread and although it is still sitting in the oven i already know i will definitely make it again (soon!) because the tomato mush alone tasted so good i licked my fingers and the pan and i am only slighty embarassed!
Do you see a difference between bread flour and all-purpose flour?
I've worked with both and I think both work well.
Posted by
Anonymous |
4/17/2006 8:49 pm
no, actually not, but i have observed differences in brands and surprisingly also in seasons (sometimes the flour seems to be moister, maybe because of atmospheric humiditiy or something...) and of course between the different type numbers (i mean the numbers concerning the mineral content and thus the grade of fineness). usually i choose the flour according to type numbers and the recommended use indicated on the package, so it's not easy to compare to US standards... but as long as you knead and punch the dough properly, both work just fine.
Posted by
iris |
4/17/2006 9:38 pm