Bread Machine (97 page)

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Sautéthe onion, mushrooms, squash, and peppers stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, about 15 minutes. While the vegetables are cooking, whisk together the eggs, cream, basil, and seasonings in a large bowl. Add the bread cubes and cheeses.

Add the sautéed vegetables to the bread mixture and stir with a large rubber spatula to incorporate. Scrape into the prepared pan and pack the mixture tightly. Place on the baking sheet if you are using one.

Bake for about 1 hour, until firm to the touch, puffed, and golden brown. Serve or cool to room temperature and refrigerate. Reheat in a 350°F oven until warmed through, about 15 minutes.

Wine, Bread, and Cheese Soufflé

Serves 4

This rustic casserole is a cross between a traditional soufflé and a quiche. It has a crust of garlic-scented bread slices and a filling that is made with a dry white wine, like a sauvignon blanc. The type of wine you use will affect the character of the dish. This is a wonderful meal if you’re in a hurry.

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cup (1 stick) unsalted butter or margarine, at room temperature

2 to 3 cloves garlic, pressed

8 slices day-old homemade country bread, (no more than
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inch thick) cut in half on the diagonal

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cup dry white wine

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cup milk

3 large eggs

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teaspoon salt

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teaspoon ground black pepper

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teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Splash of white Worcestershire sauce

2 cups shredded Swiss cheese, such as Jarlsbergor Emmenthaler

Preheat the oven to 325°F.

Cream together the butter and garlic in a small bowl. Spread the bread slices on one side with the garlic butter. Arrange, butter side down, to line the sides and bottom of a 1
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-quart casserole or 7
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-inch soufflé dish. It does not matter if there are some uneven spaces between the slices, but place slices as close together as possible.

Whisk together the wine, milk, eggs, salt, pepper, paprika, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce in a medium bowl until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the cheese and stir to combine. Pour into the lined casserole.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until golden brown and the filling is puffed and set. Serve immediately. This dish can be made up to 8 hours ahead, covered with plastic wrap, and refrigerated. Reheat before serving in a 325°F oven for 10 minutes or until heated through.

SOURDOUGH BREADS

A
nother branch of country bread-making is sourdough baking, the oldest method commonly used to A create hearty, rustic breads. If you have been making the starter breads in the earlier section of this chapter, you are already working with the principles that apply to sourdough baking. A piece of “soured” dough saved from a previous batch of baking or batter is added to the new batch to add flavor and leavening to the baked loaf. In the world of natural starters, it is interesting to note that many people will eat only breads made from natural leavenings, as they consider breads made with commercial yeasts lacking in the proper taste, texture, and nutrition. The sourdough method of raising bread, known as
préfermentation
in France, is almost as old as bread itself. It is quite a fragile process, as natural leaveners are constantly responding to ever-changing conditions in their environment.

Although sourdough breads are made all over the world, the recipes I include here are in the American sourdough tradition. They hark back to the days when gold prospectors traveled across America with their starters in hand, since there was no refrigeration to store fresh compressed yeast. Sourdough starters were the reliable answer to leavening daily bread in the early West. American sourdoughs differ from their European siblings in that they are usually pan loaves with some fat and sugar added. Breads like San Francisco sourdough are made in the European tradition.

Sourdough starter baking existed long before the commercial cultivation of yeast, which is a relatively new development. Despite the multitude of technological advances in the last few thousand years, the leavening process of harnessing “wild” (noncommercial strains of) airborne yeasts has remained essentially the same as when the Egyptians discovered thousands of years before Christ that the barm scooped off the top of their beer vats had the ability to raise their wheat flour doughs. To make a starter, equal parts of flour and water are mixed and then left to stand at room temperature. The mixture provides a pleasant medium for invisible spores to propagate and begin to ferment or sour. Some of the starter is mixed in when making a bread dough, providing leavening and a varying degree of acidic flavor to the finished bread. A starter that has become heavily acidic needs to be “fed” to dilute the acidity, as strong acidity can inhibit rising power.

Before cultivated yeast was available, bakers used various starter methods, such as salt rising (a milk, cornmeal, sugar, and salt mixture was heated and then left to stand at room temperature), raw or mashed potato starters, starters activated with dry hops, or yeast-rich frothy barm skimmed off of beer and ale and then propagated in carbohydrate-rich potato water.

Wild yeast sourdough is a fermentation notorious for its temperamental results. Some geographic locations are better than others for getting a stronger starter. Pollution is one thing that seems to decrease wild yeast potency, so if your starter batter does not activate with bubbles within a few days, a pinch of cultivated yeast will need to be added to attract the wild yeasts. Depending on your “catch,” your starter can be delicious or terrible. Many baking aficionados simply get some starter from a friend who is cultivating some, as it is so much easier and more predictable than catching your own from scratch. Sourdough culture requires a lot of observation and flexibility from its devotees.

The secret to sourdough baking and to controlling a starter is time, and plenty of it. A starter, also known as a “mother” or a “chef,” is left to ripen at room temperature for many days to develop the desired degree of sourness, which differs for every baker and for every type of bread. In between feedings—the periodic additions of flour and liquid to a starter—the sugars in the flour break down, producing pungent acids that give the bread its distinct flavor. The starter bubbles and expands with enzyme action and smells like an earthy perfume, slightly sour and apple-like, from the malolactic fermentation. (A batch that smells bad must be thrown out because it has been contaminated by another strain of bacteria, and the process must be started over.) This is, incidentally, the same bacterial-acid conversion process that occurs in winemaking, a fact I discovered when a wine merchant was sniffing at the various starters I had bubbling away in the bakery one day, and noted the similarity in scents. Once you use some of this liquidy starter in baking, you can continue to keep and feed the remaining starter, or you can remove a piece from the dough and use a portion of that the next time. You can end up with a great loaf of bread and keep a wonderful starter going from a very small initial amount of starter. Starters are slowly built by adding fresh flour and water, usually over the course of a few days to a week, reactivating the starter and making it fresh and strong again. Ingredients such as ground ginger, cumin, caraway seeds, onion, apple, honey, sugar, or yogurt can be added as a boost, encouraging the activity of the bacteria. You may also choose to discard any remaining starter each time you bake, and make your starter fresh each time.