Sourdough Potato Rye

As promised, here's my post on making a sourdough rye bread with potato and caraway seed. As with any rye bread, it has many steps, but the result is worth the effort. Toasted for breakfast with homemade plum jam or served with split pea or tomato soup for a simple lunch, it's hard to beat. My husband loves rye bread with a generous dollop of peanut butter slathered on top--or with melted cheddar cheese. The recipe uses the rye sourdough starter I wrote about previously and includes mashed potato and some potato water. This improves the bread's texture and helps it keep longer--assuming it doesn't disappear in a couple of days!

The following recipe, along with the one for the rye sour, are from George Greenstein's "Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World," which I highly recommend. I believe Laszlo is the name of the author's father, a master baker who immigrated from Hungary and passed his knowledge and skills on to his son, who shares them with us in this informative book.

Laszlo's Sourdough Potato Rye Bread with Caraway

1 cup warm water, preferably potato water*
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/2 cup mashed potato*
2 cups Rye Sour (see 8/15 post)
3 cups first clear flour**
1 tablespoon salt
Additional rye flour, if needed
2 tablespoons caraway seeds, or more to taste (optional)
Cornmeal or rye flour, for dusting baking sheet
Water or cornstarch solution, for brushing loaves***

In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and allow to soften. Blend in the mashed potato (see first note below) and Rye Sour. Add the first clear flour and stir in the salt with your fingertips to incorporate. Mix with a wooden spoon until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.

Kneading in a stand mixer

At this point, Greenstein says to turn out the dough onto the work surface and knead, adding rye flour as necessary, a little at a time, until dough becomes elastic (about 5 to 8 minutes). Rye dough is stickier than other kinds of doughs, so you may just have to do this by feel. (As you can tell, I don't own a bread machine

You can also do a lot of the kneading, as I did, in a stand mixer. I first stirred the dough to make sure most of the flour was incorporated, then used the dough hook on my mixer to do most of the kneading, adding small amounts of rye flour along the way. When the dough began to pull away from the sides of the bowl, I put it onto a lightly floured wooden board and completed the kneading by hand--about another two minutes. You can kind of feel the spring in the dough when it's ready for a rise.

Place the dough on a lightly oiled work surface (I just left it on my board, brushing on a bit of oil), and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Resting...

Still resting...

Ready to shape.

Shaping: Punch down, and shape the dough into 1 or 2 round loaves (mine were more oval in shape). Place on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal or rye flour. Sprinkle caraway seeds on top (it would be fine to incorporate some in the dough earlier if you like). Proof, covered, until doubled in size (mine took about 1 1/2 hours). Brush the tops with water or the cornstarch solution (see recipe below). Stipple the tops of the loaves with 10 to 12 hole using a skewer or ice pick.

Seedy Loaf

Baking: Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and put a baking pan in the bottom of the oven to heat. As you put the loaves into the hot oven, toss 6 to 8 ice cubes into the bottom pan and quickly close the oven door. (You can also fill a liquid cup measure with a mix of water and ice or use a cup of boiling water.) The rising steam helps the bread develop a good crust. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until tapping on the bottom of the loaves produces a hollow sound. A larger loaf may take 10 to 15 more minutes of baking time.

Cooling: Despite the temptation to cut into the loaves the moment you pull them from the oven, it's better to allow them to cool on a rack until they've reached room temperature. Sourdough breads in particular seem to be a bit gummy when devoured too soon, though that new-baked smell is all but impossible to resist (but aren't all good things?) For a lively discussion on the subject, check out The Fresh Loaf.

Yield: Greenstein claims the recipe makes 1 large or 2 small loaves, but my two loaves were both fairly substantial. A large loaf would have been very large indeed.

Two "small" loaves cooling

Notes: 

*Peel and quarter a medium-sized potato and boil in at least 1 1/2 cups of water to cover until soft. Drain, reserving 1 cup of potato water. Cool and mash the potato.

**First clear flour (also called common or clear flour), less refined than most bread flours, is often used in rye breads, as a source of gluten, which rye flour lacks (without gluten, the bread won't rise). The flour is a little hard to find. I order mine from King Arthur Flour, which can get expensive. In this recipe, Greenstein says that 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus 1/2 cup cake or pastry flour can be substituted for the first clear, but he says the bread won't taste as good.

***To make the cornstarch solution, bring 1 cup water to a boil, and dissolve 2 tablespoons cornstarch in 1/4 cup cold water. Whisk this mixture into the boiling water, stirring until it thickens and becomes clear. The mixture keeps for several days. For a high gloss, brush the loaves a second time after they emerge from the oven.

Making Rye Sourdough Starter

Rye tastes better when sliced with an heirloom knife!

A fixture of weekend lunches when I was a kid was a long rounded loaf of rye bread. My father, a mechanical engineer, applied his precision slicing skills to the crusty brown bread, sawing it into perfect slices with a Bakelite-handled bread knife as we watched impatiently, awaiting our chance to nab a piece as it fell off the loaf. Served with margarine (Fleischmann's at my house), melted cheddar or a bowl of my mother's hearty lentil or split pea soup, nothing could be more satisfying!

Now, years later, I've been on a quest to duplicate that bread, and it has been a journey of trial and error. My first effort produced loaves so dense and hard they could have done double duty as door stops. After some sleuthing through my cookbook collection and online, I arrived at closer approximations of the magic loaf haunting my dreams. It turns out it requires a sourdough starter--basically a mix of flour, water and perhaps a pinch of yeast to get it going. The result is a mixture that turns sour, bubbles and ferments over time. When used in bread-making, it adds a bit of tang, rise and keeping power. (Another fond taste of childhood traces back to the famous San Francisco sourdough loaves, which you can still buy at Fisherman's Wharf.)

Refrigerated starter ready for action

So far, I have experimented with two starters, one using white bread flour and the other light rye. What follows is a recipe for the rye; it's from George Greenstein's awesome Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Recipes for 125 Breads from Around the World (Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2007). He uses the rye sour to make a host of different rye, sourdough French and whole-grain breads. This time, I used the rye sour to make his baker father's Hungarian-style rye.

Meanwhile, here's Greenstein's recipe for rye sour. The preliminary step is only done the first time. Once you've made the sour from beginning to end, you refrigerate part of it and use it as the "mother" for  the next batch. Sure, it's a bit time-consuming, but then, so is bread making! Still, if you love that great yeasty smell of sourdough, as I do, you'll be happy you took the time.

George Greenstein's Rye Sour Starter

Preliminary Step

About 48 hours before you want to bake, combine the following in a large bowl:

1/2 cup white rye flour*
1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon crushed caraway seeds (optional)
1 teaspoon minced onion

Mix until smooth, cover and let stand in a warm spot until bubbly and fermented--up to 24 hours.


*I use King Arthur brand White Rye, but any light rye (with germ removed) will probably do. I haven't tried making the sour with medium, dark or whole-grain rye, but it might work and deserves a try.

Stage One

Caraway seeds add character.

About 24 hours before you're planning to bake, add to the above starter:

1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups white rye flour
A few caraway seeds (optional)**

Combine starter, water and 1 1/4 cups rye flour, and stir until smooth. Sprinkle 1/4 cup remaining rye over surface of the dough. Cover with cloth or plastic wrap. Let stand until doubled in size and surface appears cracked. This may take from 4 to 8 hours. Try not to allow the sour to collapse. (I found that by the time I believed the dough was ready, most of the flour had already sunk in, with no apparent cracks but quite a few bubbles, and the surface had a kind of puffy look to it.)


**If using, grind in a coffee or spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle or rolling pin.

Stage Two

Nice Rise!

Water + Flour + Time = 

If you want to increase the amount of starter, the ingredients below can be doubled, but not more, as the strength of the starter will be compromised.

1/2 cup warm water
1 cup white rye flour

Combine water and 3/4 cup of flour with Stage One sour, and stir until smooth. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup of flour over the dough surface, cover and let rise for another 4 to 8 hours. At this point, if you're not going to bake bread that day, you can refrigerate the starter overnight. I did this and took the starter out of the refrigerator the next day to complete its rising for the third and final stage. Insomniac that I am, I rose pretty early and put the starter on the counter. After a few minutes, I saw that the fermentation, which slowed in the refrigerator, picked up steam (literally!), with little bubbles appearing on the surface.

Stage Three

1/2 cup water (better to use warm water if sour has been refrigerated)
1 cup white rye flour

Make sure you use a bowl large
enough to hold the rising starter.

Greenstein suggests preparing the third stage when you're ready to bake; that's what I did. Add the water and flour to the Stage Two starter, cover (and hope the batter doesn't rise over the top, as mine did!). When this stage has fully risen--about double again--you're ready to bake. But before you do, set aside 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the mixture. Put it in a covered nonreactive container (I use a glass jar with a lid that seals) with a slight film of cold water on top. When next you bake, proceed with stages one to three. The sour can be kept for several months, but you need to feed it a little flour and water every few days to keep it active. If you wait a week or so, it will probably be just fine. It can also be frozen.

Happy bread baking!