This month’s Daring Baker’s challenge is French bread hosted by Breadchick Mary and Sara . When I first read about the recipe, I got very excited because bread is something which I always wanted to learn to bake. It is one of the extremely well explained – with attention to even the smallest details – recipes I have come across. So I left a comment to Breadchick and Sara that I love this challenge.
After about a week, I thought I should have a look at the recipe and decide when I will be baking it. So I started reading it. To give a complete picture – I have never tasted any French bread in my life. So I had no idea how it is supposed to turn out. V is someone who never touches a hard bread. As many of you know, 90% of breads used by us in India are the soft bread. We have not gotten used to liking the hard crusted bread. Atleast I have tried at Panera bread few times but he just can’t take it. No, there is nothing wrong with the bread, its just that our taste buds are not yet adjusted to it.
With that background, I started reading the post. Well, thats when I started getting shivers. This challenge was in no way a simple one. One read through the post and I realized, I had doubts in my mind. Well, I can’t follow long instructions. Then I saw breadchick had given a link to a video to help in understanding the basics. I went through the video twice and got a pretty good understanding about the bread.
The only thing I was really worried about was, “steam contraption”. If you watch the video, the chef is throwing water in an oven to create steam. Since we have an electric oven, I thought it might create some short circuit if I did that. I was even scared to keep a tray with water in the oven as breadchick and Sara mentioned :(. But anyway, I went ahead and followed each and every step mentioned. I got a bit confused at the shaping part, so I followed the video.
Finally I made 1 batard, 2 ficelle and 4 small round rolls. It took about 6-7hrs. I might not have watched the time exactly, but I went with the volume mentioned by the hosts. The bread was super tasty. I simply loved it. I can say, now I am not that scared of baking anymore. Thanks Breadchick and Sara for selecting this challenge, it was just awesome. The bread does not look as good as it should be, but I am satisfied with the result considering this is my first time at baking any such complicated bread (Well, I think the stuffed buns were very easy compared to this).
I tried taking as many pictures as possible. But after sometime, I just lost patience. So I will post here whatever pictures I took. Since this recipe is too long, I am not going to reproduce it here. You can find the recipe at breadchick’s blog or here .
Pictorial After initial mixing
After kneading
After first rise
Deflating and second rising
Cutting and resting the dough
Here I didn’t take pictures of few steps. Final outcome
I could not finish off all the bread in one day. So I froze the remaining lot.
I baked the pieces topped with little olive oil till it became crispy and enjoyed with soup on the next day.
On the third day, I sprinkled some garlic chutney powder on it and baked it for sometime to make a crunchy toast.
If you are a blogger, you probably know the Arusuvai friendship chain started by Latha and Lakshmi of The Yum blog . It is basically an event where you send a “secret ingredient” to some of your friends. They cook something delicious with the ingredient and blog about it. This chain which was very popular among the bloggers in India, was started in US by Latha of Masala magic .
I have been reading about this for sometime now, but didn’t exactly know all the details. One fine day, I got a mail from Bee of Jugalbandi asking if I would like to get a surprise package from her. Well, who says no to such a delicious offer? I was eagerly waiting for the package and on a Tuesday received a lovely package in the mail. It had a very fragrant kootu podi , Bee’s favorite California chocolate, a beautiful purse from India and peanut chikki :). Wow!!! I can’t thank you guys enough. It reached me at a time when I was so upset about whole blogging and was thinking to do some drastic changes on this blog. It definitely made me feel very good. Thanks Bee and Jai.
I would also thank Maya for offering me a secret ingredient. I was not sure if it was the same ingredient which is circulated or different one. Now that I know what it is, I feel bad that I let down one more great offer.
Continuing the chain, I am passing a secret ingredient to Shn of Mishmash , Manjula of Dalitoy , Manasi of A cook at heart .
According to Wiki ,
Kootu is a Tamil dish, common in both Tamil Nadu and South India . Kootus are essentially vegetable and lentil dishes which are semi-solid, i.e., less aqueous than sambhar , but more so than dry curries. Rice and kootu is a common and simple Tamil meal. In Tamil cuisine kootus are considered substitutes for both curries and sambhar.
I have heard of kootu before and also prepared few different types. But frankly speaking, I never tried to understand what a kootu is. My experiments were mainly the Kannada version of kootus with very different spices. After reading the above definition from wiki, I thought of making something like a sambar with it. It came out to be very delicious, not as hot as sambar , but very fragrant and tasty.
Some more kootu recipes can be found at Jugalbandi , Sailu’s food , Mane adige , Masala magic , Vindu .
Ingredients: 1/2 cup toor dal 1 tea spn kootu podi 2 tbl spns frsh/frozen coconut 1 cup vegetables – green beans, carrot, cauliflower, onion, potato, eggplant(brinjal), tomato etc 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 5-6 curry leaves A pinch asafoetida A pinch turmeric 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract(optional) Oil Salt
Method: Cook dal with turmeric till it is mushy. Cook vegetables (If using cooker vessels, keep dal in bottom most pan and vegetables in topmost). Grind coconut, tamarind with kootu podi . Add the ground paste to dal and vegetables. Cook for about 7-8mins. Heat oil and add mustard seeds. When they start popping, add curry leaves, asafoetida. Pour this over kootu . Serve hot with rice.
Serves : 3-4 Preparation time : 25mins
