Potato-Nut Bread from South Tyrol (Thanks, Salome!)
This recipe was contributed by Salome, who recently joined TFL. She is Swiss, and the breads she bakes represent a bread tradition which is new to me. The Southern Tyrolean Potato-Nut Bread (Südtiroler Kartoffel- Nussbrot) particularly appealed to me, since I have made potato breads a couple of times and really enjoyed them, and I like sourdough bread with nuts. It seemed to me that the combination of the potato and nut flavors would be delicious.
Ingredients |
|
Potatoes (steamed, roasted or boiled) |
400 gms |
Active 100% hydration sourdough starter |
200 gms |
Bread flour |
500 gms |
Water |
250 gms |
Salt |
10 gms |
Ground coriander |
1-2 tsp |
Walnuts (Lightly toasted) |
100 gms |
Hazelnuts |
150 gms |
Notes: Salome's recipe calls for a mix of hazelnuts and walnuts. My usual source of hazelnuts has very poor quality stock at present, but their walnuts are very good. So I just used walnuts.
Procedure
-
Prepare the sourdough starter by mixing 50 gms of starter with 100 gms AP or Bread Flour and 100 gms of water. Cover and let ripen until it has expanded somewhat and is actively bubbling. (8-12 hours)
-
Cook and peel the potatoes. Mash them or put them through a potato ricer. (Salome says she usually steams the potatoes for this bread, but I decided to roast mine, thinking I would get a more intense flavor. I used Yukon Gold potatoes and roasted them in a covered pot at 375F for about 35-40 minutes. I peeled them and put them through a ricer, directly into the mixer bowl on top of the flour.)
-
Place 200 gms of the sourdough starter in a large bowl or the bowl of your mixer. Add the water and dissolve the starter in the water.
-
Add the bread flour and potatoes to the dissolved starter and mix to a shaggy mass with all the flour moistened. Cover this tightly and allow it to rest for 30 minutes. (This “autolyse” allows the flour to get fully and evenly hydrated and the gluten to start to develop.)
-
Add the coriander and salt and mix them into the dough. I then mixed in a KitchenAid Accolade using the dough hook for 13 minutes at Speed 2. There was some gluten development, but the dough was very loose. It never cleaned the side of the bowl
-
Transfer the dough to a floured board and, with well-floured hands, stretch it into a 14 inch square. Distribute the nuts over the dough, roll it up and knead for a couple minutes to get the nuts evenly distributed in the dough.
-
Gather the dough into a ball and place it in a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl.
-
Ferment the dough until it has doubled, with stretch and folds at 40 and 80 minutes. (I think a third stretch and fold wouldn't have hurt.)
-
Transfer the dough to a well-floured bench. Divide it into 2 equal pieces. Pre-shape into logs. Dust with flour and cover with plasti-crap. Let the dough rest for 10-20 minutes.
-
Form the pieces into bâtards and place them on lightly floured parchment paper. Dust again with flour and cover with plasti-crap.
-
Proof the loaves until they are about 1.5 times their original size. (1.5-2 hours)
-
45-60 minutes before baking, place a baking stone in the oven and make pr
eparations for
your oven steaming method of choice. Pre-heat the oven to 450F.
Bake with steam for 10 minutes, then in a dry oven for another 20 minutes. If the loaves seem to be getting dark too fast (and they probably will), turn the oven down 10-20 degrees.
Bake until the internal temperature is 205F. Remove the loaves to a cooling rack.
Cool completely before slicing.
Potato-Nut Bread from the South Tyrol
Potato-Nut Bread crumb
This is a very enjoyable bread eaten without any spread or addition. It has a mildly chewy crust, once cool. The crumb is tender, as expected, and has a cool mouth feel, like many high-hydration breads. There is a mildly sour under-tone, but the predominant flavor is from the toasted walnuts. The walnuts also gave up some of their oil into the crumb, so the crumb feels like it is oiled.
I thought this bread might be good with a blue cheese, so I tried it with some Point Reyes Blue. This is a rather strong-tasting cheese, and it overpowered the bread. Maybe a fresh Chevre? A nutty Compté?
David
Submitted to Yeast Spotting [1] on Susan FNP's Wild Yeast blog [2] (This week, hosted by Nick at imafoodblog [3])