The Sandpoint Eater: Morning stretches

By Marcia Pilgeram
reader Columnist

My oldest offspring, Ryanne, is a talented and prolific baker, who always arrives with a boule or two of her lovely, crusty sourdough bread. A couple of months ago, she was planning a weekend here, so I asked her to bring along some sourdough starter for my friend Nate. While the starter sat in the fridge waiting for a Monday morning delivery, I spent the weekend eating sourdough toast slathered in Irish butter and praising my daughter’s bread making skills.

Ryanne began telling me how I needed my own sourdough starter and encouraged me to give it a try. By Day 3, she’d worn me down, so from the starter set aside for Nate, and under protest, Ryanne created a new batch just for me.  

When we first locked down with the dreaded COVID, I joined a couple of Facebook pages for professional and semi-professional bakers. Though I love to bake, I never had an interest in the science of raising and maintaining a starter. The longer we were in lockdown, the more pictures of wholesome-looking bakers and their perfectly crafted sourdough loaves popped up on my social media platforms. Still, I had no interest in joining the growing cult of sourdough breadmakers.

I blame Ryanne for my newest obsession. Don’t get me wrong; it could be worse. I refuse to buy into the whole sourdough craze, including myriad starters and accessories hawked by Williams-Sonoma, King Arthur Flour, Sur la Table and Amazon. I usually am not one to quibble, but the amount of money these bread makers are willing to drop into this baking craze is mind-boggling.  

I already had a few tools of the trade: a metric food scale, bench scrapers and thermometers. I don’t have a lame (using for scoring the risen loaves before baking), nor any cloth-lined banneton baskets for proofing. And I don’t own a heavy duty, fancy Dutch oven for baking. But I have a multi-purpose box cutter that works fine for scoring, flour sack towels and bowls in every shape and size that work for proofing. My trusty old turkey roasters work fine and yield a golden, crusty round of sourdough every time.

Though I lack the hardware, I’ve picked up the vernacular: mother culture, hydration, fermentation, bulk proofing, retard, feed and discard, hooch, crumb and more. 

I’ve often said I don’t have time for a pet. Honestly, the same might be said about sourdough. I hadn’t counted on how much time one must devote to this affinity. From lingering thought to finished loaf, it takes more than two days:

1. The starter comes out of the fridge and needs to warm up at room temperature (about a day).

2. The flour and water are added, sitting for an hour or so.

3. Salt and additional water are added (all carefully measured in grams), and then stretching and folding begins (I’m a very early riser, so I am at it quite early in the morning). The dough is stretched four times, in four rotations, 30 minutes apart.

4. The dough is covered to rise (I have two hours to run errands). In a food emergency, I’ve learned I can hightail it to Yoke’s and back in time for the next 30-minute stretch (which saves a lot of money).

Once the dough has risen, it goes in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, I line bowls with flour cloth towels, divide the dough and shape it. Shaping requires a lot of rolling it back and forth on the cupboard to form tight tension. Then, it’s given a light dusting of flour, and the round side goes down in the bowl. It’s covered again and spends yet another night in the fridge.

Finally, on Day 3, I bounced out of bed, eagerly anticipating the baking day! The oven and pans are preheated to 450 degrees, and the boules are inverted onto a piece of parchment paper, then quickly and (semi) artfully scored. Right after I score, I remember that I forgot to dust with flour first — purely aesthetic, but still.

The bread is quickly lowered into the hot waiting pan, covered with the tight-fitting lid, cooked for 25 minutes, the lid removed and then an additional 20 minutes spent turning a beautiful bronze and filling the kitchen with a heavenly fragrance.  

The hardest part of labor-intensive bread making is waiting for it to cool before slathering the first bite with a slab of Irish butter.

I usually whip up a batch of soup while the bread is baking and cooling, and this roasted red pepper soup is perfectly flavored for bread dunking. If you have all day, you can roast the peppers in between the morning stretches. If not, the jarred variety will do quite nicely, because either way, we cannot live on bread alone.

Red pepper bisque recipe
Serves 4-6

This basic recipe loves substitutions. You can add finely chopped, cooked chicken or shrimp. Or extra garnish of toasted sourdough croutons and Parmesan cheese.

Ingredients:

• 4 red peppers, blistered, peeled and chopped (see below)

• Or: 2 8-ounce jars of roasted red peppers

• 1 additional red pepper, finely chopped

• 1 large onion, chopped

• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped

• 2 tbs butter

• 2 cloves garlic

• 3 cups vegetable or chicken stock, divided

• 2 cups half-and-half cream

• 1 tsp salt

• ½ tsp white pepper

• Finely chopped parsley for garnish.

Directions:

Broil peppers, about 3-4 inches from flame, until skins blister, about 5 minutes. With tongs, rotate peppers a quarter turn. Rotate until all sides are blistered and blackened. Immediately seal peppers in a plastic sack, rest for 15-20 minutes. Peel and discard charred skin. Remove stems and seeds and chop. Set aside

In a large saucepan, saute red pepper, onion, carrots, in butter until tender, add garlic and continue to cook until garlic is soft. 

In a blender (or with an immersion stick) combine the saute mixture, 2 cups broth and roasted peppers (or the jarred peppers); cover and process until smooth. Return to the pan. Add any finely chopped protein at this time. 

Whisk in the cream and remaining broth. Heat, add the salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle lightly with parsley.