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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Flat Bread

Tonight, I wanted something simple, so I made some flat bread. A very simple process, using a biga, 65% hydration bread dough with a mix of AP flour and Bread flour to get a nice soft crumb. The dough was made last night and allowed to slow rise overnight. It was lightly kneaded this morning and panned.
The dough was topped with sliced grape tomatoes, chopped celery and garlic, some Todd's Dirt BBQ rub (very herbal), kosher salt and some fresh ground Phu Quoc black pepper. Then it was drizzled with Red Boat fish sauce and local olive oil, Arbequina Olives I believe. Into a 520F oven (yes, no kettle today) and baked for 14 minutes. Ta daaaa!
Randomly chunked up, this bread had a very nice crumb, with a very crisp exterior, thin crust that you could hear crackling as it cooled. The interior crumb was tender with just the right elasticity and pull. The toppings were just right for this type of bread, which was not quite foccacia and not quite ciabatta.
I plated with a dribble of black currant infused balsamic vinegar and some of the olive oil. This bread, with it's herbal and savory components was very nicely offset with the sweet, almost port-like character of the vinegar and the smootness of the olive oil. I could not be happier with the crumb.

4 comments:

  1. Fobotta bread or ciaccicia bread? ;)

    It looks great and sounds like it pairs well with the vinegar.

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  2. You do put fish sauce in everything, don't you :-P
    I'm surprised that your vinegar oil drizzle doesn't have fish sauce it in. :-P

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  3. I put fish sauce in many vinaigrettes, it is a very good flavoring agent. If you think about all the places ketchup shows up in American cooking, or soy sauce all over Asia, it makes no less sense.

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  4. It does make sense. But you're still admirable for finding a way to put it in everything. I guess it's because my mom hasn't used fish sauce for so long that I'm also accustomed to not using it. Now that I think about it, when was the last time I used soy sauce...

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