This is a prelude to some much more serious baking. I made a couple of rye sourdough loaves. I was having trouble finding a recipe I wanted to do and got fed up, so this was sort of improvised. I ended up adding too much salt. The bread was good, but I think it's hard to get anything but a very dense loaf with rye unless you have high gluten or at least bread flour, and this was just all-purpose.
It is fun to grind rye berries.
Though taking it from flakes to even a coarse flour is not easy. Also used some fresh milled whole wheat flour.
Here are the two loaves. Very wet dough. The dough in the red pot had a lower rye content than the other.
I covered them for the first 15-20 minutes of their baking time and baked for close to an hour I think. Came out looking nice.
I also made a sort of Thai curry style pumpkin soup with a mushroom stock made from dried shiitakes, frozen tough parts of the maitakes I picked in the fall, ginger and lime leaves. Also galangal, fish sauce, a fennel bulb, some chili paste, coconut milk and of course roasted pumpkin. Garnished with crimini mushrooms, fennel, cilantro, mint and sriracha.
We also had farro with mushrooms, brussels sprouts, squash and shallots and some smoked salmon to go with the rye. Makes me want some more looking at it.
Wait for the next post if you like an open crumb.
