Beard on Bread (4 page)

Stale bread can be very useful, so it is foolish to waste it. In fact, a sandwich of rather stale bread with thickly sliced onions is delicious. Otherwise, stale bread can be turned into
Melba toast,
croutons, or bread
crumbs. For Melba toast, slice the bread as thin as you can and dry it out in a 250° oven until just barely colored; store in airtight tins or jars. For croutons, cut the bread into dice or crumbs, place on a baking sheet, and proceed as for Melba toast; pack in plastic bags. It is a boon to have both plain and toasted bread crumbs on hand, and they can be kept in tins or jars at the back of the refrigerator. It is simple enough to make them by using a hand grater, but it is even easier to do them in a blender. In the latter case, cut the bread into small dice and blend only a little at a time, which is actually faster than loading the blender jar and waiting for all the dice to sift down.

It is strange how few people, in planning a menu, ever consider what bread goes with what dish, yet I think this is as important as choosing any other item on a menu. Here are some of my recommendations (and you’ll find my recipes for each type of bread in the index.)

BREAKFAST BREADS

For simple bread and butter with tea or coffee and preserves:

SWEETENED BREADS, TOASTED, REHEATED, OR AS IS

FOR
TOASTING

TOAST AS A FOUNDATION FOR FINNAN HADDIE, CREAMED CODFISH, SCRAMBLED EGGS, AND OTHER SAVORY DISHES

BREADS
FOR LUNCHEON WITH HORS D’OEUVRES, SALADS, COLD MEATS, AND OTHER COLD DISHES

FILLED BREADS AS A COURSE FOR LUNCH OR LATE SUPPER

WITH HOT DISHES

SANDWICH BREADS

For sweet sandwiches

For savory sandwiches

BREADS
FOR AFTERNOON TEA OR COFFEE

These breads should be cut very thin, buttered with sweet butter, and arranged on a nice serving dish.

HOT BREADS

DINNER BREADS

With first courses. With oysters, clams, smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon, and other dishes—thinly sliced and buttered or made into very thin bread-and-butter sandwiches.

With soup

Main-course breads

Breads with cheese

BREADS
FOR SPECIAL DIETS

This is my idea of a good, simple loaf of bread—firm, honest in flavor, tender to the bite yet with a slight chewiness in the crust, and excellent for toast. The ingredients are just flour, water, salt, and
yeast, with the addition of a little sugar. It is a recipe I use constantly, although I vary it from time to time, and I have chosen it as my first recipe here because I think it will provide any beginner with the basic techniques of breadmaking. In fact, it is one I have taught to my pupils through the years. Once you have mastered the procedures given here, you can go on to more complex recipes without difficulty.

As I have said in the introductory observations, there are many variables in breadmaking. As far as
flours are concerned, for example, since I know that the hard wheat flour producing the best results in wheat breads is not always easy to come by, in this recipe we’ll use a common unbleached (or bleached) all-purpose flour. And since compressed yeast is often difficult to find and the dry variety is available everywhere, throughout this book we’ll use “active dry yeast” and refer to the measure by package, although occasionally I will suggest the alternative of compressed yeast, since many people enjoy working with it. Some breads call for milk or fruit juice; some, like this one, are made with water. The salt content of bread is adjustable too: I use a rule of thumb of 1 tablespoon for each pound (3¾ cups) of flour; you may alter this to your own taste. There are several ways to knead dough, several ways to shape it into a loaf, and it can be given one or more risings. There is also a choice of washes you can use on the loaf before it goes into the oven, and you can slash the top in different styles or leave it as it is. Even the weather has an effect on breadmaking. The degree of humidity and warmth will govern the absorption quality of the flour and the action of the yeast.

Here, in this first recipe, we’ll reduce decisions to a minimum and put all of these extra factors into footnotes. You should be able to make this loaf successfully the first time around without referring to a single one of the notes. But they will come in handy as you vary ingredients and develop your own style of baking. For instance, if you have small hands, you will probably prefer to use two hands for
kneading. The approach to making
every loaf of bread is essentially the same, and for that reason you should implicitly have this recipe in mind throughout the rest of the book, as I will not keep spelling out fundamental procedures, such as how to proof or how to knead.

[1 large loaf or two smaller loaves]

This recipe will make 1 large loaf using the approximate 9 × 5 × 3-inch pan, or 2 smaller loaves, using the approximate 8 × 4 × 2.

First, proof the yeast, which means testing it to make sure it is still active. To do this, pour the contents of the package into ½ cup of the warm water (about 100° to 115°), add the sugar, stir well, and set aside. After a few minutes the fermentation of the yeast will become apparent as the mixture swells and small bubbles appear here and there on the surface.
¹

While the yeast is
proofing, measure 3¾ cups unsifted flour into a 2-to 3-quart bowl with rounded sides. (Save the other ¼ cup flour for kneading, if necessary.) Add the tablespoon of salt and blend well.
²
Pour approximately ¾ cup warm water
³
into the flour and stir it in with a wooden spoon or with your hands. Add the yeast mixture, and continue stirring until the ingredients are thoroughly blended and tend to form a ball that breaks away from the sides of the bowl. (If the dough is very stiff, add a
tiny bit more water.) Transfer the dough to a lightly floured marble slab, bread board, or counter top.