On Sunday it’s supposed to get up to a balmy 39º, but we all know how reliable the weather forecast is. It’s frigid here–my first real winter in 4 years. I’m operating on the assumption that it’s cheaper to heat the apartment by baking things than by turning on the radiator.
So last night I made the Kazakh family loaf from Alford and Duguid’s Beyond the Great Wall, one of my favorite cookbooks, now resident in New York. I grabbed the recipe off of this site, subbed half the flour for whole wheat, and baked it covered in tin foil for an hour. It’s delicious (though a little low on salt) and perfectly fulfills bullet point 2, above. Plus I got to think about Kazakhstan while I made it. Bonus points!
I bet it's so much colder in Kazakhstan
Map via, where else, CIA “Fact”book.
Kazakh family loaf
- 1 1/2 c. warm water
- 1 tsp. yeast
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 c. yogurt
- 4-5 c. flour (I used a mix of white and whole wheat)
Dissolve the yeast in the water in a large bowl. Mix in the salt and 1-2 c. flour to make a batter, then incorporate the yogurt. Then add the rest of the flour and knead, baby, knead, until it’s not sticky anymore.
The recipe advises you to do this in a very specific way on a very heavily floured surface. But if you have a hand mixer with dough hooks, you don’t even have to knead it. Actually, I like kneading bread, but only if I have more than 1 square foot of counter space and a wooden surface to do it on. So I took the lazy way. It’s winter, all right?
So then you put your dough back in your (cleaned) bowl and let it rise until it is doubled in volume. I did this in the oven with the light on. It took 2 hours. Grease the sides of a tall oven-safe pot and line the bottom with parchment. Put your dough in, cover tightly with tinfoil, and bake at 400º for 40 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for another 20 minutes.
Eat with overpriced peanut butter from the organic market. Or Camembert. Or butter. Or honey. Or jam.
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