If you're going into the New Year and your familiarity with sourdough is the occasional store bought bread, you owe it to yourself to try the real thing. There are as many starter recipes as there are cooks. One that is popular is a sourdough starter made with mashed potatoes and potato water from a well known celebrity chef. A great recipe to be sure, but also much more labor intensive.
A number of other starters require one to constantly "feed" the starter, which results in a really distinct taste over time, but for those that may not bake regularly, or get all distracted out in the shop, your sourdough starter will end up as dead as your house plants and if you've used a recipe that takes a lot of time, you're not likely to start another one.
1 package (or cake) active dry yeast (not the instant)
4 cups warm spring water or quality tap water (my tap water tastes like someone soaked a deep sea diving suit in it).
3 tablespoons sugar
4 cups unbleached all purpose flour (I'm a fan of King Arthur' flour for general baking)
Dissolve the yeast in the warm (not hot) water (about 3 minutes), then stir in the sugar and the flour. To help feed the fermenting yeast I add one medium sized Idaho potato, washed, peeled and cut into quarters. Place mixture in a pottery bowl, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let stand 8-12 hours in a warm place, free from drafts, stirring occasionally. Then keep lightly covered and stored in the refrigerator until ready to use. If you do wish to "feed" the starter, rather than start the recipe over each time, replace used starter by adding equal parts flour and warm water with a couple teaspoons of sugar (i.e. for each two cups starter used, add in one cup flour, one cup warm water and the sugar).
Sourdough is obviously good for baked bread and biscuits, but it has other uses, a great batter for chicken fried steak (that recipe another day), waffles and corn bread.
Yes cornbread. Sourdough Cornbread
That looks good. It looks real, and I'd even eat it for breakfast.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's only 0830; why do you ask? :)
Looks very delicious Brigid. Thank you.
ReplyDelete(For what it is worth, I have struggled to find anything like California Sourdough in the rest of the country. I keep coming up short.)
Have a happy new year
ReplyDeleteGood grief. I've made starters that named themselves and grew arms. I swore they were intent on taking over the kitchen if not the neighborhood. I swore off sourdough a while back. Now you have my wanting to try them again. Oh man, here we go again... If I need to run away, can I come visit?? Just until it moves out??
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great starter recipe.
ReplyDeleteSourdough is my favorite, and I might just be able to make this starter. Prayers Up!
I have the aforementioned problem in that a) I don't bake much and b) I forget to feed the starter. My last was a gift from a friend. I made sourdough biscuits (excellent) and sourdough waffles (I prefer my original recipe). I then kept the starter alive for about a month while I got ready to make sourdough bread. Got busy and the starter developed a very "paint thinnery" smell. I made the bread and it was marginal to say the least. I made several attempts to rescue the starter (because everyone on the internet said that you could) and the smell never went away. Finally I pitched it all out. I suspect that, at least for me, unless I was to become the head cook in a family instead of a single working bachelor, regular sourdough is not in my future.
ReplyDeleteIt was, however, much better than any "instant" sourdough recipe when it was working. Nothing beats time when it comes to sour.
As a side note, I've made the KR chicken before from B's recipe. Good stuff.
King ranch chicken is tasty stuff!
ReplyDelete