The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [46]
If you are familiar with classical dosas and want to make them more like they do in Kerala, prepare the batter with whole wheat pastry flour. Let it stand overnight. Put a spoonful of batter in the middle of a slightly cooler than medium-hot griddle, and use the back of the spoon to spread the batter thin in a clockwise spiral.
If the batter picks up—comes away from the griddle following your spoon—lower the heat a little. Use another spoon or your spatula to scatter a few drops of oil on the top of the dosa, and at any edge that threatens to stick. As soon as the dosa pulls away from the pan, it is ready to turn over. Cook on both sides until crispy.
Dosas can be good either thin and crisp or a little thicker and soft. They are cooked through if there’s no sizzling sound when you press them with the back of the spatula.
Makes 8 to 12 12-inch dosas.
By the way, if you are tempted to try to make these into thick American-style pancakes, be advised: the desem will not let itself become caky in this form. If you like hefty, moist, chewy pancakes in the sourdough tradition, however, they are perfect.
*NOTE to owners of dough hooks and food processors: Don’t be intimidated—this recipe works beautifully when kneaded by machine, too. In fact it is ideal for making more loaves than yours is designed to knead, because you can mix the sponge the night before, and then make more than one batch out of it on the following morning, completing the kneading of each part separately at that time.
Rye Bread
Winter-hardy and willing to thrive in sandy soils of low fertility, rye is grown all over the world, from Tanzania to Argentina. But it is the Eastern and Northern European countries that we have to thank for the great classic rye breads. Each region has, over centuries, developed its own traditional specialties, and the variety is impressive, with flavors ranging from sweet to sour to spiced; textures range everywhere from dense and hearty to light and airy; shapes and sizes can be round and square, gargantuan and minuscule.
In recent decades, in many of these places, people have begun to abandon their traditional local breads in favor of American-style refined wheat products, so that ancient methods are being forgotten. Baking with rye is an art quite different from, and more demanding than, baking with wheat. The collection of recipes we offer in this section is a good one, but it can give only the barest hint of the magic that centuries of artistry have coaxed out of this difficult grain; so far as we have been able to find out, very few recipes for the really genuine regional breads exist: rye bread is a living tradition—and, except for a few specialties, maybe an endangered species.
Nutritionally, wheat and rye are remarkably similar, but when rye flour is added to dough, the bread is denser, moister, darker, and better-keeping than an all-wheat bread. The baker accustomed to high-gluten wheat flour will find that rye offers challenges: the dough can be sticky, tough—difficult to handle and to bake. We consulted Manuel Freedman, master wholefoods baker, about rye problems, and he shared some of his secrets with us. The mixing and kneading procedure outlined in this section is our own adaptation of his professional techniques.
ABOUT RYE FLOURS There are at present no U.S. government standards for what the term rye flour means. If it comes from a large commercial mill, though, it is almost sure to have had the bran and germ removed. “Rye meal” and “pumpernickel flour” are sometimes whole-grain, but you can’t count on it. Probably most reliable is stone-ground whole rye flour from a reputable local miller. That may be hard to come by! If you are fond of rye breads and don’t find flour you like close to home, it might be worth grinding your own, because whole rye flour needs to be fresh. Once ground, rye deteriorates even faster than whole wheat; buy or grind just what you can use in five to six weeks, and store it in the