Food News 32

Start: 95.4 Last week: 88.1 This week: 88.9
Tuesday 13 February: Bread news seems to have usurped food news as the “diet” continues on its dull and, for the time being ineffectual, way. Last week I did a no-knead sourdough, and it was a brick. Literally. More or less completely failed to rise. I was horrified. Could my culture have died, after more than 15 years of abuse? So on Sunday night I decided to go back to the old ways, and pummeled, pushed, folded and turned a lovely lump of dough for 10 minutes or so. Overnight, it rose. So, no problems in that department. In the morning I punched it down, removed the starter for next time, and set it to rise in a cloth-lined bowl. But in the evening, when I got home, I decided to mix my methods. I put the Pyrex casserole in the oven to heat and baked the loaf in the closed casserole. It was wonderful. Light, crunchy chewy crust, good crumb, and that ineffable sourdough flavour. I’m not sure what went wrong before. I am sure that a little kneading is a fine thing to do, and that from now on I’ll probably alternate no-knead “ordinary” bread and kneaded sourdough.