Wow, its been a while since I have made a loaf of bread. I wanted to make a no-knead bread recipe. So I looked around for it in my Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I found the version 2.0 of the recipe in the January/February 2008 issue. But that version uses white vinegar and lager. Which I did not want to use. I wanted it to be a pure sourdough and not a simulated version.

It did start off by mentioning that the 1.0 version used a hydration level of 85%. Which means that, for every 10 units of flour, there are 8.5 units of water. I decided to stop right there with the instructions and see where a pure 85% hydration level would take me. My starter mixture uses 96 grams of flour and 132 grams of water (a whopping 137.5%). I pour the usually discarded starter into a bowl and measure it. It comes out to 207 grams. I then added 300 grams of flour. Next, I needed to figure out how much water to add to bring the resultant hydration down to 85%.

if starter=207g,
then w=207*132/(132+96), f=207*(1-132/(132+96))
then w=120g, f=87g

adding 300g flour, then f=(300+87)=387
water is 85% hydration, then w=387*0.85=329

solving for x,
then w=(x+120)=329
x=209

the final weights would turn out to be: w=(209+120)=329, f=(300+87)=387

I put the mixture into a bowl and then covered it with saran wrap. I left the bowl in the oven with the light left on for six hours. After that amount of time, it certainly looked like the yeast is active and working. I floured a kitchen table, scraped the dough out on the table, and rolled it out into a ball. However, the dough was incredibly sticky! So I went off script again and kneaded some more flour into the dough. I should have at least recorded how much was used. Next time, for sure. I can only note that the mixture was still sticky — just not incredibly sticky.

I completely lined my Le Creuset Dutch oven with parchment paper. A cylinder for the sides and a sheet on the bottom. I placed the ball of dough into the Dutch oven and let it rise a second time in the oven. After a couple of hours, I turned the oven on to 450. And after twenty minutes of cooking time, I dumped the loaf out and removed the paper. I put it back into the oven for another 40 minutes (after turning the temperature down to 350 after the bread was nice and brown).

One of the simplest recipes that I know is for Salmon Rice. This was inspired by one of the dishes in IBM Japan’s cafeteria. To make it, I measure out a rice-maker cup of rice into the bowl and wash it out. Although, to be honest, you can skip that step if you want. I then fill up the bowl with water to the line marked “1”. I put in some salt (so that hopefully it will dissolve and soak into the grains) and some unfiltered nigori saki. I then put a piece of salmon on top of it and press the start button. The beauty of this method is that I do not have to defrost the fish. It is fully cooked by the time my Zojirushi fuzzy logic induction rice cooker is done.

Just add cracked black pepper when it is done and eat.

I am not a purist. I mix the rice up good…