Tag Archives: potatoes

bread, how-to, vegan

The Essence of Things

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Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

There are only a few things that are as essential as a loaf of bread. For me the last home baked bread, made with my own sourdough, is already too long ago. Fate seemed to be against me, killing first not only my first rye sourdough, but also its successors, and soon after that the wheat starter followed as well. So yes. I needed fresh dough. Because self-made bread is a delight that can hardly be explained.

And so one beautiful day my new sourdough starter was finished, and ready to be to a good use. His name is Eren… let’s see how this one will turn out. My fingers are crossed!

The bread that we are baking for Lena today is a mild one with mainly wheat. The adding of potatoes gives the bread a wonderful juiciness that helps making it stay fresh longer. The crust is not too thick and not to thin and the crumb is amazingly soft and fine pored. A perfect companion for cheese and a new favourite.

Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

Sourdough bread with potatoes, baked in a pot

Ingredient for 1 loaf

For the sourdough:

  • 10 g sourdough starter*
  • 100 ml water
  • 100 g rye flour

For the main dough:

  • 2 fist-sized potatoes, cooked on the previous day and completely cooled (about 200-250 g without skin)
  • 400 g wheat flour 1050
  • 100 g spelt flour 630
  • 8 g fresh yeast
  • 275 ml water
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 14 g salt

Mix the ingredients for the sourdough in a bowl, cover it with a lid or cling foil and let it rest for 20-24 hours at room temperature.

On the next day peel the potatoes and mash them thoroughly. Add the remaining flour, the water, the yeast and the honey and mix it with the kitchen machine for 5 minutes on the lowest setting. Add the salt and mix another 5 minutes. The dough is very soft and will be steadied by the pot during baking anyway. But if it seems to be too runny add 1-2 tablespoons of additional flour with the salt.

Cover the bowl again and let the dough rest for 90 minutes, whilst folding or rather kneading it once to the middle of the bowl after 30, 60 and again 90 minutes. Now get the dough out of the bowl and roll it around in 1-2 additional tablespoons of wheat flour so it it covered generously and put the flour dusted dough back into the bowl. Cover it again and let it rest for 60 to 90 minutes once more.

30 minutes before the resting time is up put an iron cast pot including the lid into the oven and preheat it to 250°C.

Get the pot (caution: very hot!) out of the oven and cautiously let the dough drop into it. Cover the pot again with the lid and bake the bread for 30 minutes at 250°C. After that time switch down the temperature to 200°C and bake the bread for another 30 minutes. For a nicer crust remove the lid during the last 15 minutes of baking. Turn the bread out of the pot and let it cool down on a cooling rack.

Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

Time bar

Day 1, evening: 1 day before baking
Preparing the sourdough and letting it rest for 1 day.

Day 2, afternoon and evening: baking day!
Making the main dough and baking.

– – –

*Making your own sourdough starter

To make yourself your own sourdough starter you only need water, rye flour and a few days in a row in which you will be at the same place at the same time of the day. And an airtight jar, alongside a small place in your fridge for that exact jar. Maybe even a name for your new baby, but that is not too necessary.

Day 1: Mix 10 g rye flour with 20 ml water, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 2: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 3: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 4: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 5: Add 10 g rye flour, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 6: Congratulations! You just made your first sourdough starter! Put it into the fridge and use it for baking. For example as followed.

Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish, soul food

Self-Discovery and Soup

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To be adapted. To swim with the tide. That is what one seems to expect us to do, isn’t it? When we are little we still are allowed, encouraged even, to be who and what we are. With all our quirks, ideas, dreams… but some day everyday life begins and starts to pull all those special things away from us. Little by little but still effectively. We are supposed to be ideal students. We are supposed to show interest in every school subject we have to attend to, to being able to proceed in life. Maybe that is justified. Perhaps. Somehow we have to be „valued“, to be stereotyped so one can see what we have accomplished. But what falls by the wayside? We want to belong to the cool kids. We want to be part of the „coolest clique there is on this world“. So we start to bend even more and hem ourselves in, without even recognising. Everybody keeps on telling us: „All of this will be better once you’ve grown up“. That feeling of being lost. That imaginary (?) loneliness. But does it really work this way? Because suddenly they don’t tell you to fit in anymore. They tell you to be yourself. So be unique. To trust in your strengths! But how do you do that?

Who are you?

Tonjiru

To dig up all these traits that make us special after all these years of suppression, like precious treasures of the past, is exhausting. You have to put a lot of effort and energy in it and sometimes even a little bit of bravery, just to find back to yourself again. You have to try new things, even just out of impulse. Risk to jump in at the deep end. Get to know (and to love) new and wonderful people. And maybe let go of others that do you no good. Nothing ventured…

And if things are really bad, maybe a warming soup might help. A soup that strengthens from inside. That makes you brave again. A soup that caresses your soul and that is so simple to prepare, that you have enough time left in-between, to indulge in all of those new (and maybe a little crazy) hobbies that come with being just who you are. Even if that means to be a thirty year old woman that dresses herself as a 16 year old teenage boy with amazing pink hair and red eyes…!

Tonjiru

Tonjiru 豚汁 – Japanese pork soup

Ingredients for 1 big pot

  • 600 g pork belly
  • 3 spring onions
  • 3 cm ginger root
  • 100 ml sake
  • 1 piece of kombu (about 10 cm long)
  • 2 l water
  • 400 g potatoes
  • 2 large carrots
  • 3-4 tbsp yellow miso

Cut the pork into bite-size pieces. Finely chop the white part of the spring onions, chop the remaining green part into slices. Cut the ginger into coins.

Put the pork into a large pot on medium heat and let the fat dissolve. Add the white part of the onions and the ginger and let it cook until the pork is done and you have a light brown crust on the bottom of the pot. Pour in the sake and scrape the bottom of the pan to free those lovely flavors, then add the kombu and the water.

Switch the heat to high temperature and bring the soup to a boil. Use a spoon to scrape off the foam on the surface of the broth until no more foam starts rising up. Turn down the volume, put on the lid and let the soup simmer gently for 30-45 minutes. Meanwhile peel the carrots and the potatoes and cut them into bite-size pieces or chunks.

Scrape off the fat on the surface of the tonjiru. Add the carrots and potatoes to the soup, cook for 15 more minutes until tender. Switch off the heat, then stir in the miso. Depending on the brand and kind of miso you use you might have to add more miso, so season it to your taste. Serve hot with the green parts of the onion.

The tonjiru is very delicious when still fresh but you can store it in the fridge as well and heat it up on the next day.

Tonjiru