3rd Sunday after the Epiphany

3rd Sunday after the Epiphany / Jubilee Sunday

Lectionary Texts:  Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21

Bread Words

The method for creating Communion bread on this Jubilee Sunday is a RADICAL departure from all of the bread baking practices I have ever known....and loved!  It was while listening to "Good Food" on KCRW 89.9 that I was introduced to this phenomenal technique.  Evan Kleiman was interviewing Mark Bittman, The Minimalist chef from The New York Times.  He was fairly raving about the virtues of a "no-knead" bread, something in which I have had ZERO interest.  Kneading bread is an activity that satisfies me.  When I knead bread, I think of my grandmothers through my skin, muscle and bones.  As I knead bread dough, I imagine bread makers all over the world who must work much harder than I do to feed their families.  With the "no-knead" technique set aside, what intrigued me about the "minimalist" bread concept were the claims that Mark Bittman made about the quality of the resulting loaf. 

As soon as I could, I went to The New York Times Website and found the November 8, 2006, article titled, "The Secret of Great Bread:  Let Time Do the Work."  Because I have trusted other Mark Bittman recipes, I was prepared for conversion;  but it was this sentence that convinced me that I had to try the recipe as soon as possible:  "What makes (this) process revolutionary is the resulting combination of great crumb, lightness, incredible flavor--long fermentation gives you that--and an enviable, crackling crust, the feature of bread that most frequently separates the amateurs from the pros."  Having made hundreds of loaves of bread and having tried various techniques to create the home-version of a steam-injected oven to achieve that "crackling crust," I "needed" to try this method described by its creator, Jim Lahey, as so "surprisingly simple--I think a 4-year old could master it."

I read the recipe over and over....incredulous at the unconventional process.  Then I plunged in.  I am going to quote the recipe precisely as it was printed in The New York Times article, but I will intersperse photos of the process.

No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery

Time:  About 1 1/2 hours plus 14 to 20 hours' rising

* * * * * * * * * * * *

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1.  In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt.  Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended;  dough will be shaggy and sticky.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap.  Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2.  Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.

Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it;  sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

 

3.  Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball.  Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal.  Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours.  When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

   

 

4.  At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees.  Put a 6-to-8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) in oven as it heats.  When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven.  Slide you hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up;  it may look like a mess, but that is O.K.  Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed;  it will straighten out as it bakes.  Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned.  Cool on a rack.

Yield:  One 1 1/2 pound loaf.

 

Though no further instruction is required, I will add some of the details that would have reassured me prior to trying the recipe for the first time.  Unlike most homemade breads, this bread is best if served after it has cooled to room temperature.  For this reason and for ease in calculating the preparation time, it was simplest to begin the bread-making 24 hours prior to when it would be served.

One of the assumptions I made prior to making the bread was that I have more than one 8-quart Dutch oven, cast iron pot, etc. in which the bread could be baked.  Just before I needed to pre-heat the pan in the oven, I realized that the only 8-quart utensils in my possession were stainless steel stock pots (not one of the listed options in Mark Bittman's article).  But as can be seen in the photos, that's what I had to use.....and they worked!

Another detail about the baking which worried me was that there was no mention of the pans being greased, though there was assurance that the bread wouldn't stick.  Admittedly, I did use a generous amount of corn meal (on the towel and on the surface of the bread).  Maybe it's not required, but the toasted cornmeal tastes great and it adds a desireable texture to the finished loaf.  While the first loaf baked, I was imagining a gorgeous, golden glob of bread stuck to the sides and bottom of the stock pot.  At the end of the 50-minute baking time, I removed the pot from the hot oven and was amazed that the size of the loaf had not changed appreciably.  I giggled the pan slightly.  To my complete amazement, the loaf shifted easily in the bottom of the pan.  NO STICKING!

After removing the bread from the pan, we cut into the first loaf almost immediately.  This was a mistake.  The texture of the bread was much too moist to tolerate slicing or breaking right out of the oven.  Waiting at least one hour does the bread justice.  It's all the things Mark Bittman promised it could be.  To appreciate this recipe more fully, I suggest that you read the entire text in The New York Times as well as listening to the January 13th "Good Food" interview in the KCRW archives.  One of the possibilities Mark Bittman mentioned in the interview eith Evan Kleiman was using 1/4 rye flour in the recipes to create an exceptionally easy and flavorful rye bread.  I haven't tried it yet;  but when I do, I think I will add caraway or dill seeds to the mix.

It was puzzling to me why I had made the decision to make this unconventional bread for Communion.  There is nothing about the ingredients or about the shape of the bread which really fit the images derived from the Lectionary texts, unless it might be something about the LAW (the recipe) being obeyed, fulfilled.  But this is Jubilee Sunday.  And this crazy bread has everything to do with Jubilee.

There is absolutely nothing about the Jubilee concept  that makes sense within the paradigm of fairness and justice which is second-nature to me.  Prior to being exposed to the Biblical concept of Jubiliee, I had always thought that Jubilee meant a kind of special celebration.  It was not until I encountered the idea of cyclical debt-forgiveness and re-distribution of wealth as described in the Hebrew Bible that I began to recognize the potential for transformation in the practice of Jubilee.  The benefit of debt-forgiveness by the wealthy nations and institutions to the impoverished and deprived is not something that can be demonstrated by economists' spread sheets.  Debt-forgiveness on a scale that matters is an act of good faith.  The gesture defies conventions.  And so does this wacky recipe for No-Knead Bread.  The techniques are contrary to--and defiantly simpler than--conventional bread-making practices.  But the results are extraordinary!  It's the PERFECT bread for Jubilee Sunday.