It is marvellous to everyone to remember the smell and the taste of the food of his (her) mother.
It is a great honour for me to share with you what she made with so much love.
Bread recipe as inherited from my mother:
Needed ingredients: (for instance for):
1 pound (#4 cups) of white wheat flour,
3 fl oz of virgin olive oil (or other good oil)
1 oz of fresh yeast (or lyophilized equivalent)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of fine salt
5 fl oz (about) of warm (100°F) water (or milk).
2 eggs, (one of which you will save the yolk to brush over the breads before cooking)
How to proceed:
Step 1:
Prepare the yeast in a bowl: make sure to correctly disperse the yeast into one (or 2) fl oz of warm (100°F) water or milk plus the tablespoon of sugar and leave the preparation to develop bubbles. It takes about 10 minutes.
Step 2:
Meanwhile, install the bowl of the “ KichenAid” type device equipped with the proper hook and introduce the flour, the salt and then the oil, one egg and the white of the other, the yeast preparation.
Step 3:
Start kneading the dough by running the machine slowly and add carefully the water (or milk) and let the mixture become a -nice non-sticky-dough (in case you judge the mixture is too fluid you may add a tablespoon of flour and continue the kneading). It should take about 15 minutes.
Step 4:
Stop the kneading, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave the dough swell, in a warm place; it takes about 45 minutes.
Step 5:
Then run again slowly the machine to remove the gas from the dough and give shape -with your floured hands- to the future breads.
Step 6:
Pre-heating of the oven (350°F).
Step 7:
Spread some flour on a baking sheet, arrange the formed breads on it and let them restart to swallow (15 minutes).
Slot the upper face of the breads with a knife and apply with a small brush the yolk of the egg you saved.
Step 8:
Cook for about 30 minutes in the hot oven.
Let cool down and enjoy eating that delicious bread.
As I know that everyone is found of all sorts of breads, here are now some variations of the main recipe: I tested most of the proposed combinations and the results are surprisingly happy ones.
For one pound of flour you may add to it 2 or 3 elected ingredients among all kinds of possible:
1 oz of sunflower grains
1oz of sesame grains
1 oz of linseed grains
1 oz of nigella grains
1 oz of poppy grains
etc……
You may also replace 1 oz of flour with either one of
1 oz of corn flour
1 oz of buckwheat (saracen) flour
1oz of wheat bran
1 oz of fine wheat semolina
ect…..
before baking spray some grains on top of the dough.
