No Knead Bread
In 2006, Mark Bittman wrote a short New York Times article about Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread recipe. The recipe immediately insinuated itself into the food blogosphere. Over the following two years it propagated virally, infecting what seemed to be every last foodie blogger–every blogger, that is, except for me. It’s not that I wasn’t exposed. Although I don’t read many blogs, I do read the New York Times food section regularly. I was certainly not immune. I’m a lazy cook, and a lover of bread, so I should have been an early casualty. I managed to evade the recipe using one simple tactic: I avoided acquiring a 6- to 8-quart heavy, covered pot. Recently, however, I bought a 6-quart enameled cast-iron dutch oven, and immediately thereafter I caught the no-knead bug. Luckily, however, it was only a 24-hour bug.
I’m not sure whether the yeast I bought in Germany was instant yeast, but I hoped for the best. I left the dough sitting in front of the radiator, where it was probably slightly warmer than 70 degrees.
After the dough had risen for about 20 hours, I floured my work surface, and tried to pick up the dough and fold it over itself, but the dough was extremely sticky and stuck to everything. The same thing happened when I tried to shape the dough into a ball. I guess I should have used more flour? I coated a cotton towel with cornmeal, and I used a lot because I was afraid the dough would stick. I think I used too much, however, because the bread turned out with an unpleasantly thick layer of cornmeal over the top.
I let the dough rise in the cotton towels for 2 hours, but even though my kitchen was over 70 degrees, the dough hadn’t doubled in size.
I preheated my oven and left my dutch oven (but not the lid) inside for the specified amount of time, but my oven is finicky and the temperature may not have remained at 450 degrees the whole time.
The bread turned out really small and flat; it was kind of shaped like ciabatta, but the crust was tough rather than crisp, and the inside was very moist. It wasn’t doughy exactly–just kind of grey and more gluey than it should have been. Derek said it had a really weird, off flavor, but my sister Hanaleah said she liked it. I didn’t think the bread was good exactly, but unlike Derek I thought it was edible with something on it.
There are a number of steps that I could have gotten wrong, and I’d be tempted to try again, except for the fact that the recipe really made a mess. First I had to clean a dough-covered metal bowl. Then I had to clean the flour and dough from my cutting board, as well as my hands. Then I had a cornmeal covered towel to clean, as well as a large (and heavy) cast iron dutch oven to rinse out. I thought this no-knead recipe would also be no-clean and a no-brainer, but clearly I was mistaken. I may do some reading on other people’s experiences (and failures) with this recipe, and try it again, but I’ll be annoyed if I make so much mess a second time, without the stellar results that everyone else is getting.
The captious vegetarian 