Ciabatta 意大利拖鞋面包

I was advised that this recipe would be very difficult to make, especially for a "fresh" bread maker like me! However, I would still like to try it because I'm crazy about its crusty texture with the soft crumbs. Ciabatta was originated from Italy and it's named as "拖鞋面包" by the Italian because the bread's shape looks similar to their traditional sandal.
Somehow I didn't manage to produce a perfect "sandal" alike shape as the dough was really hard to handle. Well, I believe practice makes perfect!

The bread smells very good and it gave us a very crusty texture. It just reminds us the sandwich we had in Europe years ago.

Ingredients (2 loafs)

Sour dough: 1/2 teaspoon instant dried yeast / 150ml water / 3 tablespoon milk / 1/4 teaspoon sugar / 150g bread flour

Plain dough: 1/2 teaspoon instant dried yeast / 250ml water / 1/2 tablespoon olive oil / 350g bread flour / 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Mix all the sour dough ingredients in a bowl then cover with cling film and leave it overnight or 12 hours.
2. Mix all the plain dough ingredients with over night sour dough in a mixer with dough hook for about 15 minutes. It would be very wet.
3. Use a dough scraper to scrap out the dough into a clean bowl for 3 hours proofing.
4. Floured your hand and a baking tray with lots of flour. Divide the dough into 2 portion with a scraper then turn out one of the dough to the floured baking tray. Do it gently, do not punch out the gas from the dough.
5. Gently stretch the dough into longish shape with floured hand.
6. Floured your hand again and slowly fold in the edges around the dough. Do the same with another dough.
7. Let the doughs proof for 20 minutes then bake in the preheat oven 220'C for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

a change of scenery

The before pictures of the outside were depressing - these are from our previous house - loved those day lillies:




Another contractor is coming by this week to take a look at the wall we want to remove. Hopefully, more updates to come.

Corn meal kozhakkattai

Upma kozhakkattai features in my breakfast menu at least once in 10 days. I usually prepare the required rice rava the previous day. Occasionally, I prepare using the idli rava, when I get supplies from my co-sis at Bangalore. On one such occasion, I decided to prepare using idly rava. Just before the preparation, I found the quantity was not enough to serve four. I didn't have time to change the menu. I had stored both idly rava and corn meal packets in the same box. Needless to say, used the corn meal to make up for the deficient quantity. But I was happy with the result. It turned out well and very tasty too. Later I tried using only cornmeal. It was also good. Refer here for preparing the steamed rice balls.

My amma usually prepares a simple coconut-curd chutney as dip to go with the rice balls. Here is the chutney recipe -
Coconut - 1/2 cup

Green chillies - 3

Beaten curd or thick buttermilk - 1 cup

Salt

Seasoning

oil - 1 tspn

mustard seeds - 1 tspn

hing powder

Grind together coconut, green chillies and salt to a smooth paste. Take a skillet and do the seasonings. Add the seasonings to the ground paste. Pour the buttermilk to the hot skillet and stir into the mixture. Yummy dip is ready.