Else Østergaard Andersen
This recipe won 1st prize (a trip to Paris) in a bread baking contest "Bread with Taste" held in Odense, Denmark in September 2001. The bread contains top shoots of Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica, and the old wheat relative Spelt, Triticum spelta.| Curriculum
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Ingredients:
200 g grahams flour
75 g rye flour
8,5 dl boiling water
Mix
the two types of flour and – little by little – with boiling water to a
thin dough. Let the flour soak for at least 8 hours.
100
g fresh top shoots* of Stinging Nettle
1,5 tablespoonfull of course cooking salt
5 dl cold water
25 g wet yeast
200 g durum flour
1 kg spelt flour
Blanch the nettles in boiling water for a couple of minutes and let them drip off and cool in a sieve. Chop the nettles and mix in the dough, and add salt. Stir the yeast in some of the water, add the rest of the water and mix it then little by little with the dough. Durum and most of the spelt is added and well mixed – keep a bit of the flour until the right consistency is met. The dough should be accurately so thin, that you cannot knead the dough without having the fingers stick together.
Coat
3-4 bread baking tins with butter. Fill with dough – no more than half
way, though. Let the dough rise around 10 hours** at room temperature.
Put them in a cold oven, turn it on to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for
approximately 60 minutes.1,5 tablespoonfull of course cooking salt
5 dl cold water
25 g wet yeast
200 g durum flour
1 kg spelt flour
Blanch the nettles in boiling water for a couple of minutes and let them drip off and cool in a sieve. Chop the nettles and mix in the dough, and add salt. Stir the yeast in some of the water, add the rest of the water and mix it then little by little with the dough. Durum and most of the spelt is added and well mixed – keep a bit of the flour until the right consistency is met. The dough should be accurately so thin, that you cannot knead the dough without having the fingers stick together.
* Tip 1: With some solicitude and frequent mowing, you can keep fresh nettles in Northern Europe most of the year around: e.g., from beginning of March until late autumn.
** Tip 2: To fit the production time with the above mentioned, you can start the bread baking in the morning by mixing flour and water. Then you continue late afternoon, while you are preparing the dinner anyway. If you happen to be the lucky owner of an oven with automatic timer, put then the baking tins into the oven before you go to sleep and set the timer so that the bread is ready when you wake up to a new day. That is life quality!