Farine

Crazy for Bread

Dado’s Dough for Karelian Pies

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Dado’s notes

Karelian pies are traditionally filled with one of two fillings: leftover mashed potatoes, or leftover sweet-rice porridge.

1. In a bowl, mix all ingredients. The dough will be firm.
2. Shape the dough into a cylinder (shaped like a rolling pin, with diameter approximately 4 cm).
3. Cut slices from the cylinder that weigh about 15 grams each.
4. Use a rolling pin that’s tapered on the ends to roll the slices into thin disks, each with a diameter of approximately 10-15 cm.
5. Put some filling in the center, and fold the sides in, nipping the folds into the traditional wave shape.
6. Bake at 300ºC/575ºF (or higher) for 5-7 minutes.
7. Brush with melted butter before they cool.
8. Store in the refrigerator in airtight containers for up to 10 days.

Jacqueline’s comments

  • The rice pies are filled with a porridge made of 100% sweet rice to 250% milk to 250% water. We buy the rice at our local Vietnamese market.
  • The potato pies are filled with mashed potatoes (made as rich or as lean as one likes when it comes to milk, butter, and cream).
  • The pies are served with a sauce made of chopped hard-boiled egg mixed with butter. The ratio is to one’s taste. Dado and I usually prefer it light on the butter.
My notes
  • These little pies are utterly addictive and I can’t decide whether I like the potato ones or the rice ones better. Definitely a must-make!

Dado’s Pita

Pita breads made by Dado during my stay

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Dado’s notes and suggestions:

Scaling the formula to a yield of 420g gives four pitas of approximately 100g each.

  1. Mix all the ingredients until they are fully amalgamated. Let rest for 30 minutes.
  2. Stretch and fold. Let ferment for 60 minutes.
  3. Divide the dough into pieces of 100 g.
  4. Put the pieces on a sheet, and cover with plastic, to avoid crust from developing.
  5. Put the sheet in the refrigerator for 12-36 hours.
  6. Preheat the oven to 260 ºC (500 ºF).
  7. Dust the counter with a generous amount of flour.
  8. Shape each piece into a flat thin disk (this takes practice, don’t give up after first failures!).
  9. Let the pieces proof for 20-30 minutes.
  10. Transfer the pieces onto a baking stone, and bake for about 5 minutes
  11. Let the pitas cool down for 5 minutes, before filling them with all manner of goodness. In our house, we like to stuff them with ten tasty ingredients: homemade hummus, leaves of fresh spinach, shaved carrot, thickly sliced red cabbage, thinly sliced red onion, sliced hardboiled eggs, grilled slices of Cypriot haloumi cheese, chopped parsley, tahini (drizzled), and olive oil (drizzled).

California dreaming


Street art in Chico

It was our first night in California for this trip – we had stopped in Chico in the Sacramento River Valley – and I had a dream.
It started with a commotion in the garage at our old house. I could hear it through the closed door. Women’s voices. My husband’s voice. He was protesting loudly. I opened the door and saw a silver white van parked in the empty garage where our car used to be. The van’s nose was facing out and its back hutch was up. Two silver-haired ladies were standing in front of it, arms crossed, barring access. I rushed out. “What’s going on?” The ladies’ arms came down: “Miss, we have a delivery for you and you only. Here it is.” Turning, they pulled out a big white cardboard box and opened it. The side walls fell away. In the back of the van now stood a tall house plant in a large old-fashioned copper pot with wrought-iron handles. The plant had silvery lacy leaves and a pale green stem edged with a downy blush.
One of the ladies handed me an envelope. The message was in my mom’s familiar handwriting: “May this plant bring you much happiness in your new home.” Never mind that mom has been gone four years now. In my dream I felt both happiness that she had remembered, tenderness to see that she hadn’t changed (she always loved giving house plants) and frustration that she had gotten the dates and addresses mixed up because the moving van was gone and we were flying down and there was no way I could take this big plant with me on the plane…
I was about to wake up out of sheer vexation when I felt a tug on my sleeve. It was a young boy. One I couldn’t recall having seen before. He lay a hand on my forearm and said almost shyly: “I am very happy you are moving to California” and just like that he was gone. But not so fast that I didn’t catch sight of a shock of shiny dark hair and a pair of bright eyes. My grandson! Older than he would be today for sure. In his early teens probably and different looking but the hair, the eyes were unmistakable…
I woke up for good. My heart was beating fast and I was elated. Call me weird, call me sentimental, call me irrational. I will be the first to agree that all of that may well apply. But I felt deeply comforted.
A couple of hours later the Man and I went out for breakfast (for real this time) and on the table next to ours in the café where we had coffee and a croissant was this paper that someone had left or forgotten…

The headline grabbed my attention first of course. But then I saw the hands and I understood that these hands were what the dream had been all about: holding on for dear life on either side of the Great Divide.
I don’t intend to ever stop…

On the move again…

A few years back when we moved to the Pacific Northwest, I really thought we had come here to stay. We love the landscape, the food (especially the bread and the seafood), the people, the vibrancy of Seattle and Portland, the proximity to British Columbia, the islands, the ferries, the rainforest, the mountains, everything except maybe for the climate: summers are extraordinarily beautiful but the rainy season does tend to linger… Although, you know, even that isn’t entirely accurate: what we discovered about Seattle is that there is truth to the local adage that when you don’t like the weather, quite often you just have to wait an hour or so to be rewarded with unexpected bouts of glorious sunshine. But still, I’ll give you this: most of us don’t move to Seattle for the weather. However we would never have moved out because of it either and even as I write, I already look with longing at the greenness of it all: green trees, green bushes, green lawns (except in the dry season when they turn to yellow), green everything.
But see, we used to have kids in the area and we no longer do. They moved back to Northern California last summer. After several months of pondering, we decided to follow. Onwards to an environment of golden vistas and drought-resistant yards. It will be quite an adjustment, I am sure. But a happy one too. And as much as I love the Northwest, I’ll be glad for more sunny days and long walks on nearby beaches.
The house is sold. We found good homes for what we couldn’t take with us and packed the rest. All my baking stuff is already down in California (our son came up to help us pack and drove back with it), so that right now this baker’s only connection to bread is eating the loaves stored in the freezer, which is good but not as much fun as playing with dough! I have a couple of Meet the Bakers posts lined up but they will have to wait until we settle down again. New starters will need to be created, a different oven experimented with, local ingredients sourced and tried out. All this plus a visit to our other kids across the country next month is making for a busy start of summer with little computer time. So please bear with me if I don’t post much for a while… I’ll be back as soon as things quiet down a bit.
Also, if any of you are traveling to the south of France this summer, I’d like to point you towards a bakery which a friend of mine is opening this Saturday in Marseille: it is called Dame Farine (it means “Lady Flour” and it has no connection to this blog) and it is located 77 avenue de la Corse (more photos on facebook). Marie-Christine is an excellent baker and I can’t wait to visit her bakery myself. If you go, please say hi! to her for me and send me pictures of her bread!