Jumping On the Bandwagon.

All throughout my life, I’ve never been much of one to jump on the bandwagon just because.

Case in point: Twilight? I’ve never (and don’t plan to ever) read the books or see any of the movies. Facebook? I don’t use it. Eat, Pray, Love/any of Dan Brown’s novel? I don’t ever plan to read any of it. Sex and the City? I’ve never seen an episode or any of the movies. 300/Transformers/insert-megahyped-up-movies-titles-that-aren’t-my-style? You guessed it- I’ve never seen any of them either. (Okayy, at this point, even I’m asking myself what movies I’ve actually seen.)

So yeahhh, be it books, movies or social media sites that confuse the hell out of me, I’m kinda one of those annoying people who needs to have a compelling reason to be on a bandwagon before I even get on it.

But that kinda all went out the window when I started hearing so much about Michael Ruhlman’s newest book, Ratio, a book all about the basic ratios that are the backbones of recipes.

All of a sudden, it didn’t matter that I didn’t own any of Michael Ruhlman’s other books or that I very rarely ever follow recipes to a T. I just needed to get my hands on Ratio and see what all the fuss was about.

So when the book finally arrived at my door step (thank you, Amazon!), I couldn’t put it down.

And when I got the section on bread and saw a recipe for roasted garlic and rosemary bread, I couldn’t put it down fast enough to get into the kitchen to start making it.

And could you really blame me? I mean, garlic roasted into mellowed sweetness, aromatic rosemary finely chopped and kneaded into lean, rustic dough- just reading the recipe had me dreaming of how flavourful this loaf would be.

Thankfully, the loaf truly was everything I had dreamt it would be- rustic, a light and airy crumb, crisp and golden crust with such incredibly and intense flavour from the roasted garlic and rosemary, doused generously with extra virgin olive oil and flecked with coarse sea salt.

If the speed in which this loaf disappeared is any testimonial to how good it was- there was barely a quarter of the loaf left by the end of the day- this was one pretty damned good loaf of bread.

As for me, happy as I was with this bread, this is one bandwagon I’m even happier to have jumped on with both feet in.

Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Bread [adapted from Michael Ruhlman's Ratio]

Note: I upped the garlic on this one from one heads to two and plain flour instead of bread flour because I didn’t have any bread flour on hand and it worked beautifully. This bread, and I know I’ve said it a million times in this post, is really, really good. I definitely will make this again, no doubt about that although I’ll have to find out how good this would be with more roasted garlic and sauteed mushrooms. Oh and if you’re thinking about checking Ratio out? You’ll have no regrets doing so- it’s such a great book that explains ratios that form recipes and why they work the way they do, it really is a book of endless possibilities.

Ingredients
2 heads of garlic, unpeeled and left whole
4 springs of rosemary, leaves finely chopped
560g plain flour
340g water
2 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
Olive oil
Sea salt

1. Preheat the oven at 175C. Drizzle the garlic heads with olive oil. Wrap the garlic in foil and roast for about 20 minutes or until tender. Pop the garlic out of their cloves and mash them into a paste with a fork.
2. Measure the flour, water and salt out into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the water to allow it to dissolve. Add the mashed garlic and chopped rosemary and mix all the ingredients together until the dough comes together. Continue mixing until the dough comes together smooth and elastic. To test the dough, take a chunk of the dough and stretch it thinly into a translucent sheet. If it stretches without tearing, it’s ready. If not, keep mixing and testing until it does so.
3. Cover the bowl in plastic wrap and let the dough sit for about an hour, until it rises to twice its size. The dough should offer some resistance when you press a finger lightly into it. If it springs back, allow it to rise longer.
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it slightly. Cover the dough with a damp tea towel and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Shape the dough into a rectangle, folding the dough once lengthwise and tucking the ends in. Turn the dough cease side down and place on a grease baking tray. Let the dough proof for an hour. Coat the dough with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt before baking.
6. Preheat the oven at 225C. Bake the loaf for 10 minutes before reducing the temperature to 180C and continue baking for another 30 to 40 minutes until the bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Make one incredible loaf

Posted by thecoffeesnob on July 3, 2011

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