Ciabatta

A very wet dough folded rather than kneaded, handled as little as possible.

Vegan.

Ingredients

Biga

• 200 g strong white flour
• 120 ml water
• 1 g dried yeast

Dough

• 400 g strong white flour
• 360 ml water
• 4 g dried yeast
• 14 g salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

1. Mix the biga ingredients to a stiff lump and leave it covered at room temperature for 16 hours. It will smell sour and collapse when pushed.
2. Mix the biga with the dough flour, water and yeast and leave it 30 minutes before adding the salt and oil.
3. THE DOUGH IS ABOUT 80% WATER AND IS SUPPOSED TO BE UNMANAGEABLE. It will not come together in a ball, it will not knead, and adding flour until it does gives you a perfectly ordinary white loaf instead of this one.
4. Instead, FOLD IT. With a wet hand, reach under one side, stretch it up and fold it over the middle. Turn the bowl a quarter and repeat, four times. Rest 30 minutes. Do that four times in all, over two hours.
5. By the last fold it will hold together and feel alive.
6. Tip it onto a heavily floured cloth — tip, do not scrape or shape. Cut it into two or three rough rectangles with a scraper and leave them 45 minutes.
7. Lift each onto a hot tray with as little handling as you can; the bubbles you knock out do not come back.
8. Bake at 240C with a tray of water in the oven for 25 minutes, until deep brown and hollow underneath.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes