Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread Recipe

This post is not about bread, really.

I was in Switzerland last month, teaching. My ex-husband is from Switzerland. I did not want to return to his home country for fear of dredging up both wonderful and miserable memories of our time together there. I dreaded this trip. And I dreaded writing this post, obviously, or it wouldn’t have taken me more than six weeks to get to it. My one-week Swiss challenge was to take Switzerland back for myself, to separate the place from the person, and to enjoy, alone, the aspects of Switzerland that I once loved.

I only taught one morning class on Monday, and so in the afternoon, with Bern as my starting point, I took off for Montreux, and the Montreux Jazz Festival. Montreux, yeah, to hear a little free jazz, and have a beer, with the Lac Léman and the rising Alps and the setting sun as the music’s backdrop. My Swiss demi-tarif train pass is still valid, a pass which allows me to purchase half price train tickets anywhere in the country, and so off I went. Dig it.

In the middle of the week, I spent the afternoons sunbathing by the Aare river in Bern’s crowded public park, and partook of the Bernese summertime ritual of walking far upstream, near naked and barefoot, to jump in the river and float quickly down. I tried swimming upstream to hold my spot, and, unsuccessful, wondered how Olympic swimmers would fare as I edged slowly further and further toward the red final exit signs, and the poles that I wanted to neglect to grab onto, in part rebellion, and partly in the interest of continuing this relaxing float in the Aare, around Bern, through some Swiss lakes, to the Rhine, and a little tour of Germany, and out to the North Sea. I was thinking, then, in that split second, that that’d be true freedom, really, missing that pole.

On Friday, I took the train, again, this time to medieval Murten, and not establishing an instant connection with this small town, spontaneously, and with one minute to spare, I boarded the last boat of the day to Neuchâtel. This two hour picturesque voyage took me from Lake Murten, through the Broye Canal, to larger Lake Neuchâtel, and during the voyage I alternated sides on the deck of the boat to catch the farms on the port side, and then the hundreds of birds alighting on the tip tops of trees on the starboard side, their wings in silhouette as the sun set behind them. I ate my bread with gruyère and tomato and sipped the Fendent that I had brought on board, and from time to time the captain would warn me before he sounded the horn to signal a stop, and then sometimes when it was quiet, he’d turn around and ask me, “Ça va? C’est bien?” Oui, c’est bien.

Saturday, I pulled on my hiking gear and set out for the Swiss Alps and Grindelwald. From Grindelwald, I hiked for four and a half hours and 900 vertical meters to the foot of a glacier, which I just glimpsed, before it clouded over and began to rain. On the way up, I asked a local Swiss man if my planned route was a difficult one. Not at all, he said; it’s like this, and indicating the topography of the trail, fish-tailed his hand when he should have been roller coastering it. But, as I learned from my ex-husband, I saved my calves while hiking straight up by turning the path into veers to the right, and veers to the left, and then right again, and so on, and veering slowly about like this, I passed grazing cows, and alpine huts selling cheese made from those cows’ milk, and, sometimes, I’d stop to drink from pure, Alpine streams to slake my thirst. And I talked to myself on this trek. I talked out loud about appreciating the moment. About forgiveness. About trying to be easy on myself and others. And I sang (badly), and I even yoddled a little (worse).

And later in the day, I took the train to Lauterbrunnen where I walked under one of Europe’s largest waterfalls (and met the international jumpers who fly off the top of it), had a respectable Swiss fondue (though not as good as the fondue I ate in Gruyères), and at dusk, I peacefully rode the train back to Bern through the two lakes of lovely Interlaken. It was raining lightly, then, and there was just enough light to illuminate the mountains behind the train. I stood up, pulled the window down, and stuck my head out to catch the last glimpse of those gorgeous and imposing mountains, Alpine mist on my face.

I don’t like everything about Switzerland. But hiking this verdant landscape, and swimming in its pure lakes, and eating its fresh, mostly organic, sustainable foods, and riding its comfortable, reliable trains, are all delights that I now know I will continue to enjoy. Yes, it took a love affair to expose me to Switzerland’s charms, but this week showed me that I can make them mine now, and mine alone, and that, it turns out, may have more to do with bread than I thought.

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread Recipe

Note from Banu: My father makes this bread regularly, and now I know why. For my birthday, he generously sent me Jim Lahey’s book containing this simple no-knead bread recipe and a cast-iron pot in which to cook it, and ever since I’ve been experimenting with different permutations of the original recipe.

This is Mark Bittman’s New York Times adaptation of Jim Lahey’s bread recipe, but it is not that far from the original. I usually make a whole wheat loaf, and have determined that 2 cups whole wheat bread flour to 1 cup white bread flour is a pretty good ratio. I also like to add one to two handfuls each of sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, for a heartier, healthier loaf. My loaves haven’t risen so much as the pictures in Lahey’s book, but the crust is incredible, and though, when sliced, is the shape of a biscotti, and not so great for sandwiches, in the morning with a little flax oil or slice of cheese? Heaven.

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery


Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

¼ teaspoon instant yeast

1¼ teaspoons salt

Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 and 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.


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Garlic Scape Pesto with Lamb’s Quarters, Sun Dried Tomatoes, and Black Olives over Whole Wheat Fusilli Recipe

You know you’ve seen a lot of soccer when you’re watching a live game in the park, and, for a brief moment, after a man goes down grabbing his ankle, you think you’ll see the instant replay. The World Cup is both the highlight of my life every four years, and also absolutely disorienting. I’ve been sipping beer at ten in the morning, making friends with fans at local soccer spots, and contemplating traveling far into Queens to a steakhouse for the most authentic Argentina match watching experience. At eight in the morning on a Saturday. There may be something wrong with me.

But, in addition to the soccer watching mania, I have also been cooking and eating a lot. I made bread, twice, even in ninety degree heat; I mixed up some garlic scape pesto which I tossed with whole wheat pasta, fresh lamb’s quarters, sun dried tomatoes and black olives, and I offered a lima bean salad succotash with fresh corn and tarragon to guests at a potluck birthday party cookout in my building. And now that the day’s beautiful games are finished, I’ll begin the blogging catch up. Here goes...


Garlic Scape Pesto with Lamb’s Quarters, Sun Dried Tomatoes, and Black Olives over Whole Wheat Fusilli Recipe

one bunch garlic scapes, about ten stalks
3/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup parmigiano reggiano, grated
salt, to taste

one bunch lamb’s quarters, or spinach, or arugula, or another green of your choosing
1 to 1 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, soaked in warm water, and chopped
1 to 1 1/2 cup oil-cured olives, pits removed

1 pound whole wheat pasta, cooked according to package directions (I used fusilli)

Pulse the garlic scapes in a food processor until smooth. Add the pine nuts and the olive oil, and process until a smooth paste forms. If the pesto is too thick, add more olive oil. Add the grated parmigiano reggiano, and mix until combined. Add additional salt, to taste, if necessary.

I spooned some of this pesto over cooked whole wheat pasta, added a little of the pasta’s cooking water, stirred in the leaves from several stalks of lamb’s quarters (you could use spinach, or another green of your choosing), and tossed the pasta with some chopped sun dried tomatoes and black, oil-cured, olives.

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Foraged Mulberries and Fresh Strawberries with Tarragon or Mint Recipe

“No, no. We don’t spray pesticides on the mulberry trees. We don’t want to kill anything; there’s enough dead stuff around here,” said the cemetery guard in a singy Jamaican accent, smiling at his joke, and flashing a few gold teeth. Speaking with the background soundtrack of the squawking green parrots that nest in the neo-Gothic spires of the entrance to the historic Greenwood cemetery, the guard used the back of his hand to wave me toward the weeping branches, “eat them; go on; they’re sweet. I used to eat them. Now they stain my dentures.”

Mulberries do stain. In fact, if my head’s down, I recognize these trees by their fallen fruit, and what looks like spilled ink from tiny inkwells decorating the sidewalk. Remembering that it was in Turkey, and with my father, that I first learned about mulberries, I collected a couple of handfuls and ate most of them on the spot. They stained my fingers and hands, sure, but it’s surprising that these sweet berries, less seeded than raspberries or blackberries, and less acidic, too, aren’t more popular here than they are. A folk remedy in Turkey, and used to treat colds and flu and even constipation, mulberries possess all the powerful anti-oxidants found as anthocyanins of other berries, and are also high in resveratrol, the phytonutrient found in the skin of red grapes, and purported to prevent and fight cancer, and extend the life span in mice.

Delicious and healthy, I’m devouring the season’s prevalent berries, and in addition to my foraged mulberries, I’ve been enjoying locally grown, organic strawberries in bulk. With berries like this, all you need is a bowl and a spoon, but sometimes I like to enhance their natural flavor with fresh herbs. This week, I alternated adding some mint or tarragon to the strawberries, but eating them plain has been the preferred method. For breakfast, I finished off the last of my harvested mulberries, so I think a trip later today to the cemetery may be in order. But this time, I'll bring a bowl for the harvest that will, most likely, exceed what I can carry in my two hands. Free berries, can't beat it.



Fresh Strawberries with Tarragon or Mint Recipe

one carton fresh, organic strawberries (organic is important, as most non-organic berries contain pesticide residue)

2-3 tablespoons tarragon or mint leaves (or more or less, to taste)

Combine ingredients.

What could be simpler, healthier, or more delicious? Ah, summertime.

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New Holland Herring (Hollandse Nieuwe Haring)

Even before leaving New York for Amsterdam I craved herring. I spent a month in this city of canals three years ago, where herring, smoked mackerel, and nearly overflowing delicate glasses full of jenever, the ancient precursor to gin, were regular staples in my diet, and I missed them. Upon arrival, and all hazy jet-laggy, I made my way along peaceful canals to a herring cart for lunch, where I was thrilled to discover that the Hollandse nieuwe haring, the first catch of the season, were set to arrive on June 8th, two days before our departure. Oh, happy herring day, this June 8th.

The new herring arrives in late spring with fanfare. Many decorated ships come into port to deliver their catch; the most beautifully adorned ships win prizes; and later, the first batch of herring is auctioned off for charity, this year to a charity educating children about healthy eating and cooking. Before arriving at the fish stalls, the herring are cleaned of everything but their pancreatic glands, which are left intact to help the fish ripen and develop flavor, and then the fish are preserved in a little salt and flash frozen. At the fish stalls, the pancreatic glands are removed, the fish are thawed, and they are served raw, either whole and plain, or, cut up into bite sized pieces, and served with a little onion and pickle. To eat the herring, traditional Dutch tip their heads back, dangle the fish by their tails, lower them into their mouths, and enjoy the smooth silkiness in a few sumptuous bites. Nothing extra. No onion, no pickle.

I tasted the new herring three ways: plain, with small amounts of onion and pickle, and in a sandwich. To maximize the sensual texture and subtle flavor of this oily fish, I preferred the herring plain, but in a sandwich they made a filling lunch. These young herring have a fat content between 16 and 25 percent, and so are a valuable source of Omega-3 fatty acids. They are largely mercury free, sustainable, and with a small glass of corenwyn, a form a jenever, they make a heavenly meal. Free of the cloying sweetness of most herring, these fish taste purely and clearly like silky sensual herring fish silveriness.

I’m back in New York now, and so you may run into me at the Grand Central Oyster Bar where these North Sea herring are available until June 25th, or at Russ and Daughters, where you may see me at the counter, head tipped back, fish poised for consumption, where these lovelies are available until I eat them all. Nah, I’ll share. Come on over.



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Mizuna Salad with Cherries, Goat Cheese, and Toasted Hazelnuts Recipe

I made salad this week. Why? Well, to counteract the Voodoo Doughnuts that I ate from the revolving tray in the video below. And not to belabor the point, but I have to squeeze myself into a flesh colored unitard in a mere eight days. Yes, that means a nude colored unitard. Nude, as in, naked. For an audience. Me, naked looking, with a gimpy foot, in front of an audience. For an hour. Dancing around. Gimpily. So I did not want Froot Loop (TM) encrusted doughuts or Kool-Aid (TM) flavored doughnuts, or those doughnuts with chemically blue sparkly sprinkly toppings showing up on the outsides (or insides) of my thighs, really, and making matters worse, even if they were vegan, the ones I ate whole. And yes, I confess; I ate half (ok, maybe three-quarters) of a bacon maple doughnut log thing, too, not vegan at all that maple bacon log thing, so, yeah, after all that sugar, those vegan doughnuts, the bacon on the doughnuts (bacon on the doughnuts) well, I needed a salad, craved a salad.

Inspired by the strawberry and spinach combination I ate at Portland's Paley’s, I traveled to my food coop in search of heirloom strawberries with concentrated, vibrant flavor, and instead, because local ones aren’t yet available, I found giant, mealy strawberries that I predicted would have holes in the middle. And they did. But these weren’t magical holes like those Voodoo doughnuts with the real magic, so I substituted tasty cherries instead. Cherries, goat cheese, mizuna, and hazelnuts -- a perfect Portland tribute. And very flesh-colored unitard friendly.



Mizuna Salad with Cherries, Goat Cheese, and Toasted Hazelnuts Recipe

5 cherries per plate, halved, pits removed
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
salt and pepper
hazelnuts, toasted, about 7 nuts per plate
1 bunch mizuna (or similar tasting green, such as arugula), ripped into bite-sized pieces
goat cheese, crumbled, about 1 ounce per plate

Note from Banu: the above ingredient quantities are estimates, please use your own discretion about the amount of each ingredient you use.

Soak the cherries in balsamic vinegar for a few hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.

Remove the cherries, and add some olive oil (to taste; I like my salad dressing with more vinegar than the classical proportions of 3 to 1 oil to vinegar), salt and pepper.

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry pan over medium high heat, being careful not to burn them.

Toss the mizuna with the vinaigrette, and add the crumbled goat cheese for the final mix.

Serve the greens on salad plates garnished with the cherries and toasted hazelnuts.

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Grilled Black Forest Ham and Cheddar Cheese Sandwich with Aioli and Baby Watercress

Yes, I realize that’s a photograph of a grilled ham a cheese sandwich, but sometimes a girl just wants to be taken care of. It’s my 41st birthday today, and I’ve spent much of the last few days nostalgic over a sweet childhood made immediate by home movies my father recently converted from reel-to-reel to DVDs. I’ve been tearfully watching my innocent tiny self and my loving young parents and grandparents on screen, and assessing my life and the choices I’ve made since my 4th birthday. And yesterday, I injured my foot while taking class, and, while waiting for an x-ray, enjoyed the theater of New York's emergency room, the drunk claiming she was a doctor, the prisoner leg-cuffed to her wheelchair. My foot's not broken, but in ten short days I have to run around on stage in Amsterdam, when I perform in Boris Charmatz's 50 Years of Dance, so it needs to heal up quickly. Yeah, I wanted a grilled cheese. And tomato soup. And I wished I was four again so my mother could make it for me.

I might be having a mid-life crisis. Or more like a mid-life what the hell? Turning 40 was no big deal; I was much too involved in party planning and party food cooking and Las Vegas escaping with my then husband to think about what this milestone meant. This year, I’m alone, with few friends in New York, and a swollen foot. And I just finished Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, not the book to choose when one is watching one's own childhood innocence on screen, feeling ambivalent about aging, and then observing all of life’s challenges on one’s face in the mirror. But I look much younger than my years, so perhaps there’s a portrait of me hidden away somewhere expressing all of my life’s regret, worry, questions. Hmm...

On the positive side, I spent a lovely four days visiting my sister with my parents in Portland, Oregon, eating lots of terrific food, walking along the beach at the coast, and even reconnecting with an ex-boyfriend from college. Portland is a food town, and for every meal I ate locally grown, organic, and sustainably raised food accompanied by locally produced wines. Remarkable culinary moments included the crispy sweetbreads with local morels, and a spinach and mâche salad with goat cheese, hazelnuts, and balsamic vinegar-marinated strawberries from Paley’s, nearly all of the brightly flavored tapas at Toro Bravo, discovering the earthy and surprisingly unjunipery Aviation gin, and savoring a delicious variation of a croque monsieur, served as a breakfast sandwich, that was the inspiration for this post. Made with aioli, not béchamel, I added baby watercress for a touch of green, and with a little tomato soup, I think this sandwich might even have foot healing powers. And if not, there's always the gin.


Grilled Black Forest Ham and Cheddar Cheese Sandwich with Aioli and Baby Watercress Recipe

Gather all the ingredients, changing them around to your liking (baby spinach instead of watercress, aged Gouda for cheddar, tempeh instead of ham, etc.). Make the aioli by adding one small, minced clove of garlic, 1/4 teaspoon dijon mustard, and perhaps a touch more lemon juice to the homemade mayonnaise recipe at the bottom of this post. Slather the bread with the aioli, slice the cheese thinly and place on both slices of bread, add one slice of ham, and the greens. Grill in a buttered pan over medium heat until you've got a golden crust, and the cheese is melted through.

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Market Brunch in Lyon and Parisian Memories

The most memorable meal I ate in the last week was not one I made. The specialty salad at an all night restaurant in Paris, La Poule au Pot, is a simple, yet ravishing bowl of spinach leaves and chicken livers in a savory vinaigrette, and my even more ravishing dining partner, a Frenchman, originally from the south, was the one to introduce it to me. “Ça me plait”, he said, when explaining that this meal is the one he orders regularly when dining here, and now I know why. Elegant and hearty, the acid of the dressing balances the rich livers, and writing about it now makes me want to hop a flight back to Paris to experience the evening again from the start.

Little did I know that this salad had a history among my friends. Returning to New York, I recounted my French adventures to my dancer friend Daniel, who knows the restaurant. “Did you have the spinach salad with the livers?” was his first question when I told him about dining at La Poule au Pot. “Tom claims that salad is responsible for a performance of a lifetime,” said my friend. “Tom said he felt invincible after eating that salad.”

La Poule au Pot is a restaurant frequented by performers from the nearby theaters. When in Paris, and during my time dancing with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, we generally stayed near Les Halles, the neighborhood of the restaurant, and within walking distance to Théâtre de la Ville, where we had two week seasons. By the time the evenings’ shows were finished, the more conventional nearby restaurants had long closed, and La Poule au Pot came to the rescue for many of us, Tom and Daniel included, but I don’t think I’d ever actually eaten there before now.

I don’t know about feeling invincible, but that salad certainly contributed to my not wanting to leave Paris. The lovely evening at La Poule au Pot, visiting my best friend Cheryl, spending time over rich meals in Lyon exchanging ideas with my good friend Cédric, working with the incredible dancers of the Ballet de l'Opéra de Lyon, enjoying champagne-filled evenings with said friends, and unexpected and spontaneous moments creating new ones. Only one week in France and I’m already nostalgic. I’ll be back, Paris, and La Poule au Pot, and with some pretty great memories.



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