Sourdough bread

BBC has an article discussing if you are buying faux sourdough bread.

Heh. Probably:at least from their lables, which notes they added pure yeast.

Traditional sourdough is considered to be one of the oldest forms of bread and the technique can be traced back to ancient Egypt. It is made from just three ingredients: flour, water and salt. The dough begins with a "starter culture" - also made with flour and water - which is left to bubble up for several days. It is this which makes the bread rise, instead of adding yeast.

to make true sourdough starter, you need green grapes:

Slice the grapes and combine with the flour and the water.Tip the dough into an airtight container. Cover and leave to rise for three days at room temperature.After three days, discard half of the mixture and 'feed' the remainder with another 100g/3½oz of flour and 100ml/3fl oz of water. Stir well until the mixture is thoroughly combined.Leave for at least 24 hours and the starter should be ready to use. It should be like a bubbly jelly in texture. If it is not yet bubbling and active, feed it once more and leave it for another couple of days.

grapes have both yeast and bacteria from the air; pure yeast is just yeast.

however, I'm not sure I would trust it here: we have grapes but who knows if they might be contaminated with salmonella or other nice germs to make you sick.

the tricky part: not to end up with the wrong bacteria. If you have a neighbor who makes sourdough bread, ask for some starter.

and here is the recipe.

more recipes here.

here is a lecture on the history of bread




all of this is making me hungry: It is almost impossible to get decent bread here (I had a bread maker in the USA, but here we don't eat enough bread to bake it ourself).

We do have a "pan de Manila" store in the mall, and their breads are passing good...  but no sourdough bread.

and we have lots of small bakeries that make pandesal rolls. but the rolls only last for 24 hours before they goes hard.

the best "local" pan de sal is Malunggay pan de sal, with malunggay leaves that add vitamins to the white bread.

 But the routine "bread" is full of preservatives... everything here is full of preservatives for a better shelf life in the heat.

we eat a lot more rice here than bread, which is mainly eaten for breaks and snacking between meals. But since Lolo died, I just have pandesal and egg for breakfast and skip the rice, and of course, we eat rice at the main meals.

.............