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2. In a small bowl, beat egg with oil.
3. In a large bowl, mix flour, salt, remaining sugar and chili. Combine with dissolved yeast
in water and oil-egg mixture. Form a dough, adding little more water until the dough is neither
sticky, nor dry. Knead by hand or machine until smooth and supple, about 10 minutes by hand, 4
minutes in an electric mixer, 1½ minutes in food processor. Dust dough with flour and let rise in a
warm place in plastic bag or covered bowl until double, 60 to 75 minutes.
4. Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal. Knead dough another minute, cut into two, then
cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Shape each half into a loaf (long or round), and place on baking
sheet at least 3 inches apart. Cover with moist towel and let rise again in a warm place until nearly
double, about 30 to 40 minutes. In the meantime, preheat oven to 400°F (205°C) with a pan of
boiling water on bottom shelf.
5. Slash and spray surface of dough with water. Bake 30 to 40 minutes until brown and
crusty, and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom (or internal temperature is 190°F or 90°C).
Cool on wire rack at least 20 minutes before slicing.
Why do they treat flour?
We discussed above how flour mills make white flour by removing the germ and the bran.
But flour mills may also bleach flour, and on the shelves you have a choice of bleached or
unbleached flour. Is bleaching necessary? What does it do? Which one should you buy?
Flour mills introduced the bleaching process in some distant past for the sole purpose of
whitening the flour. Without bleaching, the flour has a yellowish tinge due to a natural pigment
(xanthophyll, a carotenoid pigment that potatoes and onions have). The general public, or at least the
promo people at the flour mills, considered snow-white flour and snow-white breads purer, thus
better. Bleaching is purely cosmetic. Although it is not harmful, it destroys the small amount of
natural vitamin E (the amount is so small, the loss is nutritionally not significant). Flour mills,
however, enrich all white flour with vitamins to compensate for those they lose in bleaching and
degermination. Interestingly enough bleached flour, that undergoes less processing, cost a little
more than unbleached. The reason, according to flour mills, is the less demand for it that ups the
price slightly.
Even if you prefer a flour with no chemical treatment, unbleached flour is not the answer—
it still undergoes a chemical treatment before arriving on your store shelf. Freshly milled flour
doesn’t produce a satisfactory baking product. It contains organic chemicals (thiol group) that
interfere with producing a pliable, elastic dough. Flour needs to age for a while. Without aging, the
gluten will not form a strong cohesive bond.
In the past, flour mills aged flour in storage for a month or two before selling it to
distributors. During that aging period the offending chemicals oxidize and they no longer adversely
affect dough quality. Pigments also oxidize to form light-colored products, thus the flour turns
white. Today such long-term storage is too costly. The milling plants accomplish what aging does in
minutes by treating the flour with chlorine dioxide gas, a process called chlorination. Your chances
of buying flour completely free of chemical treatment are not good. If you really want pure, natural
flour with no chemical treatment, buy yourself a wheat farm in North Dakota and a large, powerful
grain mill.
play © erdosh 258
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