
grilled ham and cheese with arugula, onion, pepper, and a li'l mayo.
san juan island has been blessed with some very good bakery's over the years. but sandwich bread to me, the comfort aspect, i've always had a preference for good old white bread. i love bakery san juan's sourdough sandwich loaf so much that i asked Marc Shepard to let me check out how they make it. i spent a very early morning there and was blown away by the how refined their process was. i went home convinced that i'm not going to try this at home. i want something simpler.
darn i'm out of time and need to go cook some chicken thighs.
white sandwich bread recipe
you'll need a digital scale for this (OXO makes a great one). i adapted this recipe from a Greg Atkinson book by converting to metric volume and increasing the amounts to end up with a bigger loaf.
(all numbers in grams)
in a small bowl combine 315 warm water, 10 yeast, 10 sugar, stir and let rest.
in a big bowl combine 466 unbleached white flour (really any brand is fine) and 10 salt. when the water mixture is foamy looking add to flour and stir with a big metal spoon or use your kitchenaid stand mixer. mix until you get a wettish sticky hard to handle dough and let it rest 5 minutes or so. add maybe a 4 finger pinch of flour and mix more and rest 5 minutes. with another big bowl pour a bottlecap size amount of olive oil into your palm, rub hands together, then with your oily hands rub the inside of the bowl. the dough should be kind of sticky but ok to handle with your oiled hands. transfer dough to oiled bowl, cover and let rise for one hour. coat the inside of a 5x9 bread pan (i like the glass one by Anchor) with a sliver of cold butter. lightly flour a work surface and work the dough into a foot long+ rectangle the width (9") of the bread pan. roll up the dough dough rectangle and place in pan seam down. cover with upside down stock pot and let rise @45 minutes. preheat your oven to 375 and bake for 50 minutes. pop loaf out of pan holding upside down with two towels, cool on rack for an hour if you can resist.