I recently purchased a few books on
Scandinavian cooking and baking and was literally salivating at the recipes and
photographs contained within them. All I wanted was to be holed away in my
kitchen for the next month with a store cupboard full of all the ingredients I
would need to try out all the recipes!
Most of the ingredients used in
Scandinavian cookery are fairly easy to come by in this country though, as with
most regional cuisines, there are a few that I think that I might have some
trouble sourcing in the west of Ireland! Having said that, I was itching to
cook something, so rather than do something completely alien, I decided that I
would make rye bread.
I have always loved the fact that rye
bread is denser in texture but also higher in fibre than the breads that we are
more used to which are mainly made from wheat flour. This makes it a perfect
vehicle for creating the open sandwiches so beloved in Scandinavia as the bread
has a certain stability to it and doesn't collapse or buckle under the weight
of the toppings it carries.
I made a few loaves of bread by way
of experimentation, trying out different proportions of wheat to rye flour, but
this was the one that I settled on and that I found worked best. I decided to
add some roughly chopped walnuts and a tablespoon of caraway seeds to my dough
and really liked the slight tannic bitterness they brought to the finished
bread. In many ways I thought the caraway seeds had an almost palate cleansing
effect making the bread seem less dense than it was. In any event, you can omit
either or both the walnuts and caraway seeds if you are not a fan ... or you
can substitute other nuts or seeds if you wish.
Rye flour creates a dough that feels
stickier when kneading, but don't worry about this; this is the way that it is
meant to be. Don't be tempted to add extra flour, because you will only end up
with a bread brick after baking!
This bread was delicious with smoked
salmon (Irish of course) and also the smoked mackerel pate that I love to make
every now and again. In the accompanying photographs you will see that I actually enjoyed
it with some Cashel Blue Cheese, which was also fab.
Ingredients:
200g rye flour
100g wholemeal flour
100g strong white flour
7g fast action yeast
1 tsp fine sea salt
300ml warm water
2tblsp malt extract (or treacle)
60g roughly chopped wlanuts
1tblsp caraway seeds
Method:
1. Put the rye, wholemeal and strong
white flours in a large mixing bowl along with the yeast and salt and using your
hands, agitate so that everything is mixed well together.
2. Stir the malt extract into the warm
water and pour this into the flour mixture mixing well to form a slightly
sticky dough. You can use a wooden spoon to do this, but to be honest; I find
it far easier with my hands. Form the dough into a bowl and then turn out on to
a very lightly floured work surface and knead, pulling and stretching the dough
as you go for 7-10 minutes. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover
with cling film. Set aside in a warm place for 1 hour until the yeast starts to
do its job and the dough rises to just under double its size.
3. Remove the dough from the bowl and
knock back, removing the air. Knead again adding the walnuts and caraway seeds.
Shape the dough and place into a greased and floured 900g loaf tin. Cover
loosely with a clean tea towel or some cling film and allow to rise for 45
minutes.
To bake:
4. Preheat oven to 220C/Fan Oven
200C/Gas Mark 7. Dust the top of the bread with a little rye flour before
baking in the oven for 30-35 minutes. The bread should be well risen with a
dark golden brown crust. Remove from the oven and allow sit in the tin for 10
minutes before removing from the tin, transferring to a wire rack to finish
cooling completely.
Makes 1 loaf.
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