This is one of my favorite styles of bread for meat sandwiches. On the rare occasion that I smoke a brisket, I always make sure to also make this bread, but it is also very delicious with aged cheeses for example.
Being a Norwegian, I won’t make any claims to its authenticity, but this recipe is based on the renowned baker Peter Reinhart’s recipe in his rather excellent book The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.
His recipe, however, is unnecessarily complicated, and I see absolutely no benefits to his method over my simplified method. And since I’m a lazy-ass cook, I take all the shortcuts I can, while never sacrificing flavor or texture.
I have tweaked the ingredients of the recipe since, mainly adding a little bit more rye, and using a little bit less caraway seeds. All in all, I think this is a very simple, and extremely tasty rye sandwich bread.
This recipe is what’s called a hybrid, where you use both dry yeast and sourdough starter. If you don’t have a sourdough starter, simply add 50 g water and 50 g wheat flour instead of the 100 g sourdough starter.
Ingredients
Mix 1 (wet mix)
- 1/2 Onion, finely chopped
- 30 g Butter
- 400 g Buttermilk (kjernemelk – or kulturmelk)
- 30 g brown sugar
Mix 2 (dry mix)
- 200 g White rye (siktet rug)
- 300 g Wheat flour
- 15 g fine sea salt
- 1 tsp caraway seeds, ground in mortar
- 6 g dry yeast
Sourdough
- 100 g Sourdough starter (100 % hydration)
Method
Start by sautéing the onion in the butter. When translucent, turn off the heat, and tip the buttermilk and sugar into the pot. Set aside.
Weigh all the remaining dry ingredients in your baking bowl, and mix well to combine. Tip in the buttermilk & onion (the wet mix), as well as the sourdough starter.
Mix everything quickly together, and make sure everything is well combined. Put a lid on your baking bowl, and let rest for 30-60 minutes to fully hydrate and let the gluten develop.
Continue with stretch and fold 4 times – or use your bread mixer with dough hook at the lowest speed. Bulk ferment until double in size. This will typically take 2 hours, but depends on your room temperature.
Shape into a loaf, transfer to a form, and let proof until double in size. Again, typically 2 hours, temperature depending.
Preheat your oven to 180C.
Brush the bread with egg wash, and bake at 180C for 40 minutes, 100 % steam all the way. Turn your bread 180 degrees after 20 minutes if you have uneven heat in your oven.
If you don’t have a steamer oven, you can put a pot with boiling water in the bottom of your oven, and let it sit there – it will give you almost exactly the same results as a steamer oven.
This bread makes an incredible brisket sandwich <<< Check out the recipe!
