By Marci Lutsky
It is no surprise that the most popular recipe on my blog these days is for sourdough bread, called Sullivan Street Bakery Bread. I published the recipe in 2014 and it’s seen more traffic in recent weeks than in the past few years. If you are lucky enough to have flour and yeast, you need to make this sourdough bread. It is crusty on the outside, light on the inside and will make you feel like a rock star in the kitchen. With only four ingredients (one of which is water), it’s a very forgiving and easy recipe.
The dough needs to rest for at least twelve hours so I always start it the night before I want to serve it. After combining the dry ingredients (flour, salt and yeast), you add water and stir the dough for about a minute. You then cover it and let it rest for at least twelve hours. The next day you will form it into a ball and let it rise again for between one and two hours. Now comes the fun part, baking it! You will need a six to eight quart pot with a lid to cook the bread. This can be ceramic, cast iron or glass. You then cook the bread for thirty minutes covered and an additional fifteen minutes uncovered. The hardest part will be letting the bread cool before slicing it. I baked a loaf a few days ago that I made panini sandwiches out of and it was absolutely delicious.
I’ve been hearing from a lot of people having trouble finding yeast in local supermarkets. Here is what I recommend. If you have to buy it online, most likely you will be buying more than you can envision using in the next one, two or three years. Luckily you can freeze yeast so no worries about using up all that yeast in the short term. Sharing is caring so if you know of local friends in need of yeast, divide it up and leave some on your porch for pickup. Also, I’ve heard from people buying yeast from local restaurants who are able to buy it in bulk and sell lesser quantities to people in the community. This is a great option and you may also find some restaurants selling other products like produce and meats. Essl’s Dugout Restaurant in Pleasantville has been selling very popular meal kit boxes that customers have been enjoying.
Besides yeast, flour is the most valuable item in my pantry right now. I’ve been making pizza at least twice a week for dinner. My son loves pancakes for breakfast so I make one to two batches a week. Last night I treated my family to a Mediterranean dinner with homemade pita, falafel, hummus and salad. A five-pound bag of flour typically costs around $4 and can go a long way in feeding your family.
While these are strange and uncertain times, hopefully there is good that will come out of all of this. For me, I am looking forward to continuing our efforts to waste less, using more of what we have and visiting the supermarket less. Make sure to cook lots of good food during this time but more importantly, stay safe and healthy!
Marci Lutsky is a food blogger at Vegging at the Shore, www.veggingattheshore.com and can be reached at veggingattheshore@gmail.com.
