Yet Another Challenge to the Mead/Food Gurus

[Dan McFeeley]

Got another one for you.

Just recently, Miriam posted her recipe for Challah bread, which, if you're familiar with Challah, is one of the cuisine wonders of the bread world. Really great stuff.

To save the time of using the search function, here's the recipe she posted:

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The Mead Bubeh's Challah

1 cake of moist yeast
2 cups hot (not boiling) water

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
3 eggs, beaten (but undefeated)
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1 kg. strong bread flour, and more if necessary
1 Tblsp. salt

1 more egg for glazing, likewise beaten
poppy seeds or sesame seeds or extra oats for sprinkling

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water; add a couple of pinches of sugar to encourage the process.
2. To dissolved yeast and water, add sugar, oil, and eggs. Mix well.
3. Mix in oats, blend them in well.
4. Add salt, mix, and start adding flour. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface when it gets too hard to mix with a spoon.
5. Start kneading, adding more flour if needed to keep the dough from sticking, but aim for a tender, moist dough, so just sprinkle your work surface with the flour every so often. Knead 10 minutes.

Let the dough rest a little while you wash the bowl out in hot water and dry it. Go back to the dough and knead again briefly. Oil the inside of the bowl and put the ball of dough in it, turning it around a few times so it will acquire a thin film of oil on all surfaces. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and put it away in a warm, draft-free place for an hour, or until the dough has risen to doubled in size.

Knock the dough down and take challah...if you're Jewish (separate a piece of dough about the size of a walnut with the appropriate blessing and wrap it in tin foil to be burned later. Consult your prayer book or a Jewish site for more details.)

At any rate, cut the dough in half and fashion two loaves. Braid each dough half (you can find instructions online) or make two loaves as you wish. My husband finds it hard to slice the braided loaf because of arthritis, so I place balls of dough the size of half my palm close together in a row, in loaf pans, and they of course stick together slightly when baked. He just breaks the loaves apart to serve out at the table.

Place the the shaped challah in a greased, floured baking pan - actually I use baking paper - and allow to rise again for 1/2 hour.

Note: I've found that any bread will rise better if the second rising is done in the fridge. This takes longer, several hours or overnight, but if you have time and room in the fridge, it's worth it. You put the cold, shaped dough into the preheated oven and it rises amazingly.

Meantime, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Brush the challah with the extra beaten egg all over for a lovely brown glaze. Sprinkle with seeds of choice, or with some oats.

Bake 1 hour or until done.

We like our challah salty, as I said. But if you prefer sweet, use a neutral-flavored oil like corn, and increase the sugar to 1/2 cup. A nice addition is 1/4 cup raisins which have previously been soaked in hot tea or in wine...or MEAD.

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Ok everyone. Your Challah is baked and ready. What mead would you drink with it?

Would it make a difference if the Challah had raisins? what mead would you choose in that case?

This recipe looks really good -- think I'll be making it soon.

 

[Oskaar]

Good stuff Dan.

Here's a Photo of our Christmas Eve party table with very traditional faire. Since we're matching up meads to foods, I figured some visuals would be good to inspire.

So take a look and match your meads to the goodies in the photo, and the wonderful Challah recipe from the lovely and talented Mead Bubeh!

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[Miriam]

Dan, thank you for putting my post in the right place. Let me know how your challah turns out.

Oskaar, a really festive table! Tell us what the dishes are, please, especially the two in the foreground. The pastry squares on the right look like the bourekas that are so popular around here, filled with cheese or spinach or potatoes. That impressive-looking dish on the left, now, is that a stuffed pastry? My spanakopita looks like that, but not as beautifully crafted. And in the white bowl behind it - are those fat stuffed grape leaves? I should think any good, crisp, dry mead would go with that spread, and if the tall stack of plates on the table indicate lots of guests, you would need a lot of it.

Miriam

 

[Oskaar]

You have a keen eye meine Mead Bubeh!!

The little squares are Burek with pumpkin, cheese and meats inside them.

The big puffy bread is a Pita Bulgarska, kind of a poofy pita style bread.

Stuffed grape leaves with some Prsut to the left and some kymak to the right.

Some topljeni sir (soft chees) and some red peppers sauteed in olive oil and topped with garlic, parsley and chopped olives from the Island of Hvar.

Turkey at center of the table with Grouc na touc (beans in a pan), Sarma and svinjetina (roasted pork) and Asparagus.

that's about it!

Cheers,

oskaar

 

[Miriam]

Nothing like home cooking. What I wish for you, dear bad mad old Oskaar, is many such happy parties, with the right redhead at your side.

Miriam

 

[Consul]

I apologize for posting this here, but I can't find the other thread.

I want to try making the challah bread, but my mother is allergic to oats. Is there anything else I can use in substitution? Thank you!

 

[Dan McFeeley]

I apologize for posting this here, but I can't find the other thread.

I want to try making the challah bread, but my mother is allergic to oats. Is there anything else I can use in substitution? Thank you!

Take a look at these sites for recipes that don't use oats in the list of ingredients.

http://www.haydid.org/challah.htm

http://bread.allrecipes.com/az/MirimsNtSScrtChllh.asp

http://bread.allrecipes.com/directory/2562.asp

 

[Consul]

Or... Maybe I could just search the web myself and look for one. ;D

Thank you, Dan!

 

[Miriam]

Just leave the oats out. Traditional challah recipes don't include other grains. I like the slightly sweet flavor and somewhat grainy texture they contribute, is all. Other grains have not worked so well: corn meal is too gritty for challah, cooked rice and others are too much like weekday bread...challah should be a plump, comfortingly familiar and unchallenging loaf...like your own grandma. That's why most folks like it sweet.

Miriam

 

[lostnbronx]

I used to walk an hour-and-a-half round-trip to get some wonderful challah from a hole-in-the-wall bakery in Bensonhurst (Brooklyn, NY), back when I lived there. It ranks as one of the top five breads I've ever had in my life. Glossy, fluffy, lumpy, and chewy, it was absolutely sublime with butter or honey!

-David

 

[Oskaar]

Luxury. . .

We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY we'd get to lick the plate from the Challah Mum had made the week before!

 

[WRATHWILDE]

Right...

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

Wrathwilde

 

[Dan McFeeley]

Here's my efforts at Challah bread:

Our rescue hound gave his approval: ;D

Our daughter thought it was wonderful stuff. Fresh baked challah bread, with butter, served with lunch! Great stuff.

Dad being Dad talked with her about how the Christian holiday of Easter and the Jewish holiday of Passover intersect here. The Last Supper was actually a Passover celebration, with an added twist. Dad being Dad told her that it's difficult to understand the Christian church and faith without first knowing about Judaism. ;D

Mead pairings -- I was grasping at straws here, not having the educated palate of Oskaar. Sweet or dry? I tried a sweet mead and a Sauvignon Blanc to see what would happen. As those of you who know more about this than I do, the sweet mead failed terribly. Too sweet, and the pronounced honey flavor overpowered the challah bread. The dry Sauvignon Blanc did much better, in fact, was fairly enjoyable. If I'd had a nice light dry mead in stock, would have been much better.

Wonder what would have gone with a challah bread with raisins?

 

[Miriam]

Luxury. . .

We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY we'd get to lick the plate from the Challah Mum had made the week before!

Oskaar...next time you visit the Old Country, take a 4-hour detour and come visit us here. I don't know if my challah has the same divine flavor as the week-old crumbs your Mum provided, but I promise to do my best. Sprinkle a little hot gravel over the shnitzel? No? ;D

Miriam

 

[Miriam]

Dan,

Your challah came out beautiful! I am impressed. Served warm, with butter...oy, sounds wonderful. In fact, looking at the photograph makes me hungry! Er, the one of the challah, not of the dog . But I've finally gotten the house totally clean of any bread or leavened products in preparation for Passover, so I will have to wait a while before eating challah again.

I think you're right about dry wine with this somewhat salty recipe. At least, that's what I put on the table for the Sabbath meals. At Rosh HaShannah I make a sweet challah with raisins, and then a wine or mead with some sweetness in it, like my Ancient Orange, which ferments out semi-sweet but still crisp, would go well. AO is altogether good with fruity foods, like apricot lamb or a tagine of chicken with prunes...oh boy, I'd better get cooking. Tomorrow is Seder night, better stoke the stove up and get the gefulte fish going.

Miriam

 

[Dan McFeeley]

Thanks -- that was the first time I tried making challah bread. Making homemade bread can be serious work! Ten minutes of kneading is a fairly good forearm workout. Working away at the dough I found myself humming my own version of an old Village People song:

Yiddish Yiddish man!
I've got to be -- A Yiddish man!

;D ;D ;D

Those were good notes on Ancient Orange. I'll be sure to file them away somewhere for future reference.

Happy Passover!

 

[Miriam]

Is this perhaps an identity crisis?!

Yoo hoo, Dr. Sigmund! Can you help us here? I'm a little worried about Dan...that challah seems to have done something strange to him. ;D

Miriam

 

[Dan McFeeley]

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

 

[Zem]

All this talk about challah makes me miss it soooo much!
3 years ago I had to stop eating gluten containing grains. Any guesses on modifying a gluten free recipe?