Rye bread

Side · Polish classic.

Ingredients

• 200g Rye
• 200g Strong white bread flour
• 10g Yeast
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tablespoon Honey
• 1 tsp Caraway Seed

Method

1. Mix together — Tip the flours, yeast and salt into a bowl. In a jug, mix the honey with 250ml warm water, pour the liquid into the bowl and mix to form a dough.
2. Knead — Rye flour can be quite dry and absorbs lots of water, if the dough looks too dry add more warm water until you have a soft dough Tip out onto your work surface and knead for 10 mins until smooth.
3. Continue cooking — Rye contains less gluten than white flour so the dough will not feel as springy as a conventional white loaf.
4. Cover and cook — Place the dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for 1-2 hrs, or until roughly doubled in size.
5. Knead — Dust a 2lb/900g loaf tin with flour. Tip the dough back onto your work surface and knead briefly to knock out any air bubbles.
6. Continue cooking — If using caraway seeds work these in to the dough.
7. Continue cooking — Shape into a smooth oval loaf and pop into your tin.
8. Cover and cook — Cover the tin with oiled cling film and leave to rise somewhere warm for a further 1 – 1.5 hr, or until doubled in size.
9. Heat the pan — Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. Remove the cling film and dust the surface of the loaf with rye flour.
10. Bake — Slash a few incisions on an angle then bake for 30 mins until dark brown and hollow sounding when tapped.
11. Continue cooking — Transfer to a wire cooling rack and leave to cool for at least 20 mins before serving

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• Beetroot & red cabbage sauerkraut
• Bigos (Hunters Stew)
• Bigos (Polish hunter's stew)
• Braised stuffed cabbage
• Challah
• Golabki (cabbage roll)