Italian Bread, Ciabatta, with Fresh Rosemary

Ciabatta is a traditional Italian bread, light and porous. Uriel Shtern shows how to cook ciabatta with fresh rosemary in the oven at home.

Ingredients

For the sourdough:

• Spelt flour – 330 g
• Water – 330 g
• Dry yeast – 1 pinch

For the dough in addition to the sourdough:

• Flour – 613 g
• Water – 405 g
• Yeast – 2,6 gr
• Salt – 18 g
• Mustard oil – 2 tablespoon.
• Fresh rosemary – 1 bunch

Directions

1. Grind 1 kg of spelt flour or take ready-made whole wheat flour. Sift it.
2. Make the sourdough. Mix the flour with yeast. Pour water.
3. When the sourdough is mixed until homogeneous, leave it for 16 hours.
4. Then add the flour (613 g) to the sourdough.
5. Add the yeast and salt. Pour in the water and add mustard oil.
6. Mix it for one minute with a food processor (or knead it with your hands until smooth) and leave for 5 minutes. Knead the dough for another 5 minutes.
7. Grease a baking tray with some mustard oil.
8. Pour the dough into it and leave it for half an hour.

   

9. Sprinkle the work surface with some flour and put the dough on it.
10. Knead it in a special way – pull it out and fold it. Leave it for 30 minutes. Repeat this procedure two more times.
11. Chop the rosemary and add it to the dough.

    

12. As a result, you should get very soft, light, and sticky dough.
13. Sprinkle the dough with some flour. Divide it into portions.
14. Form long rectangular rolls.

    

15. Cover the baking tray with parchment. Put each rectangular roll on it. Leave them for half an hour. Turn on the oven.
16. Bake the ciabatta for 35-40 minutes at 250 degrees. If you notice after 25 minutes that the crust has darkened a lot, cover the baking tray with foil and reduce the temperature a little.  Open the oven door about 5 minutes before the end of baking to let the excess moisture escape.
17. Cool the ciabatta on a rack; this is to ensure that the bread has a crispy crust on all sides.

    

Enjoy your meal!