Easy Italian Recipes

Starters

Using a fermentation 'starter' helps to develop flavour and create a more open texture and chewy crust. This is the flavour that hits you when you break into a wonderful artisan loaf and release the slightly beery, acidic smell inside. The longer the starter is given to ferment, the more pronounced these qualities. There are three types of starter: the everlasting starter (or madre) made from natural yeast, the starter dough (or biga) made from beer yeast a day or two before the dough is made and used in its entirity, and the mother dough which is literally a piece of dough kept back from the previous day's baking and aded to the next batch. All these starters, to a greater or lesser degree, give the bread qualities that cannot be found in a loaf made without a starter. Of the three, the madre produces the highest acidity, the most flavour and a good crust.
Traditional Italian wheat flour is weak in gluten and so using a starter of any kind helps to form a good, well risen loaf. Today, imported Canadian flours are far stronger than they were in the past, making a starter less necessary to ensure bread made with this type of flour rises, but a starter is still good for flavour. Some of the Italians I have worked with tell me that now beer yeast and good flour are readily available, they no longer use a starter as their mothers did 20 or 30 years ago. Some Italian bakers use a poolish, the starter used by French bakers. This is more liquid than a biga, usually containing the same amount of water to flour, and its name derives from the Polish bakers whose techniques were taken to France. However, it is not nearly as popular as the firmer, more traditional biga.

Everlasting starter (madre)

This is sometimes referred to in English as a 'mother' or 'sourdough' starter and in Italian as lievito di madre, madriga or pasta acida. Before beer yeast was readily available, each household would make its own starter from airborne yeasts or those found in fermenting fruits such as grapes. It's easy enough to create your own yeast culture from flour, water and honey over about a week. This can then be kept in the fridge, 'fed' regularly with flour and water, and used to give bread a wonderful flavour, crust and texture. Such starters are everlasting: some bakeries in America claim to have had their starter for over one hundred years. It can be made out of white or wholemeal flour. I have used both successfully, but if you want a pure white bread you cannot use a wholemeal starter; bear in mind, though, that a wholemeal starter works more quickly. It is better to choose the type of flour according to the bread you are most likely to make - if you are a lover of wholemeal, stick to a wholemeal starter.

- 200g organic strong white flour or organic strong wholemeal flour, or a mixture of the two
- 150m1 tepid water
- 1 teaspoon organic mild honey, such as acacia

Mix all the ingredients together well and leave in a plastic container in a warm place with the lid slightly ajar. In a day or two the contents will start to ferment and bubble, and a strong smell of alcohol will develop. I was convinced this was wrong the first time I made this madre and threw it away! Perservere; the flavour will moderate over time and with regular feeding, and the resulting flavour of your bread will be delicious. After two days, discard 100g of the fermented mixture and 'feed' it with another 200g of the same type of flour and 150m1 water. Mix them in well, including any crust that has developed. This can be done by blitzing in a food-processor. Repeat every now and again to ensure that the madre has a smooth consistency. Leave the mixture again, lid on this time, in a warm place for another 48 hours and then discard another 100g and feed as before. Leave for one more day, then the madre is ready to use according to the instructons in the recipe. From now on keep the madre in the fridge with the lid on. All you need to remember is to use (or discard) 350g a week and then to feed it with flour and water as before. Don't worry too much about the timing, though; at the low temperature of your fridge, the madre will forgive you if you leave it for up to ten days without nourishment. If you have too much because of lack of use and subsequent feedings, throw away a little more of the madre each time to compensate'. If I want to use the madre the day after feeding it, I leave it out-of the fridge to speed up the fermentation. Similarly, if I know I won't be using it for another few days, I immediately put it back in the fridge to slow down the fermentation.

If I do not have an everlasting starter in my fridge, I make a biga a couple of days before or even the night before I want to make bread. This type of starter dough can also be frozen. Just remember that it needs to defrost for 3 hours at room temperature to return to its bubbly and active old self. I find I can make most Italian bread successfully in this way.
A biga usually consists of half the amount of water to flour and a very small percentage of beer yeast (lievito di birra). As with other starters, there are several ways of preparing a biga, and each recipe can differ according to the type of bread being made. I have worked out a simple method here that can be added to a variety of recipes. Either mix it with the water first or
knead into the rest of the ingredients when they form a dough - whichever -
you find easier. For best results when using a biga, be patient and give the dough a few hours to rise to let the flavour really emerge. As a general rule, the slower the fermentation, the better the flavour of the bread.

Writing a chapter about Italian bread is like negotiating a maze: it is full of traps, contradictory information and differing opinions. Bread is made differently all over Italy, and those differences are not simply regional: bread-making varies from town to town, street to street and home to home. What I want to convey here, then, is the spirit of Italian bread and the ease of making classics- such as focaccia and pizza, which are still made in most households today. As you grow in experience, I hope you'll be encouraged to try making breads using a madre, such as the Rustic White Bread, or with a biga, such as the Spelt Bread or Rye Bread. First, though, a little explanation about how the rising is achieved.

Yeast is a single-celled fungus that eats carbohydrate as it multiplies. As it does so, it produces carbon dioxide gas in the form of little bubbles, which are perfect for making bread. A few cells of yeast are all you need, but the amount of yeast required to make dough rise varies hugely in accordance with the result you are seeking. I would use as little as 3g yeast to 500g flour in some recipes to produce a very slow fermentation that gives an acidic flavour to the finished loaf. But I have also listed recipes here with 25g yeast to 500g flour, for example a Pugliese-style focaccia.

In this recipe, the bubbles rise quickly to the surface and the bread is light, airy and quick to make. As a general rule, the less yeast you use, the longer the fermentation and therefore the better the flavour.

Natural yeast
Natural airborne yeasts are all around us and can be harvested simply by leaving food out for them. This is what must have first happened a few thousand years ago when someone accidentally left the dough out and it started to ferment from the natural yeast in the air. When it was baked, or mixed first with fresh dough, this leavened bread would have tasted really rather nice! Since then, people have been making their own starter doughs (often called a Thother'), from natural yeast found in the air or from fermenting substances like fruit, including grapes (or grape must), apples and oranges. This was how all bread was leavened before beer yeast was marketed in fresh or dried form. If you want to make your own starter in this way, follow the instructions for making your own madre (mother)

Fresh yeast
Though you can achieve equally good results with fresh or dried commerial yeast, I prefer to use fresh yeast. It feels more natural and is generally preferred in Italy, where you can buy it in shops and supermarkets. Here, it is a little harder to find, but you can usually buy it from health food stores, organic shops or the bakeries in some supermarkets. Fresh yeast keeps in the fridge for up to three weeks if it is covered, and you can rub it straight into the flour when you start making your bread, however I prefer to melt it in tepid water first to prevent any lumps of yeast appearing in my dough.
If you buy a large block of fresh yeast, cut it into small portions, wrap them in clingfilm and store in the freezer for up to three months. You should defrost them before use... that said, on occasion I have had to use yeast from frozen and as soon as it hits the tepid water it quickly melts.

Dried yeast
The advantage of dried yeast is that you can keep it in a cupboard and bring it out as necessary rather than worrying about using up the fresh yeast stored in the fridge within its three-week shelf life. Just make sure you observe the use-by date as even dried yeast eventually perishes. Use half the quantity of dried yeast to fresh.
Old-fashioned dried yeasts had to be brought back to life with warm water and a touch of sugar, but today's fast-action or easy-blend yeasts can simply be mixed straight in with the flour.