Sunday, September 16, 2007

Long Weekend and My Stomach Needs a Break???


Obachan's Very First Boule

It's a long weekend with lousy weather here in Japan. Perhaps it's the best chance for a new cooking/baking adventure, but for some reason, my stomach has not been feeling good since the day before yesterday. Udon noodles and rice porridge were my meals yesterday, and today I wanted something different. But what would be a nice dish that is fun to make (to kill time on this long weekend) and does not upset my stomach?



Then I thought, "Maybe bread soaked in nice hearty soup would be kind to my stomach... And why not bake the bread myself?"


So I picked a french bread recipe (in Japanese) which looked easiest to me and tried it out. The texture of my bread did not turn out exactly the way I wanted, perhaps partly because I used regular bread flour only while many recipes recommend mixing bread flour and cake flour at certain proportion, and partly because the recipe called for melted butter to add to the dough while most french bread recipes, I believe, do not. Yet my very first boule, especially the crust, tasted pretty good when soaked in the home-made vegetable soup, and my stomach seems to be satisfied and not upset after this meal.


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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obachan,
Sorry to hear you're not feeling well. I'm sure the weather has a lot to do with it. But with your great boule and a hearty soup, it'll sure pick you up in no time! Thxs for your comment on my blog and by the way, my father's leaving for Shikoku in a week!

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Wow, Obachan, your bread looks wonderful and perfect! I bet it tasted really good...

child-prodigy said...

I hope you feel better soon, Obachan.

As for the bread, I don't think it would be a problem using bread flour only for French bread. It's probably the butter since the bread looks flatter than usual, but I still think it turned out pretty good.

K and S said...

Your boule looks great, hope you feel better soon!

obachan said...

Cocogirl
Thanks. My stomach is fine now.
So your father is coming to Shikoku! Wow!! :D Hope the weather will be nice for him.

Rosa
It tasted good, but the crust was rather thick and hard.

Child-prodigy
I think it's butter, too. Next time I'll give it a try without butter and see what happens.

K & S
Thank you. I'm feeling OK now. Looks like many people around me have stomach problem now. Rumor has it that some kind of infectious diarrhea(?) is going on among kids now...

child-prodigy said...

Oh, I might have a solution to solve that hard outer crust. In school we have ovens that had the option of using steam or no steam. So you can try spraying the oven once you put the bread in and then close the door. The steam will help the outer layer. I don't know how much it will help it since it has a lot to do with the ovens.

obachan said...

Actually I filled a small mug with water and left it in the oven while baking the bread, as the recipe said. But spraying must be more effective and next time I'll give it a try.
Thank you for always giving me good advice. :)

Violet said...

All your bread making is inspiring my non-baking hands to give it a try!

obachan said...

So glad to hear that, Stephan. I guess that's the unique contribution I can make. I mean, inspiring people to try something, thinking "Gosh, if obachan can do it, I can do it!"
;)

Anonymous said...

the bread looks excellent. Unfortunately, I can't type "stars" with my keyboard.

obachan said...

Stephen
Ooops! Sorry Stephen, not Stephan.

Ronw
OMG, I wasn't expecting anything like that. Don't worry about that.
But if you really really have to, asterisks would be just fine ;)
(BTW, when we type in Japanese, we can convert the Japanese word "star" into ☆★ by hitting the space bar.)