Recipe - Ciabatta And Biga Starter

1 teaspoon Yeast
5 tablespoon Milk; warmed
1 cup Water; PLUS
3 tablespoon Water; room temperature
1 tablespoon Olive oil
2 cup Biga starter; *NOTE
3 Three fourths cup White flour
1 tablespoon Salt
Cornmeal

BIGA STARTER
One fourth teaspoon Yeast
One fourth cup Warm milk
Three fourths cup Water; PLUS
1 tablespoon Water; PLUS
1 teaspoon Water
2 One half cup Flour

*NOTE (see below), made 12 hrs before

By coincidence, my sister just gave me a recipe for ciabatta, a
slippershaped bread from Lake Como, which she recommended highly. It's
from an Italian cookbook, the name of which I didn't copy down. I made it
last week, and it was very good, but it takes a long time to make!:

Stir yeast into milk; let stand until creamy, about ten min. Add water, oil
and biga, mix until blended. Mix flour and salt, add to the bowl, mix for 2
or 3 min. Knead. Let rise until doubled. Cut dough into 4 pieces. Roll each
piece into a cylinder, then shape into a rectangle, about 10x4 inches.
Place on floured baking sheets. Dimple with knuckles so they won't rise too
much dough will look heavily pockmarked. Cover with dampened towels, let
rise 1 One half 2 hours, till puffy but not doubled the loaves will look
flat, but will rise in the oven. Heat oven to 425 F, sprinkle loaves with
cornmeal. Bake 2025 min., spraying 3 times with water in the first 10
minutes. Cool on racks.

Biga starter for Ciabatta: Stir yeast into warm water, let stand 10 min.
Stir in remaining water and flour. Mix for 3 or 4 minutes. Let rise at cool
room temp 624 hours the starter will triple in volume and be wet and
sticky. Refrigerate until ready to use. It freezes well, needs 3 hours at
room temperature to reactivate. Can be refrigerated for about a week.

makes about 2 1/3 cups

From: Nancy Gandhi gandhi@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in
Posted to MCRecipe Digest V1 #833 by Nancy Berry nlberry@prodigy.net on
Oct 09, 1997