Fundamentals of Culinary Art Section: V.V. Pokhlebkin “Cooking Art and Chef’s Butts” Pages 1-3 of the section SECRETS OF GOOD KITCHEN Chapter 2 THE BASICS, BUT FAR NOT YET THE BASICS Five rules, five secrets of baking The basics, that is, the ABCs, - this is the basis, the very first and simplest. What is the easiest thing in the field of cooking? Where to begin? Determining this is extremely important. And that's why. For any training, and for cooking in particular, strict consistency in the presentation of knowledge is important, it is important to gradually move from step to step. In teaching, for example, literacy, the beginning is the study of the letters of the alphabet, from which one can then add syllables and words. Everything is obvious here. And not only for the teacher, but also for the student. Everyone understands that without recognizing the letters, without memorizing them all, he will not learn to read. It is absolutely clear to everyone that it is impossible to jump over a step, much less skip the very beginning, that such an attempt to “accelerate” learning will only delay it. In cooking there is no such clarity and evidence. It seems that it doesn’t matter where to start: fry potatoes, cook soup or make compote? And it is precisely this lack of clarity that, as a rule, leads to the fact that literally every kitchen teaches in its own way. After all, everyone has some of their own, even the most simple, culinary concepts. But they are different for everyone, they received them from different sources. And for the majority, this knowledge is not systematic. Moreover, most often the beginning, the alphabet, is missing. But what is the culinary alphabet, what does teaching it consist of? In the old days, this issue was solved simply and purely practically, like learning any craft through apprenticeship. In the kitchen of a rich house, the cook hired several cooks. Precisely several, and not just one, so that it would be more interesting, more fun for them, so that while working, they could, as it were, “play kitchen.” As a rule, these were children aged 6-7 to 10 years. It was considered inadvisable, at least in France, the country of classical cuisine, to begin training as a cook after this age. The cooks' task was generally not difficult. They had to carefully monitor everything that was happening in the kitchen and immediately carry out certain orders of the cook - bring a spoon, ladle, fork, torch, serve a napkin, strainer, gravy boat, saucepan, rinse cups, heat plates, wipe again and again washed by adults appliances, etc., etc. At the same time, the children gradually, little by little, learned the terminology and learned to feel free in the kitchen. Older cooks, after 10 years, having already served for two or three years, were given more complex tasks: plucking poultry, sifting flour, sorting cereals, sorting fruits, mushrooms, washing root vegetables, that is, they were trusted to work with food raw materials, and not with soulless pieces of iron and shards. At the same time, the game elements that are so important in any child’s education were preserved. The student knew that every year he would be entrusted with more and more complex operations. He felt that he had to study long, hard, and persistently. And he knew that this long study, this skill would be rewarded. For every cook saw how highly the art of a master cook is valued, how respected he is in society. Of course, such a slow, long-term training had a lot of disadvantages: it could restrain the initiative of the more gifted for years, it was associated with certain humiliations (only slaps on the head, which were awarded to cooks, which were worth it), it did not make it possible to train a significant contingent of cooks, it left the secrets of the profession in in the hands of a few, but it had one important advantage: consistency in the acquisition of culinary knowledge and, as a result, a strong, highly qualified, and sometimes virtuoso mastery of this knowledge. The ability to not get confused in any culinary situation, to prepare an excellent, tasty dish from any products. Modern training in a number of culinary professions suffers primarily from a certain lack of natural consistency, arising solely from the characteristics of the culinary or confectionery craft. It is well known that one can have different views on the same thing, on the same phenomenon. How much these views can differ is shown by an old comic, but quite clear parable. An Englishman, a Scandinavian, a Frenchman and a German were once asked: “What does a person consist of?” Everyone answered differently. The Englishman, as a sober realist who understands the question as it is posed, said that a person consists of a head, a torso and four limbs - arms and legs. The Scandinavian thought differently, saying that a person consists of meat, bones, skin and hair. The Frenchman, who considered such answers primitive and rude, considered it more correct to define that a person consists of reason and emotions. But the German believed that they were all wrong, because if a person consists of anything, it is 60 percent water, 20 percent proteins, 14 percent fats, 5 percent mineral salts and 1 percent carbohydrates. Something similar is happening with the view of culinary training, and now the so-called “German” understanding of this issue dominates. They seem to want to make teaching as scientific as possible, but at the same time sometimes they lose the simple, natural, culinary approach, culinary logic, and as a result, a person consisting of a head, arms, legs disappears, and only dry and bare percentages remain; tasty food disappears, and the “correct” calories and grams remain. We needed this lengthy introduction, this “attack” on traditional culinary training in order, firstly, to clearly show what the essence of the issue is; and secondly, when offering your culinary alphabet, clearly and clearly emphasize that it is not similar to what the reader may be accustomed to, and that it comes from culinary logic and dialectics. And let the reader undertake to draw a conclusion about its suitability only after trying it in practice. So what's the easiest thing about cooking? What is the easiest, or rather easiest, to prepare? Over 90 percent of people think that the simplest thing is to boil an egg. The Romans said “ab ovo” (“start with the egg”), which means let’s start from the very beginning, from the origins of the issue. This saying arose because the Romans' meals always began with eggs, which, by the way, they did not cook at all, but drank raw. It was like a starter, an appetizer, followed by the real meal. There is another interpretation of the saying: eggs are a symbol of the beginning of life, the beginning of things. Therefore, “starting with an egg” is like starting a story or solution to a problem from the very beginning. Finally, some believe that the expression “start with an egg” comes from the myth of Leda, to whom Zeus, captivated by her beauty, appeared in the form of a swan while she was bathing in a spring. From this union Leda laid two eggs. This myth gave rise to the expression “from Leda’s eggs,” which was used mostly by poets to allegorically express the concept of a very ancient event. So, A. Pushkin wrote: “I will try to make amends for my guilt with a long letter and detailed stories. I'm starting with Leda's eggs." Of course, this poeticized expression is later than the culinary “ab ovo”, but nevertheless, the culinary alphabet begins not with an egg, but with... bread. Yes, making bread is the simplest, the very first action in culinary logic. And from an educational, pedagogical point of view, it is even more important. For no other culinary achievement convinces a person so much of his abilities and ability to cook, does not give him such culinary confidence and dexterity as the ability to bake bread with his own hands. It has been this way since time immemorial. But this is even more true today. For we are now accustomed to considering bread as something that is no longer subject to home cooking, that requires some kind of complex, factory equipment and experience, that we receive ready-made, like shoes or clothes, canned food or mineral drinks. Meanwhile, bread is the basis of life and the table. You cannot live without bread, without it any lunch is not lunch, any dish lacks something. But baking your own bread seems difficult. This idea came to us from the literature of the 19th century, which described how in the early-early morning, almost at night, at 3-4 o’clock, while the oven, which had been heated in the evening, had not yet had time to cool down, the housewife got up, began to knead the dough and put bread in the oven . This process was inconvenient in terms of time, labor-intensive, but even at that time it was quite fast: already at 5-6 o’clock in the morning, that is, after one and a half to two hours, a fresh loaf, bursting with heat and a grainy spirit, was ripe. But in a healthy, hard-working family they baked bread almost every day - two or three times a week, so as to always have it fresh. Nowadays, with modern home appliances - a gas stove - baking bread takes no more than 15 - 30 minutes. Of course, we are not talking about loaves weighing a kilogram or more or loaves. In order to quickly bake bread dough in 8-10 minutes, you need to give it the shape of a flat cake, at most the size of your palm and no more than 1 cm thick, and in the middle of this flat cake you need to make a dent so that the dough does not swell and does not burn. This will not change the taste of the bread, the bakedness will improve, and the baking time will be reduced to a minimum. What needs to be done? What do you need to have? 1. Take: 35 - 50 grams of yeast (from a third to half a pack), 0.5 cups of water, 1 - 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix everything together in a cup and set aside. 2. Chop the onion finely or mince it. 3. Light the stove in the kitchen (oven). 4. Pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl, add half a glass of water or milk (whatever you have on hand) and about a third of a glass of sunflower oil. Mix everything quickly but carefully, add chopped chopped onion, salt (a pinch or two), then gradually add flour and stir all the time until a dough forms that does not stick to your hands. It is important not to miss this moment. The main thing is that the dough does not turn out too hard; This means that the flour must be added gradually until the dough, while still remaining very soft and tender, at the same time completely lags behind the hands. Having kneaded this dough well, make balls of it about the size of an apple or a little smaller and flatten each of these balls into a flat cake about one to one and a half centimeters thick. Place these cakes on a baking sheet or, better yet, on a sheet and, at a distance of about one and a half to two centimeters from each other, draw deep lines along these cakes with a knife, making them seem striped. Let the bread sit for 2-3 minutes before putting it in the oven, or put it in the oven right away, because by this time it will already be hot in the kitchen. The stove (oven) heat should be moderate and the sheet of tortillas should be placed on the top shelf of the oven. Notice the time. After 10 minutes, look and pierce with a pointed match. If the cakes are browned, but there are still traces of dough on the match, let them stand in the oven for another 2 - 3 minutes. But no more. Take it out, lay it out on a wooden board (plywood), cover it with a towel or piece of linen. Your bread is ready. The whole process, including cutting, took no more than 20 minutes. A delay in time can only be because the oven bakes poorly or has not been preheated well. Try the cooked bread after 25 minutes, not earlier: only then will it acquire its real taste. So how? Tasty! And how! And it’s not difficult at all. It's downright nonsensical. And why? Let's figure it out. Firstly, in this case we prepared the product according to the precisely specified recipe and, moreover, according to the precisely specified technology. All operations and their sequence were previously thought out and tested, which often does not happen in cookbooks, where the recipe contains only an indication of what to take, what quantity and what products, how much to cook, fry. But how to do it, in what sequence, in what order to perform each operation and, most importantly, what to avoid, the cookbook does not talk about this. This is why not everyone can cook according to a cookbook. It can be read correctly by a person who is prepared and able to determine what is omitted there and how to fill in these gaps when preparing the dish. This shows that cooking technology is no less important than the recipe of the dish. In this case, you had both, and if you did everything exactly, then the result was good. But another circumstance was no less important for your success: when preparing a dish (product), you dealt exclusively with ready-made products, with manufactured products. What does it mean? This means that all the components you used to prepare a new product (flour, butter, yeast, milk) were completely ready-made, made in a factory (industrial) method and already had a certain standard, quality, usually of a high level. All you had to do was combine and mix these components. The proportions and weight (volume) of the mixture were also given, so there could be no error. And baking doesn’t require any special art. Its time was approximately indicated. Otherwise, the stove worked, not you. Therefore, when preparing homemade bread, in this case part of the success falls on the share of the industry that prepared the components, and part on the share of the stove (oven). Now that we're on the subject of the stovetop, it's time to identify the difference between a sheet pan and a baking sheet. Both of these pieces of kitchen or, rather, stove equipment entered the life of our country relatively recently (no more than 200 years ago) with the advent of the European stove with an oven. None of the stove systems that we used - Russian stove, Ukrainian rude, Caucasian and Central Asian tonir, or tandoor - required such devices. Bread, flatbreads, pies, gingerbread - all this was either placed directly on the brick under the oven, or attached to its clay walls (at the tandoor). [Under is an ancient word, known since 1050, i.e. bottom, bottom - a brick or stone base (lining) under the arch of a Russian oven, on which pies for baking are placed directly, without any lining.] Sometimes only black bread in In the Russian oven they placed it on a cabbage leaf, and even then for the taste, and not for the success of baking. Both the sheet and the baking sheet are borrowed from French cuisine via German. The sheet, that is, a rectangular metal plate, without any welts or curved edges, appeared first. This was in the second half of the 18th century. It was called “blech” in German, and at first this word was not translated into Russian, but they called it “blach”, “blachka”, “tin plaque”, because when foreign cooks who did not know the Russian language said “blech”, then their Russian serf students repeated “blyakh”. Subsequently, already at the beginning of the 19th century, the word “leaf” appeared, abbreviated as a tin sheet, or sheet of tin. At the same time, they began to distinguish between a simple sheet (iron, tin) for baking buns, small muffins, cheesecakes, pies - all products made from yeast and puff pastry - and a cake or pastry sheet (copper, tinned), for baking cookies - shortbread, sugar, butter and other small confectionery products. The difference in the material (metal) of the sheet, as well as in its thickness, was important, since different metals have different thermal conductivities and different degrees of heating. The sheet was selected depending on the product used. This, of course, is worth taking into account now. The baking sheet came into our kitchen almost simultaneously with the sheet, during the period of oral training in the cook's craft. In German, this rectangular iron frying pan was called “brattpanne”, that is, a frying pan for baking. It had fairly high sides: from one inch (2.5 cm) to one and a half, and sometimes up to two. These sides could be either perpendicular to the plane of the pan, or inclined, forming an obtuse angle with it. Initially, “brattpanne”, as a difficult word to pronounce, was transformed in the spoken language into “brotpan”, and then acquired a completely Russian connotation, turning into “baking tray”. In Russian cuisine, a baking sheet is widely used when baking large pieces of meat in the oven, whole poultry carcasses, when making casseroles from noodles and porridge, and, finally, when baking pies, especially sweet ones, for which the sheet is inconvenient, since it makes the pie drier. harder, sometimes jam and sugar leak out of it, and puff pastry pies, as a rule, fall off after being removed from the oven and lose their fluffiness. For all these complex (with filling) and large-sized products, baking of which lasts 20-30 minutes, or even about an hour, a baking sheet is indispensable. But it is contraindicated for small confectionery products, dry sweet cookies, which should be crispy, free-flowing, brittle and “sit” in the oven for no more than 5 minutes so as not to burn. So, we know that it is better to bake bread on a sheet, and the small flat cakes we are talking about can even be baked on cardboard, foil, or just regular typewriter paper placed on a wire rack. Did your flatbreads turn out good? Of course they are good! But don’t rush to turn up your nose. You still have a lot to learn. Making bread is the basics, the first, initial stage, like a children's game of Easter cakes or blocks. The principle here is the same: you put a ready-made thing together, “build it yourself,” but still only from the ready-made. So far, you have not taken a single independent action on the products that would dramatically improve them, or perhaps worsen them. From a culinary training perspective, making fried potatoes or scrambled eggs is still more difficult than making bread. Because in both of these cases, you must prepare the product yourself and decide for yourself how to fry it. And this is where knowledge is needed, and without it, mistakes await you. But about everything, as we agreed, in order. Let's return once again to our bread and repeat everything from the beginning, but not a specific recipe, but the general principles of preparing all products of this kind, so that we can prepare them regardless of whether we remember this recipe or not, whether we have the specified products or not. Five rules, five secrets of baking Yeast Yeast must always be fresh. If they are stale, you can try to refresh them: grind them in a spoonful of warm water and add a teaspoon of sugar. If after 10 minutes they begin to bubble, it means they have come to life. Select dark, non-living pieces and discard. But it is better to use fresh yeast for all bread products. Renewed yeast should be taken almost twice as much as fresh. For one kilogram of flour and other dough components, you need to take at least 35 and no more than 50 grams of yeast, that is, a third or half a pack, depending on their quality. Yeast can be replaced with beer (half a glass) or sour cream (glass). However, substitutes are not added directly to the dough like yeast. Instead, a sourdough dough is first prepared from them: beer or sour cream must be mixed with a small amount of flour into a paste, add a teaspoon of granulated sugar, cover and leave in a warm place for the mixture to ferment. If fermentation and the accompanying swelling do not occur (which can be explained by the death or absence of living fungi in the beer), then such a “sourdough” will not be able to replace yeast. Liquid The liquid for kneading any dough must necessarily consist of at least half a glass of water - for diluting the yeast. The rest of the liquid can consist of water, milk, sour cream, whey, buttermilk, kefir, mixed in any proportions and taken in any quantities. Fats Absolutely any fats of animal and vegetable origin can be used in bread products. Sunflower oil is best, as well as butter, lamb fat, pork and beef lard. If the fats are solid, then they must be melted and turned into liquid before adding them to the dough. Fats, like liquids, can be mixed together in any proportions and these combinations can be used in a bread product. You have a spoonful of sunflower oil, a small piece, about 20 grams, butter and a little chicken fat lining the abdominal cavity - all this can be mixed, all this is good for baking a kilogram of bread. You just need to melt everything and mix it together before adding it to the dough. People reflected this ability of bread products to help utilize all the remnants of not only fats, but also other related products (small additions of cheese, cottage cheese, previously turned into powder, grated, into the dough) in the well-known proverb: you can wrap everything in bread and in a pie . First operation First, a mixture of yeast, liquids and all additional components is always created (all components are diluted, including fats and eggs, if the latter are provided for in a recipe). After it has been created, some small additions of soluble or insoluble dry ingredients, for example, salt, spices (pepper, onion, cumin, coriander, anise), can be added to this liquid mixture. You just need to make sure that they are evenly distributed in the dough. The second and decisive operation: preparing the dough Flour is added to the combined liquid mixture - as much as is required for a dough that does not stick to your hands. Therefore, the flour is added gradually, and the dough is kneaded all the time. It is best if this is done continuously: add flour with one hand, and knead the dough with the other (with a spoon) in a clockwise circular motion. To make this easier, the dough should always be kneaded in a deep, stable bowl. That is why previously a sauerkraut was used for this purpose - a cylindrical, heavy wooden bucket slightly expanding at the bottom. Now the most convenient utensil may be a deep cylindrical enamel bowl (not a saucepan). The amount of flour is never determined in advance when preparing flour (bread) products, because everything depends on the amount of liquid mixture obtained; what is its specific composition and how much flour can this mixture absorb. If you determine the amount of flour in advance, then it is almost never possible to accurately adjust the liquid to it, because this value is variable and subject to fluctuations. Various fat contents, milk density, water hardness, egg size, butter and fat consistency, as well as the freshness of the yeast and their effect on the liquid part also influence this. Therefore, do not have much confidence in a recipe that “precisely” determines the amount of flour for bread dough. As a rule, it does not make it possible to obtain a quality product, despite all our efforts. It is important to do something else - to strictly observe the proportions, not to go beyond certain ratios: 1) All dry additives, insoluble: onions, cheese, cottage cheese, spices, together should not exceed half a glass in volume for every two glasses of liquid in the dough. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the dough to rise well. 2) Fats and oils should not exceed half a glass for each glass of liquid (water, milk), otherwise the dough will be dry and thin. 3) Eggs should not be added to bread dough at all, as they make the dough brittle and tough. Therefore, eggs are mainly a part of confectionery dough, which has different laws. 4) Milk makes the dough fluffier, softer, gives it elasticity and firmness. But it should not be overused, it should always be less than water, or half with water, otherwise the dough will be difficult to bake. Milk bread should always be made in small sizes: the smaller the milk bun, the easier it is to bake. 5) A bread product differs from a confectionery product not in that one is sweet and the other is not. This is a consumer definition. The culinary definition is based on the role that flour plays in a given product. If flour is the main component, if there is more of it (by weight, volume) than all other components, then the product is bread. If flour makes up less than half of all other components (butter, eggs, sugar, various additives), then the product is a confectionery product. Now that the meaning and basic rules for preparing bread products have become clear to you, try baking bread yourself, without any recipe, by eye. Only after this test succeeds, proceed to the next chapter. Note. The only difficulty you may have is the lack of yeast and the ineffectiveness of its substitutes. But there are two ways out. First, form a dough from a combination of pancake flour with ordinary kefir. Under no circumstances should you add water to this mixture, but oil (fats) and onion dressing are possible and even desirable. Such dough must be very quickly cut into small flat cakes with your hands, but do not knead it too much or squeeze it, but immediately put it in the oven so that its lifting force does not have time to evaporate. The second way out is even simpler: make bread without any baking powder or lifting agents at all, and even without using an oven, just in a frying pan. Such “bread,” of course, will be very different from ordinary bread, but nevertheless it may well serve as bread, that is, fulfill its main function. Moreover, its taste properties are excellent, and it is practically impossible for it to turn out unbaked. What do you need to have for this? Flour, water, sunflower or any other vegetable oil, salt. What need to do? Pour two to three glasses of flour into a deep bowl and slowly add warm water to it, at least 36-38 degrees C, continuously and quickly stirring this mixture with a fork, spoon, or best of all, a wooden stick, holding the latter vertically in the center of the bowl and rotating clockwise arrow. The resulting viscous dough should seem to be wrapped around a stick. At the same time, it is very important not to knead the dough, not to press it against the walls or bottom of the dish, but to leave it freely “stuck” to the stick or fork at all times. As soon as the dough reaches a consistency close to thick but loose yeast, carefully, without crushing it, release it from the stick and cover it with a thick, double-folded towel, leaving it in a warm place for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, heat a wide, thick metal frying pan and pour it onto cutting board layer of flour. Having laid out the dough on the board after layering, roll it into a pancake measuring 50x25 centimeters, generously grease with sunflower oil, sprinkle with salt and roll into a tube. Cut the tube crosswise into two equal parts and twist each of them helically into a rope, just as you squeeze water out of laundry. Place the strands on a board, press down and carefully, without strong pressure, roll out to a thickness of at least one centimeter. After this, place the bundles in a hot, oiled frying pan, turn up the heat, cover with a lid and bake for three minutes on each side. The total cooking time for this “bread” will therefore take only about an hour. It should only be eaten hot, fresh, immediately after preparation. Only after this test succeeds, proceed to the next 3rd chapter. >

“Bread is the head of everything.” Or, as the Ukrainians say, “bread above us, panue.” It is clear from this that the choice of bread for the menu is an extremely important matter that cannot be neglected. Moreover, in all cases of shortage of any products, they can be compensated by eating bread, which is very correctly noted by the people: “The stomach cannot survive without bread.” Meanwhile, few people choose bread specifically, and even fewer people who adapt bread to the rest of the menu. They usually take what they are used to, what is available in the nearest store, bakery, or what they consider “better”, that is, whiter, fluffier, softer. But you need to choose what best suits your menu, what is in better harmony with the nutritional composition of the dishes at your lunch or table.

Thus, you should not eat black bread with pressed caviar or with stewed lamb, because it will only distort, simplify, and worsen the taste of these wonderful and valuable products. In the same way, it is illiterate from a culinary point of view to serve white bread with pickles or herring with green onions, because only black bread can truly highlight the taste of these spicy dishes, softening but not distorting their peculiar sharpness and piquancy.

As a child, I was lucky enough to live in a village where every morning they baked fresh rye (rheat) bread - huge round loaves in a Russian oven. So I became accustomed to good, high-quality bread and have maintained this commitment forever. Since then, black rye bread has been a must for me. But its quality has changed greatly over the past decades. Nowadays I take the following types of black bread: “Rye”, “Sayansky”, and until 1990 I loved “Tartu” bread baked in Estonia. At one time I also bought Borodinsky, until it spoiled due to a sudden change in the recipe. Now, in the 90s, this bread has become completely bad. Due to the fact that black bread has become worse everywhere, I recently switched (in 1996-1998) to making homemade rye flatbreads from rye flour (without the addition of other types of flour or half and half with wheat) with pressed yeast.

When there is no yeast, I bake thin unleavened “sheets” of pure rye flour with the addition of sunflower oil and onions. I like. Very tasty and quick: knead for 5-6 minutes and bake for 15 minutes over low heat. Total - in 20-30 minutes fresh, hot, tasty “bread”. Or rather, dry “bread”, plates of black bread. It can be used mainly for soups. Very suitable both in taste and consistency. Shchi and borscht with such “bread” are an irreplaceable pleasure.

For snack dishes - herring, sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers and mushrooms, as well as any salted and smoked fish - “hard” bread is not suitable. For this you need rye flatbreads, they are soft. That is why, depending on the overall menu, and primarily on the nature of soups and appetizers, I change the type of black bread.

There are also problems with white bread. I used to love rolls. Then they disappeared in the 70s, reappeared in the 80s, then disappeared again and have now been transformed into bread that does not look like kalachny. The peculiarity of their dough has disappeared, since manual processing has disappeared, and machine dough gives a different taste when baked. Thus, both kalachi and sitniki disappeared. For white bread, I now use only Armenian lavash (thin, sheet, i.e. lavash), as well as another Caucasian bread that is incorrectly called “lavash” in our country - Georgian “madauri”, relatively small flatbreads in a regular plate, and “tonispuri” - large, thick flatbreads, as well as “churek”, very similar to “tonispuri”, but slightly smaller in size. All these types of bread are good quality, and they can (and should!) be bought hot if they are made in small hand-made bakeries at Moscow markets. In large stores in the city center, unfortunately, you almost always find only counterfeits of these types of bread, made from a different dough and by machine. In addition to Caucasian types of white bread, I also buy grain bread (formerly “Graham”, then “Zdorovye”) when it occasionally appears. But now I no longer buy such previously quite good-quality types of bread as “Doctorsky” and “Otrubnoy”, because their recipes have undergone changes for the worse. When I have time and opportunity, I try to bake homemade types of bread, that is, those flatbreads that were mentioned in the first part.

The guard nudged me, pointing to the “statue,” and went to the center of the hall. We obediently trotted after him to an incomprehensible stone flower. The icy floor burned my bare feet, slightly distracting me from the confusion going on in my head. When we had already walked more than half the way, there was also movement at the opposite end of the room. Intuition screamed with good obscenities, demanding to immediately get away from here... it would have told me how to do this, and there would have been no price for it! Oh, I feel like all this is not good.

The previously seen unsteady figures, hidden under a pearl film, slowly walked towards us. Actually, we approached the local work of art almost simultaneously. And yes, it really was stone. But upon closer examination, it turned out that the sculpture turned out to be very peculiar, and, to put it more bluntly, “smelly.” How can I explain? Well, imagine that a narrow stone bed, stylized as a petal, was placed at an angle of forty-five degrees... and everything would be fine, but there were handcuffs dangling from the edges, hinting that the people were not laying here voluntarily. And on one of the boxes the old boy was already fastened. Although in his case “fastened” is a strong word. Apparently, the dimensions of the “seats” were still designed for an adult, and the child simply could not reach the rings of the handcuffs. There were two options - fasten the ill-fated handcuffs, leaving the boy dangling in the air, since in this case his feet would definitely not reach the floor, or fix him in another way. That, in fact, was done - the child was tightly tied to the bed with an ordinary, quite earthly rope.

I was strapped to the boy's left. Then - almost simultaneously - the handcuffs on the hands of the remaining two slaves snapped into place. Opposite us were four empty boxes, into which silent rainbow-pearl figures slowly climbed. I would like to know what all this means?!

The most amazing thing began when the four people opposite us settled down in their stone rookeries - the guards who approached indifferently snapped the handcuffs on the non-resisting people. And then we walked around in a circle, turning off some devices in the waist area of ​​those who were lying opposite us. At least now we could see our... hosts.

I turned out to be right - three of them were so old that they had practically lost their gender. I have never seen such decrepit people in my life. Although, if I could characterize them, I would say that this is “well-groomed old age.” Whoever these walking relics were, they were clearly not in poverty. The fourth was an evilly smiling man, relatively young - about forty to forty-five, dark-haired and frankly ugly. He looked with a strange, almost painful longing at the boy tied next to me, as if he were the key to the fulfillment of his most cherished desires. In general, judging by his appearance, he is a complete maniac and a psycho... The little guy was unlucky.

So, let me repeat... - the fat short man came forward - my “master”. - Oterr "Nat is an ancient structure, and we cannot control it, we just configure and turn on the transfer runes. What follows depends only on you - on your desire to live, on the will to win. We cannot guarantee the result. You signed documents renouncing any claims, but you can still leave the Relocation Circle. Money will not be returned...

In short,” the black-haired man growled.

In short, it’s shorter,” the fat man did not argue. - When the runes light up, fix your gaze on the carrier you have chosen and try not to be distracted. Transferring an archwire is a very painful procedure. In addition, the wearer will probably try to resist...

Wait a minute, what is he talking about? Soul transfer?! What nonsense?

I stared in horror at the ancient old woman chained in front of me. If my guesses are correct, then the owner of these crumbling relics is going to move into my body, then how will I become the owner of these mummified delights?! I... I I do not agree! But for some reason they forgot to ask my opinion...

Black whirlwinds swirled between us, forming strange shapes that vaguely resembled ancient runes. The shadows of the overseers stepped from behind, removing the “universal translators” from our temples. Apparently, this Relocation Circle is incompatible with other devices. Bastards, they waited until the last moment!

However, what really worried me was not the “translator” at all, but what the fat man said. Did he really mean it?.. But how could that be? This is terrible! And the child chained next to me is no more than nine years old... And this ugly bastard opposite is going to take over his body?! Can't be…

Turning around, I looked in the direction of the boy, who was grinning like a wolf cub, and then fell into a strange black fog.

Dark whirlwinds swirled and knocked you off your feet... Off your feet? But I don't have legs. And hands... It seems like I don’t have a body at all! Horror overwhelmed me, forcing me to run around in fear in an incomprehensible thick fog. What's happening? Where I am? Will it always be like this now?

Suddenly, something alive flashed past, making you recoil, in a jubilant burgundy-gray whirlwind, dousing you with a disgusting stench. Yes, it definitely felt like a living thing. Really? It seems that this is the same old hag who lay opposite me in the Circle of Relocations. Unlike some, she listened carefully to the fat man and did not stare around, but kept eye contact with my body, as they said at the briefing.

What should I do now?! I don't want to be in her body!

The strange world of dark vortices shook significantly. What kind of business is this? Shorty didn't warn about "earthquakes"! I scaredly darted to the left, only to immediately recoil from the tangle of a pair of entities tormenting each other - bloody scarlet and emerald blue. And just to the left of the fight, in the dark fog, something was shining... inexpressibly desirable and insanely attractive. It is almost impossible to explain this feeling. It included the feeling of home, my mother’s hugs and the aroma of autumn Antonovka, the warmth of my favorite mug filled with hot cocoa in my hands, my father’s laughter and something familiar from childhood: “Be brave, little squirrel...” I was drawn there with terrible force, and I didn’t want to resist at all. However, what choice do I have? Come what may…

I was shaken again, but this time the “earthquake” was accompanied by a roar, a feeling of falling and a blow... against something very hard. That is, material! Damn, what's going on in the end? Having difficulty opening my eyes, I stared in amazement at a huge hole punched in the wall of the room and decorated with a pair of half-collapsed columns that formed a shaky, uneven arch above the hole. Right in my face, barely breaking through the dusty suspension, the scarlet sunset sun was dimly shining. Then came sounds - shouts of commands in an incomprehensible barking language, the rustling of crumbling stones and the groans of the wounded. I lay on the split petal of the “circle of relocation”, looking in amazement at the chaos happening around me. It seems that the “peaceful slave traders” were attacked by some bad people. Which means I have a chance to escape! So what are we waiting for?..

Carefully rising, I looked around, shook off the remnants of the ropes, slid down from the stone rubble and looked in horror at my mutilated hands. In the thick twilight of the hall, where the only source of light was the setting sun peeking through a hole in the wall, it was difficult to see broken knuckles, scratches and bruises. It worked really well for me... it’s even strange that I don’t feel any pain at all. And not only the pain - the icy cold of the stone floor was also not felt, but I remember very well how our feet were freezing while we walked to the “statue”. I glanced at the wreckage of my bed. I don’t understand anything... When I fell, I should have been hit hard, but there were no unpleasant sensations. Strange as it may sound, I didn’t feel my body at all. Is it because of the ritual? No, something is clearly wrong with me, but we’ll deal with it later, but now the main task is to survive in this mess and get out undetected!

Another “earthquake” made me fall to the floor again, burying my broken hands, gray with dirt and stone dust, into the nearest pile of rubble. Crap! Well, what is my habit of falling into thought at the most inopportune moment? Having looked around, I stood up and, unable to stay on my feet, fell on all fours again. Simply wonderful! The fact that I don’t feel pain, of course, is great, but the fact that I still can’t seem to stand on my own is pretty shitty! However, now is no time for pride... Carefully crawling from column to column, she began to make her way to the hole in the wall, kindly made by the attacking gentlemen. Anywhere, as long as it's far away from here.

I was almost out when something terrible happened. The building shuddered once again, and the openwork dome of dark stained glass windows with a farewell ringing of myriads of sparkling tears fell onto the Circle of Relocation, burying seven chained figures and fragments of the “petal” that I had left a couple of minutes ago. I looked in disbelief at the mass grave, in which I could have ended up myself if the last explosion had happened a little earlier.

An idiotic thought was spinning in my head: “They say that cats have nine lives. It seems that my third has just begun.”

Yeah... So don’t believe in luck and destiny after this!

The basics, that is, the alphabet, are the basis of the basics, the very first and simplest. What is the easiest thing in the field of cooking? Where to begin?

Determining this is extremely important. And that's why. For any training, and for cooking in particular, strict consistency in the presentation of knowledge is important, it is important to gradually move from step to step.

In teaching, for example, literacy, the beginning is the study of the letters of the alphabet, from which one can then add syllables and words. Everything is obvious here. And not only for the teacher, but also for the student. Everyone understands that without recognizing the letters, without memorizing them all, he will not learn to read. It is absolutely clear to everyone that it is impossible to jump over a step, much less skip the very beginning, that such an attempt to “accelerate” learning will only delay it.

In cooking there is no such clarity and evidence. It seems that it doesn’t matter where to start: fry potatoes, cook soup or make compote? And it is precisely this lack of clarity that, as a rule, leads to the fact that literally every kitchen teaches in its own way. After all, everyone has some of their own, even the most simple, culinary concepts. But they are different for everyone, they received them from different sources. And for the majority, this knowledge is not systematic. Moreover, most often the beginning, the alphabet, is missing.

But what is the culinary alphabet, what does teaching it consist of?

In the old days, this issue was solved simply and purely practically, like learning any craft through apprenticeship.

In the kitchen of a rich house, the cook hired several cooks. Precisely several, and not just one, so that it would be more interesting, more fun for them, so that while working, they could, as it were, “play kitchen.” As a rule, these were children aged 6-7 to 10 years. It was considered inadvisable, at least in France, the country of classical cuisine, to begin training as a cook after this age.

The cooks' task was generally not difficult. They had to carefully monitor everything that was happening in the kitchen and immediately carry out certain orders of the cook - bring a spoon, ladle, fork, torch, serve a napkin, strainer, gravy boat, saucepan, rinse cups, heat plates, wipe again and again washed by adults appliances, etc., etc. At the same time, the children gradually, little by little, learned the terminology and learned to feel free in the kitchen.

Older cooks, after 10 years, having already served for two or three years, were given more complex tasks: plucking poultry, sifting flour, sorting cereals, sorting fruits, mushrooms, washing root vegetables, that is, they were trusted to work with food raw materials, and not with soulless pieces of iron and shards. At the same time, the game elements that are so important in any child’s education were preserved.

The student knew that every year he would be entrusted with more and more complex operations. He felt that he had to study long, hard, and persistently. And he knew that this long study, this skill would be rewarded. For every cook saw how highly the art of a master cook is valued, how respected he is in society.

Of course, such a slow, long-term training had a lot of disadvantages: it could restrain the initiative of the more gifted for years, it was associated with certain humiliations (only slaps on the head, which were awarded to cooks, which were worth it), it did not make it possible to train a significant contingent of cooks, it left the secrets of the profession in in the hands of a few, but it had one important advantage: consistency in the acquisition of culinary knowledge and, as a result, a strong, highly qualified, and sometimes virtuoso mastery of this knowledge. The ability to not get confused in any culinary situation, to prepare an excellent, tasty dish from any products.

Modern training in a number of culinary professions suffers primarily from a certain lack of natural consistency, arising solely from the characteristics of the culinary or confectionery craft.

It is well known that one can have different views on the same thing, on the same phenomenon.

How much these views can differ is shown by an old comic, but quite clear parable.
An Englishman, a Scandinavian, a Frenchman and a German were once asked: “What does a person consist of?”
Everyone answered differently.
The Englishman, as a sober realist who understands the question as it is posed, said that a person consists of a head, a torso and four limbs - arms and legs.
The Scandinavian thought differently, saying that a person consists of meat, bones, skin and hair.
The Frenchman, who considered such answers primitive and rude, considered it more correct to define that a person consists of reason and emotions.
But the German believed that they were all wrong, because if a person consists of anything, it is 60 percent water, 20 percent proteins, 14 percent fats, 5 percent mineral salts and 1 percent carbohydrates.

Something similar is happening with the view of culinary training, and now the so-called “German” understanding of this issue dominates. They seem to want to make teaching as scientific as possible, but at the same time sometimes they lose the simple, natural, culinary approach, culinary logic, and as a result, a person consisting of a head, arms, legs disappears, and only dry and bare percentages remain; tasty food disappears, and the “correct” calories and grams remain.

We needed this lengthy introduction, this “attack” on traditional culinary training in order, firstly, to clearly show what the essence of the issue is; and secondly, when offering your culinary alphabet, clearly and clearly emphasize that it is not similar to what the reader may be accustomed to, and that it comes from culinary logic and dialectics. And let the reader undertake to draw a conclusion about its suitability only after trying it in practice.

So what's the easiest thing about cooking?

What is the easiest, or rather easiest, to prepare?

Over 90 percent of people think that the simplest thing is to boil an egg. The Romans said “ab ovo” (“start with the egg”), which means let’s start from the very beginning, from the origins of the issue. This saying arose because the Romans' meals always began with eggs, which, by the way, they did not cook at all, but drank raw. It was like a starter, an appetizer, followed by the real meal.

There is another interpretation of the saying: eggs are a symbol of the beginning of life, the beginning of things. Therefore, “starting with an egg” is like starting a story or solution to a problem from the very beginning. Finally, some believe that the expression “start with an egg” comes from the myth of Leda, to whom Zeus, captivated by her beauty, appeared in the form of a swan while she was bathing in a spring. From this union Leda laid two eggs. This myth gave rise to the expression “from Leda’s eggs,” which was used mostly by poets to allegorically express the concept of a very ancient event.

So, A. Pushkin wrote: “I will try to make amends for my guilt with a long letter and detailed stories. I'm starting with Leda's eggs."

Of course, this poeticized expression is later than the culinary “ab ovo”, but nevertheless, the culinary alphabet begins not with an egg, but with... bread.

Yes, making bread is the simplest, the very first action in culinary logic. And from an educational, pedagogical point of view, it is even more important. For no other culinary achievement convinces a person so much of his abilities and ability to cook, does not give him such culinary confidence and dexterity as the ability to bake bread with his own hands. It has been this way since time immemorial. But this is even more true today.

For we are now accustomed to considering bread as something that is no longer subject to home cooking, that requires some kind of complex, factory equipment and experience, that we receive ready-made, like shoes or clothes, canned food or mineral drinks.

Meanwhile, bread is the basis of life and the table. You cannot live without bread, without it any lunch is not lunch, any dish lacks something. But baking your own bread seems difficult. This idea came to us from the literature of the 19th century, which described how in the early-early morning, almost at night, at 3-4 o’clock, while the oven, which had been heated in the evening, had not yet had time to cool down, the housewife got up, began to knead the dough and put bread in the oven .

This process was inconvenient in terms of time, labor-intensive, but even at that time it was quite fast: already at 5-6 o’clock in the morning, that is, after one and a half to two hours, a fresh loaf, bursting with heat and a grainy spirit, was ripe.

But in a healthy, hard-working family they baked bread almost every day - two or three times a week, so as to always have it fresh. Nowadays, with modern home appliances - a gas stove - baking bread takes no more than 15 - 30 minutes.

Of course, we are not talking about loaves weighing a kilogram or more or loaves. In order to quickly bake bread dough in 8-10 minutes, you need to give it the shape of a flat cake, at most the size of your palm and no more than 1 cm thick, and in the middle of this flat cake you need to make a dent so that the dough does not swell and does not burn. This will not change the taste of the bread, the bakedness will improve, and the baking time will be reduced to a minimum.

What needs to be done? What do you need to have?

1. Take: 35 - 50 grams of yeast (from a third to half a pack), 0.5 cups of water, 1 - 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix everything together in a cup and set aside.

2. Chop the onion finely or mince it.

3. Light the stove in the kitchen (oven).

4. Pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl, add half a glass of water or milk (whatever you have on hand) and about a third of a glass of sunflower oil. Mix everything quickly but carefully, add chopped chopped onion, salt (a pinch or two), then gradually add flour and stir all the time until a dough forms that does not stick to your hands.

It is important not to miss this moment. The main thing is that the dough does not turn out too hard; This means that the flour must be added gradually until the dough, while still remaining very soft and tender, at the same time completely lags behind the hands. Having kneaded this dough well, make balls of it about the size of an apple or a little smaller and flatten each of these balls into a flat cake about one to one and a half centimeters thick.

Place these cakes on a baking sheet or, better yet, on a sheet and, at a distance of about one and a half to two centimeters from each other, draw deep lines along these cakes with a knife, making them seem striped.

Let the bread sit for 2-3 minutes before putting it in the oven, or put it in the oven right away, because by this time it will already be hot in the kitchen. The stove (oven) heat should be moderate and the sheet of tortillas should be placed on the top shelf of the oven. Notice the time. After 10 minutes, look and pierce with a pointed match. If the cakes are browned, but there are still traces of dough on the match, let them stand in the oven for another 2 - 3 minutes. But no more.

Take it out, lay it out on a wooden board (plywood), cover it with a towel or piece of linen. Your bread is ready. The whole process, including cutting, took no more than 20 minutes. A delay in time can only be because the oven bakes poorly or has not been preheated well.

Try the cooked bread after 25 minutes, not earlier: only then will it acquire its real taste. So how? Tasty! And how! And it’s not difficult at all. It's downright nonsensical.

And why?

Let's figure it out.

Firstly, in this case we prepared the product according to the precisely specified recipe and, moreover, according to the precisely specified technology. All operations and their sequence were previously thought out and tested, which often does not happen in cookbooks, where the recipe contains only an indication of what to take, what quantity and what products, how much to cook, fry.

But how to do it, in what sequence, in what order to perform each operation and, most importantly, what to avoid, the cookbook does not talk about this. This is why not everyone can cook according to a cookbook. It can be read correctly by a person who is prepared and able to determine what is omitted there and how to fill in these gaps when preparing the dish.

This shows that cooking technology is no less important than the recipe of the dish. In this case, you had both, and if you did everything exactly, then the result was good.

But another circumstance was no less important for your success: when preparing a dish (product), you dealt exclusively with ready-made products, with manufactured products. What does it mean?

This means that all the components you used to prepare a new product (flour, butter, yeast, milk) were completely ready-made, made in a factory (industrial) method and already had a certain standard, quality, usually of a high level.

All you had to do was combine and mix these components. The proportions and weight (volume) of the mixture were also given, so there could be no error. And baking doesn’t require any special art. Its time was approximately indicated. Otherwise, the stove worked, not you. Therefore, when preparing homemade bread, in this case part of the success falls on the share of the industry that prepared the components, and part on the share of the stove (oven).

Now that we're on the subject of the stovetop, it's time to identify the difference between a sheet pan and a baking sheet.

Both of these pieces of kitchen or, rather, stove equipment entered the life of our country relatively recently (no more than 200 years ago) with the advent of the European stove with an oven.

None of the stove systems that we used - Russian stove, Ukrainian rude, Caucasian and Central Asian tonir, or tandoor - required such devices. Bread, cakes, pies, gingerbread - all this was either placed directly on the brick under oven, or attached to its clay walls (at the tandoor).
[Under is an ancient word, known since 1050, i.e. bottom, bottom - a brick or stone base (lining) under the arch of a Russian oven, on which pies for baking are placed directly, without any lining.]

Sometimes only black bread in a Russian oven was placed on a cabbage leaf, and even then for taste, and not for the success of baking.

Both the sheet and the baking sheet are borrowed from French cuisine via German.

The sheet, that is, a rectangular metal plate, without any welts or curved edges, appeared first. This was in the second half of the 18th century. It was called “blech” in German, and at first this word was not translated into Russian, but they called it “blach”, “blachka”, “tin plaque”, because when foreign cooks who did not know the Russian language said “blech”, then their Russian serf students repeated “blyakh”. Subsequently, already at the beginning of the 19th century, the word “leaf” appeared, abbreviated as a tin sheet, or sheet of tin.

At the same time, they began to distinguish between a simple sheet (iron, tin) for baking buns, small muffins, cheesecakes, pies - all products made from yeast and puff pastry - and a cake or pastry sheet (copper, tinned), for baking cookies - shortbread, sugar, butter and other small confectionery products.

The difference in the material (metal) of the sheet, as well as in its thickness, was important, since different metals have different thermal conductivities and different degrees of heating. The sheet was selected depending on the product used.

This, of course, is worth taking into account now.

The baking sheet came into our kitchen almost simultaneously with the sheet, during the period of oral training in the cook's craft. In German, this rectangular iron frying pan was called “brattpanne”, that is, a frying pan for baking. It had fairly high sides: from one inch (2.5 cm) to one and a half, and sometimes up to two. These sides could be either perpendicular to the plane of the pan, or inclined, forming an obtuse angle with it.

Initially, “brattpanne”, as a difficult word to pronounce, was transformed in the spoken language into “brotpan”, and then acquired a completely Russian connotation, turning into “baking tray”.

In Russian cuisine, a baking sheet is widely used when baking large pieces of meat in the oven, whole poultry carcasses, when making casseroles from noodles and porridge, and, finally, when baking pies, especially sweet ones, for which the sheet is inconvenient, since it makes the pie drier. harder, sometimes jam and sugar leak out of it, and puff pastry pies, as a rule, fall off after being removed from the oven and lose their fluffiness.

For all these complex (with filling) and large-sized products, baking of which lasts 20-30 minutes, or even about an hour, a baking sheet is indispensable. But it is contraindicated for small confectionery products, dry sweet cookies, which should be crispy, free-flowing, brittle and “sit” in the oven for no more than 5 minutes so as not to burn.

So, we know that it is better to bake bread on a sheet, and the small flat cakes we are talking about can even be baked on cardboard, foil, or just regular typewriter paper placed on a wire rack. Did your flatbreads turn out good? Of course they are good! But don’t rush to turn up your nose. You still have a lot to learn.

Making bread is the basics, the first, initial stage, like a children's game of Easter cakes or blocks. The principle here is the same: you put a ready-made thing together, “build it yourself,” but still only from the ready-made. So far, you have not taken a single independent action on the products that would dramatically improve them, or perhaps worsen them.

From a culinary training perspective, making fried potatoes or scrambled eggs is still more difficult than making bread. Because in both of these cases, you must prepare the product yourself and decide for yourself how to fry it. And this is where knowledge is needed, and without it, mistakes await you. But about everything, as we agreed, in order.

Let's return once again to our bread and repeat everything from the beginning, but not a specific recipe, but the general principles of preparing all products of this kind, so that we can prepare them regardless of whether we remember this recipe or not, whether we have the specified products or not.

Five rules, five secrets of baking

Yeast
Yeast must always be fresh. If they are stale, you can try to refresh them: grind them in a spoonful of warm water and add a teaspoon of sugar. If after 10 minutes they begin to bubble, it means they have come to life. Select dark, non-living pieces and discard.
But it is better to use fresh yeast for all bread products. Renewed yeast should be taken almost twice as much as fresh.
For one kilogram of flour and other dough components, you need to take at least 35 and no more than 50 grams of yeast, that is, a third or half a pack, depending on their quality.
Yeast can be replaced with beer (half a glass) or sour cream (glass). However, substitutes are not added directly to the dough like yeast. Instead, a sourdough dough is first prepared from them: beer or sour cream must be mixed with a small amount of flour into a paste, add a teaspoon of granulated sugar, cover and leave in a warm place for the mixture to ferment.
If fermentation and the accompanying swelling do not occur (which can be explained by the death or absence of living fungi in the beer), then such a “sourdough” will not be able to replace yeast.

Liquid
The liquid for kneading any dough must necessarily consist of at least half a glass of water - for diluting the yeast. The rest of the liquid can consist of water, milk, sour cream, whey, buttermilk, kefir, mixed in any proportions and taken in any quantities.

Fats
Absolutely any fats of animal and vegetable origin can be used in a bread product.
Sunflower oil is best, as well as butter, lamb fat, pork and beef lard.
If the fats are solid, then they must be melted and turned into liquid before adding them to the dough.
Fats, like liquids, can be mixed together in any proportions and these combinations can be used in a bread product.
You have a spoonful of sunflower oil, a small piece, about 20 grams, butter and a little chicken fat lining the abdominal cavity - all this can be mixed, all this is good for baking a kilogram of bread. You just need to melt everything and mix it together before adding it to the dough.
People reflected this ability of bread products to help utilize all the remnants of not only fats, but also other related products (small additions of cheese, cottage cheese, previously turned into powder, grated, into the dough) in the well-known proverb: you can wrap everything in bread and in a pie .

First operation

First, a mixture of yeast, liquids and all additional components is always created (all components are diluted, including fats and eggs, if the latter are provided for in a recipe).

After it has been created, some small additions of soluble or insoluble dry ingredients, for example, salt, spices (pepper, onion, cumin, coriander, anise), can be added to this liquid mixture. You just need to make sure that they are evenly distributed in the dough.

Second and decisive operation: preparing the dough

Flour is added to the combined liquid mixture - as much as is needed for a dough that does not stick to your hands. Therefore, the flour is added gradually, and the dough is kneaded all the time. It is best if this is done continuously: add flour with one hand, and knead the dough with the other (with a spoon) in a clockwise circular motion. To make this easier, the dough should always be kneaded in a deep, stable bowl.

That is why previously a sauerkraut was used for this purpose - a cylindrical, heavy wooden bucket slightly expanding at the bottom. Now the most convenient utensil may be a deep cylindrical enamel bowl (not a saucepan).

The amount of flour is never determined in advance when preparing flour (bread) products, because everything depends on the amount of liquid mixture obtained; what is its specific composition and how much flour can this mixture absorb. If you determine the amount of flour in advance, then it is almost never possible to accurately adjust the liquid to it, because this value is variable and subject to fluctuations.

Various fat contents, milk density, water hardness, egg size, butter and fat consistency, as well as the freshness of the yeast and their effect on the liquid part also influence this.

Therefore, do not have much confidence in a recipe that “precisely” determines the amount of flour for bread dough. As a rule, it does not make it possible to obtain a quality product, despite all our efforts.

It is important to do something else - strictly observe the proportions, not go beyond certain ratios:
1) All dry additives, insoluble: onions, cheese, cottage cheese, spices, together should not exceed half a glass in volume for every two glasses of liquid in the dough. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the dough to rise well.
2) Fats and oils should not exceed half a glass for each glass of liquid (water, milk), otherwise the dough will be dry and thin.
3) Eggs should not be added to bread dough at all, as they make the dough brittle and tough. Therefore, eggs are mainly a part of confectionery dough, which has different laws.
4) Milk makes the dough fluffier, softer, gives it elasticity and firmness. But it should not be overused, it should always be less than water, or half with water, otherwise the dough will be difficult to bake. Milk bread should always be made in small sizes: the smaller the milk bun, the easier it is to bake.
5) A bread product differs from a confectionery product not in that one is sweet and the other is not. This is a consumer definition. The culinary definition is based on the role that flour plays in a given product.

If flour is the main component, if there is more of it (by weight, volume) than all other components, then the product is bread.
If flour makes up less than half of all other components (butter, eggs, sugar, various additives), then the product is a confectionery product.

Now that the meaning and basic rules for preparing bread products have become clear to you, try baking bread yourself, without any recipe, by eye. Only after this test succeeds, proceed to the next chapter.

Note. The only difficulty you may have is the lack of yeast and the ineffectiveness of its substitutes.
But there are two ways out.
First, form a dough from the combination pancake flour with ordinary kefir. Under no circumstances should you add water to this mixture, but oil (fats) and onion dressing are possible and even desirable. Such dough must be very quickly cut into small flat cakes with your hands, but do not knead it too much or squeeze it, but immediately put it in the oven so that its lifting force does not have time to evaporate.
The second way out is even simpler: make bread without any baking powder or lifting agents at all, and even without using an oven, just in a frying pan. Such “bread,” of course, will be very different from ordinary bread, but nevertheless it may well serve as bread, that is, fulfill its main function. Moreover, its taste properties are excellent, and it is practically impossible for it to turn out unbaked.

What do you need to have for this?

Flour, water, sunflower or any other vegetable oil, salt.

What need to do?

Pour two to three glasses of flour into a deep bowl and slowly add warm water to it, at least 36-38 degrees C, continuously and quickly stirring this mixture with a fork, spoon, or best of all, a wooden stick, holding the latter vertically in the center of the bowl and rotating clockwise arrow.

The resulting viscous dough should seem to be wrapped around a stick. At the same time, it is very important not to knead the dough, not to press it against the walls or bottom of the dish, but to leave it freely “stuck” to the stick or fork at all times.

As soon as the dough reaches a consistency close to thick but loose yeast dough, carefully, without kneading, release it from the stick and cover it with a thick, double-folded towel, leaving it in a warm place for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a wide, thick metal frying pan and place a layer of flour on a cutting board. Having laid out the dough on the board after layering, roll it into a pancake measuring 50x25 centimeters, generously grease with sunflower oil, sprinkle with salt and roll into a tube.

Cut the tube crosswise into two equal parts and twist each of them helically into a rope, just as you squeeze water out of laundry. Place the strands on a board, press down and carefully, without strong pressure, roll out to a thickness of at least one centimeter.

After this, place the bundles in a hot, oiled frying pan, turn up the heat, cover with a lid and bake for three minutes on each side.

The total cooking time for this “bread” will therefore take only about an hour. It should only be eaten hot, fresh, immediately after preparation.

Only after this test is successful, move on to the next one.

A year ago, as a birthday present, I received a huge book by V.V. Pokhlebkina. She lay there and waited in the wings, waiting for the moment when I was ripe to gain deeper knowledge of culinary processes. Now it’s interesting not just to cook, but to understand what I’m doing, why and why. And I want to do it not just according to the recipe, but with understanding, myself. Pokhlebkin is a classic. Moreover, he writes in such a way that you read it like a work of art, and I personally understand everything the first time. I want to share the knowledge I have acquired with you, maybe someone will discover something new, or maybe look at familiar things from a new perspective.

Yeast

Yeast must always be fresh. If they are stale, you can try to refresh them: grind them in a spoonful of warm water and add a teaspoon of sugar. If after 10 minutes they begin to bubble, it means they have come to life. Select dark, non-living pieces and discard. But it is better to use fresh yeast for all bread products. Renewed yeast should be taken almost twice as much as fresh. For one kilogram of flour and other dough components, you need to take at least 35 and no more than 50 grams of yeast, that is, a third or half a pack, depending on their quality. Yeast can be replaced with beer (half a glass) or sour cream (a glass). However, substitutes are not added directly to the dough like yeast. Instead, a sourdough dough is first prepared from them: beer or sour cream must be mixed with a small amount of flour into a paste, add a teaspoon of granulated sugar, cover and leave in a warm place for the mixture to ferment. If fermentation and accompanying swelling do not occur (which may be due to the death or absence of living fungi in the beer), such a “sourdough” will not be able to replace yeast.

Liquid
The liquid for kneading any dough must necessarily consist of at least half a glass of water - for diluting the yeast. The rest of the liquid can consist of water, milk, sour cream, whey, buttermilk, kefir, mixed in any proportions and taken in any quantities.

Fats
Absolutely any fats of animal and vegetable origin can be used in a bread product. Sunflower oil is best, as well as butter, lamb fat, pork and beef lard. If the fats are solid, then they must be melted and turned into liquid before adding them to the dough. Fats, like liquids, can be mixed together in any proportions and these combinations can be used in a bread product. You have a spoonful of sunflower oil, a small piece, 20 grams, butter and a little chicken fat lining the abdominal cavity - all this can be mixed, all this is good for baking a kilogram of bread. You just need to melt everything and mix it together before adding it to the dough.
People reflected this ability of bread products to help utilize all the remnants of not only fats, but also other related products (small additions of cheese, cottage cheese, previously turned into powder, grated, into the dough) in the well-known proverb: you can wrap everything in bread and in a pie .

First operation.
First, a mixture of yeast, liquids and all additional components is always created (all components are diluted, including fats and eggs, if the latter are provided for in a recipe).
After it has been created, some small additions of soluble or insoluble dry ingredients, for example, salt, spices (pepper, onion, cumin, coriander, anise), can be added to this liquid mixture. You just need to make sure that they are evenly distributed in the dough.

The second and decisive operation: preparing the dough.
Flour is added to the combined liquid mixture - as much as is needed for a dough that does not stick to your hands. Therefore, the flour is added gradually, and the dough is kneaded all the time. It is best if this is done continuously: add flour with one hand, and knead the dough with the other (with a spoon) in a clockwise circular motion. To make this easier, the dough should always be kneaded in a deep, stable bowl. That is why previously a sauerkraut was used for this purpose - a cylindrical, heavy wooden bucket slightly expanding at the bottom. Now the most convenient utensil may be a deep cylindrical enamel bowl (not a saucepan).
The amount of flour is never determined in advance when preparing flour (bread) products, because everything depends on the amount of liquid mixture obtained; what is its specific composition and how much flour can this mixture absorb. If you determine the amount of flour in advance, then it is almost never possible to accurately adjust the liquid to it, because this value is variable and subject to fluctuations. Various fat contents, milk density, water hardness, egg size, butter and fat consistency, as well as the freshness of the yeast and their effect on the liquid part also influence this. Therefore, do not have much confidence in a recipe that “precisely” determines the amount of flour for bread dough. As a rule, it does not make it possible to obtain a quality product, despite all our efforts. It is important to do something else - strictly observe the proportions, not go beyond certain ratios:

1. All dry additives, insoluble: onions, cheese, cottage cheese, spices together should not exceed half a glass in volume for every two glasses of liquid in the dough. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the dough to rise well.
2. Fats and oils should not exceed half a glass for each glass of liquid (water, milk), otherwise the dough will be dry and thin.
3. Eggs should not be added to bread dough at all, as they make the dough brittle and tough.
Therefore, eggs are mainly a part of confectionery dough, which has different laws.
4. Milk makes the dough fluffier, softer, gives it elasticity and firmness. But it should not be overused, it should always be less than water, or half with water, otherwise the dough will be difficult to bake. Milk bread should always be made in small sizes; the smaller the milk bun, the easier it is to bake.

A bread product differs from a confectionery product not in that one is sweet and the other is not. This is a consumer definition. The culinary definition is based on the role that flour plays in a given product. If flour is the main component, if there is more of it (by weight, volume) than all other components, then the product is bread. If flour makes up less than half of all other components (butter, eggs, sugar, various additives), then the product is a confectionery product.

And I also want to show you a simple but very tasty dish that I found on the pages of his book. I have already shown you what can be made from turnips, and now I will introduce you to rutabaga, the turnip’s closest relative. Everything is so simple that it couldn’t be simpler, but how delicious! Rutabaga is not just baked, but steamed in an oven, in this case in the oven, and in this form is called parenki. Because of this cooking method, it turns out very dry, with a special pleasant taste. And served with berries. In general, here it is.

Rutabaga patties with cranberries

1 cup cranberries (you can use lingonberries)
0.5-1 cups grated rutabaga (you can also make turnips)
3-4 tbsp. honey

We thoroughly clean the vegetables, peel them, cut large tubers into 3-4 pieces, place them tightly in a cast iron or pot (I used a ceramic pot). We tightly plug the hole on top with hay (I used alder shavings), turn the pot upside down onto a baking sheet covered with paper, put it in the oven, preheated to 200 C. All this should simmer for 35-50 minutes, depending on the size of the pieces. Hot parenki can be served as a separate dish with butter and salt or as a side dish for meat. And as a dessert, as I do, the parenki are cooled and grated on a fine grater (or crushed in a blender into a not very liquid puree). I brought the cranberries, which are large, to a boil with honey (or sugar), boiled for 1 minute and mashed with a spoon so that the mass was uneven.

I really liked the slight sourness, with the overall prevailing berry sweetness. The taste of rutabaga is very unobtrusive, there are just a lot of benefits. It turns out that such forgotten dishes are quite worthy of attention.

Well, here, in fact, is the rutabaga itself, if someone is not familiar with it.