Jim Lahey's slow fermentation bread recipe


Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room (more)

Oleg Kiselev adds:
"slow": mark bittman has been one of the major proponents of the "no-knead". i like him. he's been a good thing for the food in this country.

but the "no-knead" movement didn't start with lahey in 2006. this technique is based on what got named "atolyse" by raymond calvel (look it up on wikipedia). lots of people have been promoting it, including peter reinhart (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1timJlCT3PM) and chad robertson (tartinebakery.com, recently published a book on his baking technique, got a good mention from bittman a while back : http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/travel/28Bite.html).

"recipe": i don't like it. if you are going to take 12-18 hours to ferment the bread, you may as well make it a sourdough, using a sourdough starter. you may also do it _right_ and use weight measurements rather than squishy volume measurements. there are many recipes out there for high quality breads. usually, all you need is flour, salt and water. the rest is all in the technique.