Greek barley bread

I have yet to find a favorite bakery in The Hague. I was tricked into believing I had found it but no, I’m a tough customer. The quality of the bread went from good to bad to worse and I couldn’t have that.

There is one excellent French bakery in the city center that makes amazing baguettes that could rival those in Paris. There’s another one in my neighborhood that makes passable sourdough bread, and a couple others that promise a good multigrain but they miss the mark most of the times.

So now I’m back to scratch, seeking the bakery that does offer good bread. That’s all I want, good bread. A loaf that’s full of flavor, full of substance. A loaf that’s not too fancy, one that will make me go back to it again and again, planning my meals around it; soups, stews, runny eggs.

The thing is, I love bread. I simply can’t have a meal without it and as a person who eats a lot of bread, I realize that it needs to be at the very least of good quality and healthy, with good grains and not that whiter than white, fake thing that aspires to be a sponge rather than bread, packed with sugar and god knows what else. You know, the kind you’ll find at super markets.

Don’t get me wrong, I like white bread, I enjoy white bread, but if I’m going to eat it, I want it to be excellent.

I wish I had the time to make my own bread every single day but unfortunately that’s not possible. Whenever I do have time to make bread, I make the kind I love the most; the types of loaves I crave. One of them is this traditional Greek barley loaf.

It has an earthy, nutty flavor that’s difficult to find in other loaves. It has a hard crust and a soft yet dense crumb that’s ever-so-slightly moist with a distinct texture from the barley and whole wheat flour.

It is the ideal bread for dunking into sauces, into good Greek extra-virgin olive oil or into the juices of anything scrumptious you’ve cooked. It’s great cut into chunks and added into salads, made into croutons to have a kind of bite-sized Greek dako, accompanied by raw vegetables and some feta, made into a good sandwich.

Come to think of it, perhaps I should stop trying to find a good bakery and stick to my own bread for a while.

Greek Barley Bread

One of the things I love about this bread, apart from its flavor, is that it’s easy to make by hand. I never use a stand mixer for this like I do for other breads, because it comes together so easily and you don’t need to knead it for a long time.
Also, it keeps very very well for 4-5 days. You can’t say that for many breads now can you?

Yield: 1 loaf (900 g)

Ingredients
270 g whole barley flour
155 g whole wheat flour
150 g white strong bread flour
11 g instant dried yeast
½ Tbsp caster sugar
30 ml extra virgin olive oil
350 ml lukewarm water
¾ tsp sea salt

Special equipment: large bowl (large enough to knead the bread in with your hands), plastic wrap, Dutch oven, or pizza stone, or baking sheet for baking the bread, baking paper


Preparation
In a large bowl, add the flours, the yeast and sugar and mix well with a wooden spoon. Make a well in the middle and add the olive oil, water and salt. Mix with your hands until you have a rough dough and then start kneading. It will need about 5 minutes of kneading before you have a pliable dough that’s not sticking to your hands or to the sides of the bowl but remains slightly sticky. The dough will be kind of heavy due to the type of flours used, it will not be airy and light like a dough made exclusively with white flour.

Shape the dough into a ball and place it in the bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap and place it in a warm place, allowing the dough to proof and double in size. It will take about 40 minutes to proof, depending on how warm the room you leave it in is.

Notes on baking the bread
I have baked this bread many times, mainly in three different ways: in a Dutch oven, on a pizza stone, and on a regular baking sheet. I have the best results when I bake it in the Dutch oven and on the pizza stone, and in the latter case I also put a baking pan to the bottom of the oven and as soon as I place the bread on the stone, I throw some ice cubes in the baking pan which creates steam; the steam allows the bread to rise without forming a crust right away and it also results in a perfect, crisp crust. The same result is achieved with the Dutch oven, because steam is created inside it as the bread bakes.

You can of course bake the bread on top of a baking sheet and add a baking pan to the bottom of the oven and then add ice cubes, but the pizza stone really makes a difference in the way the bread is baked because the stone (as well as the Dutch oven) retains heat well and it creates a beautiful texture to the crust, even at the bottom of the bread, whereas on a baking sheet, bread tends to easily burn on the bottom.

I don’t mean to discourage you in case you don’t have a Dutch oven or pizza stone but I want to be honest about the end result.

For baking in a Dutch oven or on a pizza stone, preheat your oven to 225 degrees Celsius / 435 Fahrenheit and place the Dutch oven (with the lid) or pizza stone in the oven. If you want, place a baking pan to the bottom of the oven to add the ice cubes later.
For baking on a baking sheet, preheat your oven to 180-185 degrees Celsius / 350-365 Fahrenheit.

Once the dough has proofed, take it out of the bowl and knead it for a few seconds just to deflate it a bit on a clean surface (don’t flour the surface). It should feel smooth, somewhat soft and not sticky. Shape it into a ball and then press the top to flatten it. Using a large knife, slash the top (see photograph) and then:

If you’re baking in a Dutch oven (I use this one), take a large piece of baking paper, crimp it and line the Dutch oven with it. Place the dough on the baking paper, put on the lid and place Dutch oven in the oven. Immediately turn heat down to 190 degrees Celsius / 375 Fahrenheit and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for about 25 minutes more, until the bread has taken on a golden brown color.

If you’re baking on a pizza stone, dust it with semolina before adding the dough on top. (If you’ve put a baking pan at the bottom, add at this point 10-12 large ice cubes and close immediately the oven door). Turn heat down to 190 degrees Celsius / 375 Fahrenheit and bake for about 50 minutes, until the bread has taken on a golden brown color.

If you’re baking on a baking sheet, line it with baking paper, add the dough on top and bake on the low rack of the oven for 40 minutes. Then transfer the baking sheet to the middle rack of the oven and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, until the bread has taken on a golden brown color.

As a general rule, a bread loaf is ready when it makes a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.

Remove the bread from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!!