This is a recipie for how to make sourdough, sprouted grain rye bread and also a recipie for reuban sandwiches

One of my favorite kinds of bread to make is sourdough sprouted rye. One of my favorite dishes to make with this bread is rueban sandwiches.

Now I never really thought of a rueban as a healthy food, but up until fairly recently, I have not been thinking of bread as a particularly healthy food either. I was always looking for meals that eliminated it or minimized it. However, when the bread is made with the following recipie, it is much healthier than most other bread one may encounter. Healthy and delicious. I have read, in medical literature in a docters office, that long fermented sourdough breads do not raise the blood sugar level the way regular breads do, and are thus that much healthier. Isn’t that what Homegrown Cooking is all about. Learning how to make the foods you love in a healtheir way that tastes even better than before.

This is not a spur of the moment baking project. It will take a couple of days until you have your bread, but trust me, it will be worth the wait.

 

First, you sprout some organic, whole grain rye for about 3 days, until the sprout is poking out of the seed about 1 cm or ½ inch. To sprout the seeds, you soak the rye in water overnight and then rinse twice a day until the sprout reaches the desired length. Wash and rinse off any icky looking sliminess that might appear. Your rye sprouts are not rotten if this happens.

 

On the day you bake the bread, or day before, wash the sprouts really well, taste some, then either chop them fine on a cutting board by hand, or whip them in a blender or food processor together with your sourdough starter. (You can read about how to make sourdough starter here.)

It is best to add a little flour at this point and let it ferment for about a day.

 

The next day, you add an equal amount of flour, a teaspoon of yeast, sprinkle on up to a teaspoon each of salt and oil and knead the dough. Then you let it rise in a warm place a few hours, or overnight. This is not exactly a quick recipie. I let mine rise by the woodstove.

 

You may have to add flour again and knead it to a texture that you can shape into a loaf. The sourdough eats away at the flour a bit, it gets bubbly and sticky. We need it to be bread dough, not batter.

 

Shape it into a loaf, in a parchment lined loaf pan and slash the top in a diagnol pattern. Or slash your initals in it if you want. Then let it rise yet again in the loaf pan for up to 1 hour. Brush the top with a mixture of cooking oil and warm water. This helps make a beautiful crispy crust.

Pre heat the oven to 400o F Bake the bread at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 and bake for half an hour before you look in to see if its done.

 

Then you test for done ness by poking it with a skewer or toothpick to see if it is doughy inside, or poke a meat thermometer inside and see if it is 180 degrees. Or tap on the loaf to hear a hollow sound. This method is not my favorite, because sometimes the crust is done and the inside is still doughy. The thermometer method is the most reliable. Its great hot out of the oven with butter. Its even better with sharp chedder cheese.

 

Or you could make rubans with it.

To make rubens, you slice the bread, and spread hot mustard on it. Layer on corned beef and saurkraut. (To make home made saurkraut, see recipie here) Top with Swiss cheese and broil in the oven until the cheese is bubbling. Serve with a dill pickle and glass of beer.