Our sourdough starter had another birthday recently and to celebrate, we tried something new. A long fermentation “Sourdough-Potato Bread.” I love the color, flavor and texture of potato bread but had never tried it with sourdough, so I went sniffing around the WWW, looking for ideas. Potato adds a depth of flavor to bread that I really like. It also increases the nutritional value.
Imagine that, bread that actually contains vitamins and minerals along with the calories. The white, pasty stuff they call bread at the store is pretty much tasteless and has little nutritional value, only empty calories; convenience is about the only thing it has going. Ezekiel sure wasn’t talking about that stuff when he said that Bread was the “Staff of Life.”
“How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?”
― Julia Child
Spring has finally arrived on the High Plains and with it some warmer weather. Time to fire up the grill for some burgers. What better way to serve a big, High Plains Buffalo Burger than a fat, round, buttery soft, sourdough-potato bun. At least that was my thought when I took the bowl of fermenting dough out of the fridge and it was exploding out of the container. The wild yeast, gorging themselves on the potato sugar.
We’re always looking for new ideas to try with sourdough. The potato bread was a winner for sure. It’s going to be tough not to include some mashed potatoes in all the future loaves. And it’s got me thinking about sourdough gnocchis. Perhaps the wild High Plains yeast will make for some plump, potato pasta – stay tuned.
