![Olive Oil & Fennel Sourdough loaf](https://thesourdoughschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Fennel-in-the-kitchen-x-680.jpg)
I have been working on recreating this fine olive oil sourdough loaf with its soft crumb and melichrous (honey-yellow) crust almost exactly as it was from a memory that now seems like a lifetime ago. The original memory of this loaf was from a restaurant in the South West of France that was called “Les Haricots Vert.” Aged 18 and freshly qualified I worked nights in the local bakery. My bright-eyed romantic French beau would save for weeks to be able to afford to treat me to a meal in this wonderful restaurant and we soon made friends with the chef, Jean Bernard Lavaud. It’s perhaps not the exact same method that Jean Bernard used, but the taste to me is as close as I can get it.
I developed this recipe several months ago and had almost given up on ever seeing my friend again. I’d been trying to find Jean Bernard for the past ten years and I finally managed to track him down after not seeing him for 21 years this summer. He is just as amazing as I remember, and I hugged him in sheer delight when I finally caught up with him in his restaurant at Chateaux Sauveboeuf just last week. He’s not changed one bit and his food was equally, if not more, delicious then I remember.
Every mouthful of food that came out of Jean Bernard’s kitchen was a delight. Jean Bernard still visits the local market and the farmers to buy his ingredients but perhaps the thing that influenced me the most at eighteen, and has perhaps had the single most effect in my cooking was that he grew a herb garden literally at the back of his kitchen. Herbs, Jean Bernard explained, lost flavour from the moment they were picked. For truly aromatic pleasure you must have your dish ready for your herbs, pick them just moments before you need them and have them as close to the kitchen as you can manage.
Jean Bernard’s bread was nothing like the simple day-to-day rustic French sourdough that I was baking at the village bakery; this bread, like all of his dishes was refined, delicate and perfumed with fresh herbs. Saturday night was my night off and I soon realised that before everyone in the village went to church, I could head up early and hang out in the kitchen on Sundays to watch Jean Paul work. I’d observe his mannerisms as he’d glug in olive oil in with the water before throwing in liberal amounts of sea salt and mixing vigorously. He’d pause, as though in thought before mixing in the flour and then he’d use his hands to mix it.
Oh how he handled this dough, as though it was his one true love, he’d knead it with such with such respect and grace. As the dough was in its final prove he would walk thoughtfully into the garden, breath in the fresh morning air and examine the herbs intensely. He was, he explained, looking for the most perfumed herbs, which were generally the ones that had got the most sun. He’d return to the dough with handfuls of fresh willowy fennel, which would then be gently folded in to the dough one last time. Before being proved and then baked in time to allow wafts of fresh baked olive oil sourdough bread tantalise his hungry customer arriving for lunch.
You can make this recipe with ordinary stoneground whole wheat flour, but the Pandisempre blend, is outstanding. The PandiSempre is a blend of organic (natural stoneground) soft wheat, enkir and farro and is, alongside the olive oil what gives the crumb its finesse.
- 275g water at (24 degrees in summer & 28 degrees in winter)
- 75 ml organic extra virgin olive oil
- 100g 1:1 starter refreshed (8 hours before you are ready to bake.)
- 350g Organic PandiSempre Flour
- 75g stoneground organic whole wheat flour
- 75g organic finely ground Durham wheat semolina
- 9g fine sea salt
- A handful of fresh garden picked fennel. A heaped tablespoon of dried seeds are fine but not as perfumed.
Equipment
You will need either a large oval casserole pot or an oblong baker. Alternatively, the Challenger Bread Pan is ideal.
Mix
In a bowl whisk your olive oil water and starter and mix well. Combine your flours and salt and blend them well and mix until all the ingredients come together into a large ball. Do not over mix.
1st Ferment
Cover with cling film and let the dough rest for 1/2 an hour.
Fold
Scatter the chopped fennel over the dough. Lift and fold your dough over, do a quarter turn of your bowl and three more times. Over the next hour left and fold your dough twice.
Shape
Cover with a shower cap or damp linen cloth and leave to prove in the fridge for 8 hours. Shape your dough lightly into a batards. Leave for about 20 minutes covered with a damp linen cloth whilst the oven heats. You can just make a boule with this or if you are not familiar with shaping dough then you can bake it in a well greased tin.
Bake
Preheat the oven with either an oblong baker or an oval casserole pot to 220C/428F or as hot as you can get your oven – for at least 30 minutes before you are ready to bake in the oven. The pot or baker must be very hot.
Take the pot out of the oven and sprinkle a liberal amount of semolina flour over the bottom.
Transfer your dough into the baker and slash the top of your bread using a grignette (or lame) then place the lid back on top and return to the oven as quickly as possible. Bake for 45 minutes.
Turn the heat down to 180C/356F. Remove the lid and bake for another 15 – 20 minutes. You need to judge how dark you like your crust but this loaf has gentler crust because of the olive oil and I so prefer it on the mid side of baked and a deep golden, rather than brown.
Let the bread cool. Sourdough is best left to cool completely before slicing and is even better if left for a day to let the full flavour develop.
Store: Once cooled store wrapped in a linen cloth.