Hermitcraft: Hermit Bread, Case 2.

'Way back in the first weeks of this blog I posted on the sourdough bread that's been part of my monastic practice since before I became a monk. But seeing as the recipe has continued to develop over the intervening years, and is arguably improved, I reckon I should revisit the subject now.

The big news is that some years ago I stopped using baking soda to raise the sourdough, though that's the traditional Old Settler drill. Soda is good for baking on the fly, because it reacts to the heat of the oven instead of requiring a lengthy stretch of steady, controlled warmth beforehand to raise the dough.

But eventually I succumbed to the richer scent and flavour, and the light, airy crumb, you get from wild yeast.

And it's still a simple and straightforward process, calling for just 20 minutes of hands-on labour, followed by a single rise. So now I do it like this:

YEAST-RAISED SOURDOUGH HERMIT BREAD

1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
About 2 cups all-purpose flour (added by handfuls to optimum texture)
1 tablespoon oil for brushing
shortening or butter for lubrication

Liberally grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet. You can also use a cake pan or cookie sheet, but cast iron gives the best results.

In a large bowl, blend the flour into the starter with a butter knife. When too stiff to stir, continue cutting in flour with the blade until the dough balls easily and is dry enough to work with the hands.

Knead the dough while continuing to add flour as necessary to prevent it sticking to your fingers. (See notes below.) When the dough is smooth, elastic, and dry enough to work lightly without gumming up your hands, roll it into a ball and position it in the centre of the greased skillet.

Pat the ball down to six to eight inches in diameter. Brush the top with oil and perforate the pat in rows with a wooden spoon handle or similar until it's holed all over.

Mark the dimpled pat into 8 wedges with a cleaver, chef's knife, or pastry scraper. Clean up and reseal the edges, cover the skillet, and place the dough in a warm location to work for about 4 hours. (See notes below.)

When the dough has risen sufficiently, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Uncover the pan and bake the bread on the middle rack for 20 minutes.

When lightly browned, unpan the loaf and place it on a rack to cool for a few minutes. Eat as-is or with any of the usual amendments. (Butter, jam, cheese, herbed oil, sugared berries, etc.)

Keep the fully-cooled pat fresh in an airtight plastic bag. Cold pieces can be microwaved for 30 seconds for a credible impression of just-baked bread.

Notes:

• For a richer bread, make your starter out of bread flour, then knead all-purpose into it as usual.

• I never knead this on a board, as is normal with bread. Instead I tip the bowl up on its bottom edge and knead the dough against the side while turning the bowl with the other hand, like a steering wheel. When the dough is sufficiently dry I hold it up and knead it between my hands. I suspect this technique is rooted in the recipe's origins as sojourner food; there's no other place to knead bread on the trail.

• If you lack grease for lubrication, oil and flour will work as well, but don't skip the flour dusting; the oil alone won't cut it.

• The dough must be tightly covered during the rise, or its surface will dry out and prevent the pat from expanding. I put a tight-fitting lid on the skillet. When baking on a sheet, I invert the now-empty mixing bowl over the pat. Make sure to grease an inch or so of the bowl's upper edge, or any dough that touches will stick tight.

• For the rise, place the dough somewhere that delivers gentle heat at 80 to 95 degrees. Good prospects include a water heater closet, a purpose-built proofing box, strategic positioning beside a woodstove, or, on a summer day, in reliable shade outdoors. I've also had success in an oven with the light on – usually with the door cracked a certain distance; the light alone can heat the interior to surprising levels – and a sun-heated car, but monitor the temperature carefully and consistently with both. I've also preheated an oven at its lowest setting, turned it off, and placed the pan on the middle rack, returning once or twice to take the dough out and heat the oven again. And I've put a size-appropriate incandescent light in a closet, tote, disused refrigerator, or large ice chest. Again, be very wary – those bulbs throw a lot more heat than you think – and mind the serious fire danger when placing a heat source in a tight space.

• Finally, remember that sourdough will also rise at room temperature if necessary, though it takes longer and results in a sourer, less consistent product.

The history of this bread, as well as traditional ovenless baking methods, is found at the bottom of my original post.

And a last important point: the original soda-raised recipe is still perfectly enjoyable if you've got no way to incubate the yeast; would rather not wait that long; or aren't over-fond of the taste of sourdough, which soda mitigates. It's also good for an upset stomach, among other things.

And I still mix it up for pizza dough.

At some point I'll post a few whole-grain elaborations I've developed over the years. In the meantime, enjoy this simple, thrifty down-home staple, that never fails to bolster my sense of comfort and well-being.

Hermitcraft: Mint

Inexplicably growing in a field

A great blessing of summer is the bounty of wild mint that appears during this season in most parts of the world. Various Menthe species are native to virtually every place on earth, and owing to their pleasant fragrance and flavour, exotics too have been introduced alongside them. And because they grow exuberantly, they tend to take the highway.

And I do mean highway, since roadsides are the most common place to find them. Second are the banks of lakes, rivers, and streams. (In fact, roadside mints are usually growing in the ditch there.)

That said, I'm constantly amazed to find mint in the most unlikely places, such as open fields or forest clearings, for no evident reason. As a hiker, biker, and forager, I'm forever stumbling across it.

Because they cross-pollinate promiscuously, no two colonies of wild mint are alike. And that makes each discovery a new resource with its own nuanced taste; more useful for some things, less for others.

And so every clump is worth cataloguing and revisiting as need dictates.

I mostly use my mints in tea, either alone, as the entire teastock; as a mixing ingredient in herbal blends; an amendment for hot black or green tea; or – my personal favourite – an anchor ingredient for sunshine tea.

It's also delicious in fruit drinks, particularly lemonade. I have a vivid memory of painting a house one summer in my university years, where a riotous patch of tall, large-leaved peppermint had overtaken one of the flower beds. I'd show up early in the morning with a vacuum jug of well-iced lemonade, into which I would stuff a fistful of this mint, after first bruising it by rolling the bunch between my palms. Then I'd ditch the jug in a cool dark recess and paint away. By lunch time – a good three or four hours later – I had as much of the most delicious lemonade I've ever tasted as I could drink. It made working through the hottest part of an August afternoon almost pleasurable.

But even that wasn't as potent as it might have got. I've since seen Middle Eastern recipes that are basically a paste of pureed mint and ground ice, suspended in pungent, whole-lemon Arab lemonade. I haven't tried this yet, but it sounds brilliant.

The Arabs really know how to take the edge off a stiffling day.

Mint also makes interesting sauces, vinegars, wine and cordials, and jelly, and can be used as an accent in salads. Lebanese tabbouleh – a go-to dog-day dish for me – amounts to a blend of cold bulgur or couscous, tomatoes, onion, and mint, served chilled. Really fine barbecue fare.

For all of the above you're best off with fresh mint, but it also dries famously and isn't bad like that in hot drinks, though the flavour fades after six months. Mint-enhanced cocoa is particularly nice on winter days.

So keep your eye out for wild mints along the way as you go about your summer peregrinations. It's a timely asset.

Hermitcraft: Sourdough Coffee Cake

During the holidays we frequently entertain, including in the morning. The season is also particularly associated with the scent and flavour of cinnamon and cloves, and here in the Northern Hemisphere, with hot beverages.

That's why I'm sharing this favourite treat, which I developed several years ago, though like chai and sourdough devil's food cake I enjoy it year-round. In the interest of full disclosure I also dislike coffee, but as tea cake is a whole 'nother thing, Sourdough Coffee Cake it is.

For best results, follow the instructions in order.


Sourdough Coffee Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 cup sourdough starter
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 teaspoon CORRECTION: 1/2 teaspoon soda mixed into 1/4 cup flour

Topping:
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon minced orange peel
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1.) In a medium mixing bowl, beat together all the cake ingredients except the soda and flour mixture.

Set the batter aside to work while completing the next steps.

2.) Grease an 8-inch cake pan.

3.) In a small mixing bowl, stir together the topping ingredients.

4.) Stir the soda and flour mixture thoroughly into the batter.

5.) Heat the oven to 400°.

6.) When the oven is ready, turn the batter into the greased cake pan and sprinkle the topping mixture evenly across the top.

7.) Bake for 20 minutes, or until brown and a pick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

8.) Serve hot with your favourite hot beverage.


Notes:

o  Since I don't care for things that are over-sweet I tend to short or omit spurious white sugar, but in the topping mixture it matters. I haven't tried to bake the cake itself with brown instead of white, but it might work.

o  Thick-cut rolled oats work best if you can get them. In any case, the "instant" type are least desirable. (For anything. Pardon my Scottish expertise.)

o  This is one of those recipes in which finely-minced orange peel works better than orange zest. Especially if you've got those thin-peeled clementines (Christmas oranges).

o  Like other soda-raised sourdough goods, Sourdough Coffee Cake is best eaten hot. It's still enjoyable after it cools, but the difference is telling. However, a cold day-old piece plus 30 seconds in the microwave equals a warm fresh piece.

Best of holidays regardless of where you live, which one you celebrate, or how.

Hermitcraft: Mexican Hominy Stew

Here we are at the holidays again, for some reason, which means that many of us will soon confront daunting quantities of leftover turkey. (Not so fast, vegans. Keep reading.)

You know who the all-time leftover turkey champions are? The Aztecs. Which is no great surprise when you figure they invented turkeys.

So this year I thought I'd share one of my favourite recipes. Its lineage goes straight back to the First Nations of Mexico, and uncoincidentally it's one of the best leftover turkey dishes ever devised. This stew is in fact so good you may find yourself unenthusiastically masticating that first-run serving, unfavourably comparing its drab, insipid presentation to the feast you will soon make from its scraps.

And the awesomeness of Mexican Hominy Stew doesn't stop there. Because this is mom's-kitchen fare, you can make it with just about any meat, or even (here it comes, vegans) no meat at all. (See after-recipe comments for Quick and Deadly Vegan Hack.) In fact, most ingredients can be swapped and subbed as necessary, resulting in full-spectrum dining dominance for this delicious comfort food.


MEXICAN HOMINY STEW

For 6:

2 rashers of bacon

1 good nopal, sliced (substitutes: chopped green bell pepper or cabbage; whole green beans; sliced celery; cubed pumpkin)

1 medium-sized yellow onion, sliced in wedges

1 fresh or jarred jalapeño, chopped well

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

two 16-ounce cans of diced tomatoes, or equivalent fresh, chopped

1 16-ounce can of hominy, drained (substitute: sweet corn or diced potatoes)

1 quart of chicken or vegetable stock

2 teaspoons of ground cumin

1 drop of liquid smoke, optional

1/2 teaspoon of thyme

1 large bay leaf

1 dried pepper, roasted (substitutes: 1 tablespoon smoked paprika, or ordinary paprika, toasted)

tomato juice or water

2 cups of roasted turkey, shredded (substitutes: cooked chicken, pork, beef, lamb, mutton, goat, sausage, hamburger; raw meaty white fish or shellfish; cooked beans)

lime juice

1/3 cup culantro, chopped (substitutes: cilantro, Italian parsley, celery leaves)

optional: queso Cotija, crumbled

1. Toast the dried pepper over medium heat in a dry skillet, turning frequently, till dark and crisp. Remove it from the pan and set it aside to cool. (Pepper will crisp even more as it cools.)

2. Medium-fry the bacon in a Dutch oven or similar. Remove, chop coarsely, and set aside. Pour the fat out of the pan.

3. In the residual fat left in the bottom of the pan, toss the onion wedges, crushed garlic, jalapeño, nopal, and cumin until the onion begins to turn translucent, about 5 minutes.

4. Add the thyme, bay leaf, tomatoes, hominy, liquid smoke, and stock. If adding soaked but uncooked beans, add them here as well.

5. Crush the roasted pepper as thoroughly as possible and add. (Shake out seeds first if desired.)

6. Add enough tomato juice or water to achieve stew-friendly liquidity.

7. Cover, bring to a boil, and reduce to simmer. Cook until the vegetables (and any soaked beans) become tender, about 30-40 minutes.

8. Add the turkey, bacon, and cilantro and cook till just heated through.

9. Sprinkle with lime juice, ladle into bowls, and crumble queso Cotija on top if desired.

Serve with hermit bread or sourdough corn bread (recipe pending).

NOTES:

• Quick and Deadly Vegan Hack: 1) sauté onion and nopalitos in a film of olive oil; 2) use vegetable stock instead of chicken; 3) replace meat with beans (black are especially good). So conventionally delicious you can serve it to meat-eaters and they'll never know it's vegan.


• If you let this stew sit for a day or two in the refrigerator before reheating and serving, it tastes even better. (Gives the flavours more time to mingle.)


• Don't overcook the meat after adding it; bacon in particular quickly turns to tofu if simmered too long.


• The recipe above is to my taste, which means it's pretty lively. I back off on the peppers when serving guests. In any case, know your dried peppers; some are hotter than others. Back off a bit when adding fish or shellfish, too; too much vegetable fire overwhelms seafood.


• Toast paprika by tossing it in a hot, dry skillet till dark.


• Cilantro is a chemically complex herb that tastes like soap to some DNA profiles. Unless you know that guests are in a non-soap population, it's best to avoid serving cilantro.


• Omit the cumin, thyme, liquid smoke, lime, and cheese – the peripherals, what – and you got the exact same recipe the Aztecs ate. Tell me that ain't awesome.

Roasting the pepper

Hermitcraft: Fucus

Though delicious, Fucus (FYOO-kuss) has a marketing problem. The genus sounds like some kind of fungal disease; its common names – rockweed, bladderwrack – are hardly better. But once you've tasted it, nothing else will do.

Fucus is a distinctive, prolific seaweed, readily identified by the yellow-green "mittens" at the end of each frond. These endear it to children, who love to pop them. Incredibly tenacious, bladderwrack thrives in the harsh upper tidal zone, and is therefore accessible at all but the highest tides.

This remarkable alga, adapted to long, thirsty stretches high and dry, will keep for a week or more in the refrigerator. Used fresh, it lends nutrients and a suggestion of shrimp to sauces and soups. The flavour compliments tomato bases especially well.

Fucus also dries readily, dwindling to unrecognisable wiry black shreds that spring miraculously back to life after a brief soak. (It's also one of the rare marine algae that bear up in fresh water.)

Dried bladderwrack can be lightly toasted and crumbled on salads and baked potatoes, for mock-crustacean tang. Eaten as a snack chip, it goes surprisingly well with a crisp blond beer.

Fresh Fucus is a powerful source of Vitamin C, while protein accounts for up to 25 per cent of its dried weight. In the past, bladderwrack tea (see below) was taken for goiter, a painful swelling of the thyroid glands occasioned by iodine deficiency – yet another Fucus asset. Full-spectrum nutrition also made bladderwrack tea a traditional, if ironic, response to both starvation and obesity in Scottish fishing villages.

On the scientific front, modern studies have found that Fucus extracts reduce plasma cholesterol in rats, are an effective anticoagulant, and may even be useful in treating radiation poisoning.

The resilience of this vinyl-looking weed means that you can often gather heaps of it from the beach after a storm; if sufficiently fresh, all it needs is a vigorous wash and you've got pounds of delicious food. (On sand beaches it can be difficult to get the grit off those sticky clusters, but I just dry them on a clothesline and bag the result. What sand survives washing and drying collects in the bottom of the sack.)

But do check for barnacles and epiphytes before collecting a washed-up clump. In the open sea bladderwrack often plays host to a variety of other life forms, and is increasingly likely to be encrusted the further out you get from new spring growth.

In calmer waters, where Fucus blankets logs, pilings, and rocks, you can simply snip fronds from the growing plant, leaving the rest intact. Because it grows so densely you can gather quite a bit this way in little time, with minimal impact to the community.

So give Fucus a try on your next beach trip. Those who get past the name(s) soon come to appreciate its true beauty.

A few recipes:

o Bladderwrack Tea

(This "tea", which tastes more like a seafood stock, is savoury and satisfying.)

Steep 1 tablespoon of dried and toasted Fucus in a cup of boiling water, or four tablespoons in a pot, for about 10 minutes. Strain and drink.

Typical amendments include soy sauce, black pepper, lemon juice, hot sauce, and malt vinegar. My favourite: seafood cocktail sauce. (A smooth variety, without pickle chunks.)

The leftover leaves can be used in cooking.

o Bladderwrack Breakfast

Slice up some bacon or sausage and fry it soft. Pour off the fat that pours off.

Add minced garlic and chopped onion.

Add chopped fresh Fucus. (Make sure to slice the mittens in half, or they'll explode in your face.)

Throw in a diced tomato, or canned equivalent. In the absence of these, I use tomato juice or sauce.

Sauté till the bladderwrack is bright green and tender. (Bear in mind it'll always remain al dente.)

Grind in some black pepper and serve over rice, or as a side dish with eggs, hash browns, etc.

Hermitcraft: Trailer Park Samosas

Just in time for holiday entertaining, here's a killer recipe for an easy, addictive appetiser or side dish. Both the "Quick" and "Better" versions can be filled with either hamburger or lentils, suitable for omnivore and vegetarian alike, and the ingredients are readily available from most any North American supermarket. The "Quick" recipe is indeed quick: about half an hour from groceries to piping hot, fragrant samosas. The "Better" one takes a little longer, but is well worth the extra time if you've got it. (Note: both are also fairly spicy; for milder results, dial back or omit the jalapeños.)

Pastry for both versions:

2 tubes ready-bake crescent roll dough, for 16 rolls in all. Keep tubes chilled until the moment of use.

"Quick" filling:

1 tablespoon ghee or cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced onion
1 1/2 teaspoons jarred jalapeños, minced
a few good grinds of fresh black pepper
2 teaspoons prepared curry powder
pinch each ground cinnamon and cloves (just a pinch; you shouldn't taste either in the finished product)
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 cup diced tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon minced celery
1 pound very lean ground beef, or cooked lentils (about 1/2 cup raw)


"Better" filling:

1 tablespoon ghee or cooking oil
1 inch grated gingerroot

"Better" spice mix; beef or lentils will be stirred into this

1 garlic clove (about 1/2 teaspoon), minced
1 tablespoon minced onion
1 1/2 teaspoons jarred jalapeños, minced
a few good grinds of fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
good pinch garam masala, if available
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
pinch each ground cinnamon and cloves (just a pinch; you shouldn't taste either in the finished samosas)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 cup diced tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon minced celery
1 pound very lean ground beef, or cooked lentils (about 1/2 cup raw)

Instructions for both (all four?) filling recipes:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Warm ghee or oil in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Add all ingredients up to tomatoes, in order, and simmer gently until onion is translucent and spices are fragrant. Add tomatoes, thyme, and celery, raise heat slightly, and cook until celery is soft and mixture is pasty, scraping it frequently about with a spatula.

Add beef or lentils, mix thoroughly with spice mixture, and simmer until beef is browned or lentils have thickened, about 10 minutes. Scrape frequently with the edge of a spatula; if the mixture gets too dry, add a little water .

To make samosas:

Unroll crescent roll dough and separate into triangles.

Put a heaping tablespoon of filling in the centre of the wide end of each triangle. Pull up the short corners and seal them together on top of the filling; pull the long last corner over the top of the sealed short ones and around the back to form a round, filled pastry; pinch and seal all seams closed so that no filling shows. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes or until golden brown. (Take care they don't burn; these bake very quickly.) Serve warm, wrapped in a tea towel, as finger food.

Hermitcraft: Champagne Plums

Here's a quick hint from Rob's Hermit Kitchen:

The plums have ripened here in the Northern Hemisphere, and those with trees are being inundated by their annual surfeit of sweet, juicy fruit. Plums (also called prunes or damsons) are relatively labour-intensive to preserve, and other treatments are either specialty projects (wine) or not especially compelling compared to other options (jam).

But here's something you can do with them that's delicious and easy:

1. Place a number of fresh, unwashed plums (any kind) in a non-reactive bowl.
2. Mix up a slip of flour and water, about as thick as pancake batter, and pour it over them. 
3. Cover the bowl and leave it to work for a day or two.
4. When the batter is bubbling merrily, remove the plums with a slotted spoon and rinse them clean.
5. Eat.

Why are they now so succulent, and slightly tingly(!)? And what's up with that batter?

Well, to begin with, the powdery white "bloom" you see on dark plums is yeast. (Yellow varieties have it too, it's just not as visible.) So when you immerse the fresh fruit in flour-based batter – a nutritional medium – the yeast goes nuts and multiplies like crazy.

Meanwhile, water from the batter soaks into the plums, causing them to swell and opening tiny fissures in their skin. Dark streaks of plum juice in the cream-coloured batter attest to this process. (Some plums may actually split wide open, leaving little doubt about what's going on.)

Yeast from the working batter penetrates the broken plum skin, hits the sugary juice inside, and begins to ferment.

Then you eat it. I don't know how much alcohol this process creates, but it isn't much; I've eaten many of these in a sitting without feeling any effect at all.

When the plums are gone, you're left with a unique and tasty sourdough starter that makes great pancakes and coffee cake. In fact, with a little advanced planning you can pit the fermented plums, poach them in a light syrup, and use them as filling for some epic crêpes made from the batter they just came out of.

So have at it. Rarely do you get so much good for so little effort.

(Plum photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons users Sakurai Midori and Zebulon.)

Hermitcraft: Shaggy Mane Mushrooms

Shaggy manes (Coprinus comatus) are ubiquitous now where I live. These very common and almost globally-available wild mushrooms are a favourite of mine, because in spite of their omnipresence, and the breathtaking quantities you can sometimes pick, they have an extremely narrow field-to-table window. Basically, they begin liquefying into black goo the instant they're cut. Which means two things:

1). Unlike chanterelles, oysters, and certain boletes, they haven't been commercialised, and so are only available to foragers. And...

2) They're a blessing you have to take advantage of the instant you see them, and so are an excuse to lay other things aside and celebrate.

Because of their ephemeral nature, I have many more memories of having to pass up brilliant sets of shaggy manes due to bad timing, than I have of delicious shaggy mane feasts. But when the stars were aligned, fabulous lunches and dinners have suddenly replaced the humdrum dish I'd planned.

Growing in profusion along trails, sidewalks, and roadsides, in parks and yards, and even in dirt-floored buildings, this savoury delicacy is harder to avoid than to find. And with its frilly, delicate torpedo cap, splitting easily when pinched and bruising pink; its hollow, brittle white stem; and the frequent presence of gooey overripe individuals nearby (see photo right), it's hard to misidentify. Any confusion is likely to be with other coprines (such as C. sterquilinus) that are edible and delicious in their own right.

The trick to mushrooms of this genus is to keep them cold and cook as soon as possible. Really fresh ones, refrigerated immediately after picking, may keep 24 hours with only minimal blackening around the gills; any longer, and you've got a bitter, sticky mess. For best results, eat your collections as soon as you get them home, even if it's just in an omelette. (It'll be an omelette you won't soon forget.)

If you can't use your shaggy manes immediately, cook them quickly and freeze (or refrigerate to use in a few days). Some steam them in a saucepan with a little water, but I prefer to rinse them first, then slice the caps and stems coarsely and pop the pieces into a skillet with just the water that's left on them. I add a bit of cracked pepper, chopped onion, and minced garlic, cover tightly, and mijote over low heat till the alliums are translucent. This way the mushrooms produce their own liquor, concentrating flavour and resulting in a meaty-smelling mixture (see photo below) that can be added to other recipes or used by itself as a sauce base. The whole process takes only a few minutes.

So keep a sharp eye to the margins this autumn, and you may end up with a year's supply of choice, unbuyable mushrooms, one panful at a time.

Christmas With the Devil

Last Christmas I shared my Perfect Chai, for the greater enlightenment of all sentient beings. But I left them hungry. So this year, I offer my Sourdough Devil's Food Cake. It's sourdough. It's cake. And it's devilishly unique. (Which is à propos, since as Spinal Tap have pointed out, Christmas is all about the Devil. What was it Christopher Guest said? "Merry Christmas – poke, poke!" Full video embedded after recipe.)

Anyway, without further, here 'tis:



Sourdough Devil's Food Cake

1 cup sourdough starter
1/2 cup flour
2 individual packages instant cocoa mix (preferably "dark"; quantity equals 1/3 cup. Or substitute 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon dehydrated milk, and 1 tablespoon sugar)
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup prepared mayonnaise (or separate one egg yolk into a 1/4 cup measure and fill the rest with oil.)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest
flour to stiffen
1 teaspoon CORRECTION: 1/2 teaspoon soda mixed into 1/4 cup flour

Liberally grease an 8-inch pan. (Cast iron serves sourdough best.)

Stir together all ingredients except soda mixture, and beat till smooth. Add flour (ending with the soda mixture) as necessary to make a stiff cake batter. Beat hard to release gluten. (Batter will take a dull sheen and become ropey.)

Scrape batter into the greased pan, cover, and allow to work at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes, or until a pick comes out clean. Serve hot.


Sourdough devil's food cake can be served as is, or with whipped cream, ice cream, or hard sauce. Cold pieces taste better if microwaved for 30 seconds; reheated in the oven in a damp paper sack; or on a rack in a covered skillet, over a tablespoon of water, at medium heat.

And it goes great with chai.

(The video here-below was taken from the 1992 reunion disc Return of Spinal Tap. Prepare to bang your head on some metal, or whatever people do to this music.)

Hermitcraft: Pumpkin Pickles

October is an odd time in North America: for these thirty-one days, you can buy a pumpkin here. Any other time, you get: "What, are you crazy?" (One of us must be.)

And it only gets weirder: virtually none of the pumpkins Canucks and Yanks buy by the metric tonne this month will be eaten. Come All Saints Day, they will be thrown in the garbage. Even the thousands that were never cut.

Why are overseas readers now aghast? Because on all other continents, people know pumpkin for excellent food. One of the most versatile vegetables on earth, useful in every course of a meal, it's both delicious and nutritious. I've no idea why North Americans have demoted it to a gourd, but if it weren't for that Druid holiday we dug up and transplanted across the sea, this First Nations masterpiece (utterly unknown to the Druids) would have gone extinct here a century ago. If the irony gets any thicker, we can carve our jack o' lanterns out of that instead.

Or you can; I pickle mine. Pickles – a staple of Japanese monasteries – anchor the flavour plates I build for sesshins. (It's an ancient Zen art intended to pique mindfulness with a shotgun blast to the senses). And the pumpkin ones are my favourite: marrowy, neon orange, and sweet spicy-sour, with just a hint of musky bitterness from the lime.

The recipe:

PUMPKIN SESSHIN PICKLES

(Makes about 3 1/2 pints. Note that after step 3, you will have to wait 24 hours before continuing.)

7 cups raw pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 sticks cinnamon, shredded
2 1/3 cups cider vinegar
2 1/3 cups sugar
15 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon whole black pepper corns
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons whole allspice
1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
2 inches gingerroot, sliced thin
lime slices, 1/4 inch thick, one per jar
dried cranberries ("craisins")
canning jars and lids

1. Cover the pumpkin cubes with water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and lightly blanch, about 10 minutes. (Not longer; they'll cook another three times before you're done.) Drain immediately to avoid overcooking.

2. Put all other ingredients except lime slices and cranberries in a large pot and bring to a boil. (Warning: hot syrup boils over very quickly; stay present and alert.) Turn heat down to lowest setting, cover the pot, and simmer for 15 minutes.

3. Add the pumpkin cubes and bring back to a boil. Then cover the pot, lower heat, and simmer for 3 minutes. Afterward, remove the pot from the burner and set it aside for 24 hours.

4.Next day: Sterilise jars in a water bath canner. Heat the pumpkin and syrup mixture to boiling, then lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

5. Remove the jars one at a time from the hot water, drop in four to five cranberries, and ladle in hot pickles to 1/2 inch from the rim. Be sure to include spices.

6. Slide a lime slice between the pickles and the jar's side, fit a sterilised lid, screw the band down tight, and return the sealed jar to the water bath. Repeat until all the pickles are packed.

7. Turn up the heat under the canner and process (cook) the jars for an additional 5 minutes after the water has returned to a boil.

10. Remove the jars from the water and allow them to cool naturally until the lids pop. Store in a cool dark place for at least a month before opening. (Any that don't pop should be stored in the fridge and eaten first.)

Specific points on pickling jack o' lanterns:

To insure fresh pickle stock, carve your jack o' lantern on Hallowe'en and refrigerate the scraps; if you light it with a candle, line the lid with aluminium foil. Make your pickles next day, peeling off any soot or scorched flesh with a vegetable peeler. Later, when you eat them, you'll recognise bits of eye and teeth on your plate.

Hermitcraft: Sunshine Tea

Scalding days here on the North Coast put me in mind of a great simple delicacy, the sublime sunshine tea. Nothing beats this stuff on a hot day. A shady place, a good book, and a tall glass tinkling on the apple box – there is no other enlightenment in this life.

Sunshine tea is so easy the procedure doesn't even qualify as a recipe, but like all simple things (tea foremost) the difference between good and great is in the attention. The basics are as follows:



o Fill a gallon jar with cold water

o Put in six to eight teabags. (Black tea.)

o Put the jar in full sun all day, shifting as necessary

o Squeeze out the tea bags and discard

o Refrigerate; serve over ice

Slow brewing gives this tea a lighter, less tannic flavour than boiling. For that reason, and the fact that it's served cold (and, ideally, herbed; see below), quality is less important than usual. Any respectable cutting pekoe will do; here in North America, Red Rose or Tetley are ample. (Lipton, to my certain knowledge, has no culinary uses, and those horrific "store brands" are fair-dinkum hazardous material. Keep out of the reach of children, and anything else you want to thrive.)

Water quality, however, is vital. If your tap water is heavily chlorinated, run it through a Brita pitcher first. If it's very hard, you may want to buy commercial spring water. (Which is actually just distilled or filtered municipal water in many cases; the whole industry's a giant scam.) Other tea-fancier strategies – rainwater, melted snow – are less effective this time of year, though when I lived in Québec I could count on a ten-minute late-afternoon deluge most days that gave me enough tea water to supply the town.

But the real difference between acceptable and fantastic sun tea is a large shock of some herb. Judging by how rarely I see any in others' jars, and the surprised delight of friends, this fact isn't yet common knowledge. So I'm blowing the lid off it: there is no comparison between unenhanced tea and that made with mint.

And mint is the best herb for the job: it has a clean, sweet tingle; grows like kudzu this time of year; and actually triggers the cooling receptors in your body. With enough of this in your mix you'll feel the frost all the way down, and even up in your eyeballs.

Spearmint, the pointed, green-stemmed stuff that tastes like chewing gum, is notably better than peppermint, the round-leaved, purple-stemmed sibling that grows wild here on the North Coast, but the latter is plenty good if it's what you've got. Pennyroyal, another wild mint that grows along lakeshores here, is also fine, and so is catnip, an almost-mint I've often found wild on the Gold Side and in Québec. Both have a lemon thing going on that is most welcome.

To use, cut a good big fistful, fold it up so it'll fit in your jar, and crush and roll it briefly in your hands to liberate the volatile oils. (The jar in the photo only has about a quarter of the mint [catnip here] I prefer.) Then stuff the sheaf in the jar, fill it with water, and put the teabags in last; otherwise it will be hard to fish them out. At day's end, after removing the bags, reach into the jar and manhandle the sheaf again in the tea a few good times. (You may have to remove a few glasses first, to make room for your hand.) Then refrigerate the jar with the mint still in.

I've also used other herbs: lemon slices; raspberry and blackberry leaves; the berries themselves (lightly bruised); rosemary; Melissa; Monarda; even grand fir. (I was going for a well-chilled retsina effect. Not bad, actually; c.f. lemoniness.) In my opinion none have bested the mints, but they’re worthy in their own right, and better than nothing.

A few notes for readers outside of North America:

You may be wondering, "What the hell is this guy talking about?" Yes, we drink iced tea here. The specifics vary from region to region – if you order it in Canada or the American South, be sure to specify unsweetened, or you may be served a paste of sugar – but it's generally an incredibly refreshing way to confront the dog days. Really. Trust me on this one. (North Americans can grasp the revulsion many outlanders feel at the idea by picturing themselves enjoying a nice bowl of iced soup. Another summer staple in many nations.)

Sunshine tea is in fact so popular on this continent that they sell special jars for it (see photo), basically an ordinary gallon jar with a spigot punched in the bottom, saving the user lifting the whole heavy thing to pour. But any glass or clear plastic jar will do. Plastic is actually the more effective, owing to superior heat transfer.

Also, as I implied above, North Americans are divided on the sugar issue. I prefer my iced tea utterly clean; this goes double if it's minted. Most here on the North Coast agree, or sweeten their tea very lightly, often with fruit juice. Other regions partake fully in the New World conviction that sugar is a vegetable, a spice, a vitamin, a source of fibre, and part of this complete breakfast. Listen, just make your own, eh? Disregard the contemptuous sneer of your neighbours when you set the pot out, and play around with post-production till you find a formula that works for you. Who knows? You might found an entire national sun tea sensibility of your own.

Hermitcraft: Sourdough Starter

(I just uploaded a hermitcraft article last week, but a reader recently asked about sourdough starter, so I'll go ahead and answer this week.)

"Sourdough starter" was synonymous with yeast here in western North America before the concentrated item appeared in stores. Elsewhere it was called leavings, scrapings, or spook yeast, or just "yeast", for it was all we had for that in those days. Witness Henry David Thoreau, hermit and Walden author, who had to hike to the village bakery to procure "yeast". There he was sold a living batter, susceptible to being scalded to death in overhot water, that raised bread primarily by chemical reaction with sal (baking) soda. You tell me what that was.

The paste those Concord bakers doled out is properly called sourdough starter, as "sourdough" by itself usually describes the kneeded dough and its products. But in practice, the starter is also often called "sourdough", and this can confuse beginners. For that reason, I will henceforward identify the yeast culture by the word "starter".

SOURDOUGH STARTER

You will need:

Potatoes
Water
White flour (not whole wheat; see below)
A serviceable pot

Such a pot must be nonreactive (that is, not metal) and watertight. Beyond that, anything will do. The best ones are lidded, wide-mouthed for easy scooping in and out, and clear, so you can monitor the health of the occupants. Mine is a one-quart plastic jar that once held mixed nuts.

Pot secured, proceed as follows:

1. Peel, quarter, and boil the potatoes.
2. Strain, reserving the

water.
3. Eat the potatoes.
4. Stir up a batter with the flour and potato water. It should resemble slightly-too-thick pancake batter.
5. Dump this medium into your pot. Leave the lid off to welcome passing yeast.

Within 24 to 48 hours the starter will begin, slowly at first and then with gusto, to bubble and work. At full élan it will have a yeasty, fermented smell.

Sourdough starter is a living thing, with wants and needs and specific rights under federal and provincial law. To be precise, it's a community of microbes -- hence the term "culture" -- that eat various sugars and fart out carbonic gas. (Sorry; you asked.) The sugars come from the ground grains you put back in the pot each time you use some. Keep this up indefinitely and your little sea monkey civilisation will thrive indefinitely, humming happily along on the kitchen counter, where you will bond with it as with houseplants, pets, and children. The longer it survives, the better it will get; new yeasts will happen by and set up shop, resulting in more active, versatile starter.

In any case, the starter must be fed at least once a week, even if that means throwing some starter out to make room. (This fact helps get me up and baking when I otherwise might slough off, because I hate wasting food.) The more you use it, the more you feed it, and the healthier it becomes.

If however your starter goes too long without recycling, the yeast will suffer moral decay and the pot will be invaded by either a red bacterium or a grey mildew. They're both harmless, but they taste bad. To get rid of them, set aside a teaspoon of the cleanest starter you can rescue and throw the rest out. Then sterilise the pot (a thorough washing, followed by an overnight soak in a strong bleach solution), mix up a fresh batter, and inoculate it with the reserved starter. The yeast will then handily out-compete any intruders that come back aboard with it.

It's also good to feed other grains from time to time, to encourage a diversity of yeasts. You can stir in whole wheat flour now and then, but not too often, because it's full of oils that go rancid over time. Other effective treatments include corn flour (fine-ground cornmeal), masa or powdered oatmeal (not too much of either), and mashed rice or rice flour.

So this oughta get you started. (Get it?) I've got a sourdough cookbook in the works, which will include my recipes for crêpes, coffee cakes, breads, and fried razor clams, among others, but for the time being I recommend hermit bread as a first project. It's an easy enough recipe to build confidence, and a hard enough one to teach you a few things. And it's where I started, too.

Hermitcraft: Chai

It's Christmas, when thoughts naturally turn to chai. Well, they do if they're mine. Chai is not in fact a Christmas drink; it's the daily beverage of India, a nation that hardly has Christmas at all. (And the word itself simply means "tea". Like salsa [sauce] and baguette [stick], it's a humdrum, general term that English turned into a fancy, specific one.)

But chai is warm like Christmas, sweet like Christmas, and spicy like Christmas. It's the ultimate comfort food, and as good as it is all year, it's especially good now.

The trick to good chai is to mind the honey and not be Nordic with the spices. Hence the downfall of commercial efforts here in North America: too sweet, too bland.

Many years ago I set out to develop the perfect chai recipe. I spent months at it, pushing this, pulling that, until I arrived at the recipe below. I have since received favourable reviews from a wide variety of guests, from tea and chai connoisseurs to rank beginners. And from more than one Indian, a fact of which I am inordinately proud.

So in honour of the season, I share with all interested my most valuable possession. Wield it wisely.

PERFECT CHAI (or: Kensho in a Cup)

For one oversized mug or two teacups:

1 1/2 cups cold water
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons strong black loose tea, or two teabags of same*
1/2 teaspoon minced gingerroot
Two inches of cinnamon stick, shredded
2 cloves
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
2 cumin seeds (I mean it. Two seeds.)
2 peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon whole cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon anise seeds
a pinch of orange zest, if desired (adds bitterness if the tea leaves aren't strong enough, but go easy)
Enough honey to make drinking pleasant; typically about two teaspoons.

For a pot:

3 cups cold water
1 cup milk
4 teaspoons strong black loose tea, or four teabags of same*
1 teaspoon minced gingerroot
4 cloves
2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds
3 cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon plus 1/4 teaspoon whole cardamom seeds
3 inches cinnamon stick, shredded
3 peppercorns
2 teaspoons anise seeds
orange zest, as above
About four teaspoons of honey.

*Any strong black tea will do. If using teabags, cut them open and dump the leaves in loose. (Always the best policy, even when brewing ordinary tea.)

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and warm gently. Mind that the chai doesn't boil; it shouldn't even bubble. Heat for a minimum of 20 minutes; 45 or better is optimum. (If you plan to steep the chai more than two hours, omit one peppercorn.) Strain into cups, returning the spices to the pot between rounds.

Chai can be made ahead and refrigerated, as long as it's reheated gently. It's also good chilled.

Chai arhats know that success in this powerful alchemy, regardless of recipe, relies on the Four Noble Truths:

1. All ingredients must be infused together. Do not add milk or honey at the table.
2. Chai is all about the spices; if you can taste the honey, it's over-sweet.
3. Boiling is fatal. It flattens the water, exhausts the spices, and burns the milk.
4. A good masala is equal parts quantity and variety. Cumin and peel counter sweetness, and should be just barely detectable. Cloves, pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, and coriander provide mouth and aroma and should be pronounced, without however overpowering the cup. And, crucially: the digestives (anise, ginger, milk, honey) make the whole thing possible. Without them you've got a harsh, even nauseating, stew. If your chai comes out coarse on the tongue or hard on the stomach, pump these up.

Chai goes wherever cocoa does. Take it carolling, or to football games, or serve it at parties. It's also a famous after-meal digestive. I have chai with breakfast most Sundays, steeped during the morning sit.

So from all of us here at Rusty Ring, many happy returns of the season, and best wishes for the new year.

Hermitcraft: How to Make Ghee

I had never made ghee before I went to the mountain. In the planning stages of that project, having been raised on tales of people who starved eating rabbit, I believed I needed a source of dietary fat. (Wild rabbits have no fat, according to backwoods lore, hence you can die on a full stomach if you eat only that.) I'd heard about ghee for years, how versatile it was, how good it tasted, and how it kept for months without refrigeration. So that spring I put up four pints of the stuff, for use during my ango.

I found instructions on various Internet sites, but most or all of them were more complicated than necessary. Therefore, because ghee really is useful, especially for people who don't have refrigeration, I submit my recipe.

HOW TO MAKE GHEE

First, copy the following list of ingredients exactly and procure them from a licensed full-service grocer.

Full List of Ingredients:
1. Butter.

Next, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When liquefied, turn the temperature up to an active simmer. You're cooking off the water, which is in all butter, and so it will spit and carry on like any hot fat with water in it. DO NOT STIR. (Reason follows.)

You're also allowing the milk solids in the butter to congeal and sink to the bottom. This is the difference between ghee and drawn or clarified butter; many websites mistakenly equate the two. Ghee is cooked beyond simple separation, until all the water has steamed away and -- very important -- the milk solids have browned. This is what gives ghee its rich flavour, sometimes described as nutty, sweet, or lemony.

The only delicate part is telling when to take the pan off the heat, and that's only delicate because you have to do it by smell. First the ghee will go still; water gone, the bubbling stops. Not long after that, the kitchen will suddenly fill with a buttery scent some associate with baking croissants; to me, it's the smell of shortbread. It's a rich, sumptuous fragrance that takes no prisoners; you'll know it when it happens.

Tilt the pan gently at this point and note that the even layer of gunk on the bottom has a pastry-like, toast-brown aspect. That's your cue to take it off the heat.

Filter the ghee immediately, while still hot and thin. I use a paper coffee filter for this, for its fine mesh and ease of clean-up. (Woodstove Dharma strikes again.) You can also use muslin, cheesecloth, or a steel-screen coffee filter.

Pour the filtered ghee into a lidded jar or tub, and you're done.

Fact is, there are only two ways you can screw this up:

1. By becoming distracted (for example by drying paint, which is more exciting than watching butter melt) and allowing the milk solids on the bottom to burn rather than brown, giving the ghee an off flavour.

2. By boiling the ghee so vigorously that some slops on the stove and sets your house on fire, rendering flavour problems relatively moot by comparison.

The fix for both is the same: never leave the kitchen until the ghee is off the stove. I wipe down the counter, wash a few dishes, start another recipe, whatever I can do without stepping more than a metre away from the simmering pot. Adventure averted.

So, what kind of butter is best? Again, details are important: you must only use butter made from the milk of some animal. Do not attempt to make ghee from roofing tar, modelling clay, margarine, or old tires; the flavour will be disappointing.

Aside from that, any butter will do. Many websites insist the butter be unsalted; some insist it be expensive; some say it must be organic. The fact is, all butter works. On the Indian subcontinent, ghee is commonly made of yak butter, but the stores where I live tend to sell out of that before I get there, so I use cow butter. The sole difference between the salted and unsalted is purity: marginally-refined butter must be salted to stop all the solids that have been left in it going rancid. Unsalted butter must be more refined, to remove the spoil-prone proteins that would otherwise require salt, and this extra processing raises the price.

Because it has less by-catch to precipitate out, unsalted butter renders the most ghee per pound of butter. (Typically just a shade less than the original amount.) Good-quality salted butter renders slightly less ghee than that, but the ghee is not salty; the salt drops out with the rest of the solids. Even the cheapest, crappiest, scariest butter you can buy (that infamous single paper-wrapped rough-hewn slab that smells like cheese and tastes like salt paste) makes excellent ghee. There's just less of it. (Much less; you'll get about two thirds the original amount. In other words, a third of that machete butter, isn't butter.)

Ghee has less cholesterol than butter and keeps well without refrigeration if stored in a cool dark place. Since the crust left on the bottom of your pan is also what makes butter burn at high temperature, you can fry in ghee. And it can be used at the table like whole butter. The flavour is pleasant but subtle, and is compatible with most dishes.

Now that I'm initiated, I gotta have ghee. I fry potatoes in it, pop popcorn, and of course, sauté my masala. A pound or two put up, and I'm fixed for the year.

What was it they used to say on TV? "Try it, you'll like it."

Hermitcraft: Oat Bannocks

I often see in my blog stats that people have landed on my hermit bread (Canadian bannock) recipe while searching for information on Scottish bannock (or "bannocks", as we say; plural). This chagrins me, because hermit bread is nothing like "real" bannock, though a blessing in its own right, and the actual article is as fit to feed an honest man as any sad soft white thing in this wheat-weakened world. In a word, it's a crisp oat flatbread, having no wheat in it whatever. And as Boswell famously pointed out to Johnson, oats build a fine horse.

Therefore, to correct an injustice and educate the uncultured, I provide here-in the key to proper eating.

Oat Bannocks

1 cup rolled oats
More oatmeal for rolling
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon melted butter
Hot water

Set a rack six inches from the top of the oven and dial up 350 degrees.*

Pulverise the cup of oatmeal, with a blender or by rubbing it between your hands, and dump it into a small mixing bowl. Mix in the baking powder and salt.

Add the melted butter and toss well with a fork until it's absorbed and evenly distributed.

Sprinkle a baking sheet liberally with oatmeal.

Slosh a tablespoon or two of hot water into the bowl and mix well. Continue adding hot water a teaspoon at a time until you can press the dough into a ball. It should be slightly sticky, but not goopy. (Bannock dough dries very quickly. If it's a little too wet, let it sit until it reaches the right consistency, normally a minute or two.)

Turn the dough onto the oatmeal-strewn baking sheet. Working fast (see above), roll it around until it's covered with oats. Then shake the baking sheet to redistribute the oats that are left and roll out the dough over them, into a round about the size of a dinner plate and no thicker than 1/8 inch. Start with the palm of your hand, then your fingertips, and finally a lidded jar or other small-enough round thing. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle more oats on it.

Shake the free oats

That's home-made bramble jam.

from around the sides and dump them back into the oatmeal jar. Then mark the round into eight pieces. (Everything in Scotland is marked in eight pieces. I've no idea why. Scones are marked in eight pieces. Shortbread is marked in eight pieces. Teacakes are marked in eight pieces. I'll lay you odds that Sawney Bean's lot marked their victims in eight pieces.)

Bake the bannock until the edges have turned up from the baking sheet and browned, 15-25 minutes. (This varies from oven to oven, and possibly place to place.) When done, turn off the oven and open the door, leaving the bannocks inside to crisp for ten minutes.

Serve hot (best) or cold (still brilliant).

*Before ovens were commonplace, bannocks were typically fried on a griddle, as indeed some still are.

Bannocks can be topped with anything, sweet or savoury, including fruit, custard, marmalade, cheese, kippers, and potted meat. Or plain old butter. Bramble jam, traditional confection of the Scottish working class, makes a tea fit for God's own Elect. For a decadent treat, dollop whipped or clotted cream on chilled fruit and crush a bannock over the top.

Oat bannocks are a primordial, fundamental food, having in common with most poor-man's fare that they're cheap, easy, and infinitely more delicious and sustaining than any posh gob. They're one of my favourite comfort foods, easily prepared, and I've heard no complaints from guests, either.

So there you have it, Scottish bannock searchers: the real deal.

Hermitcraft: Hermit Bread

(A soda-free, wild yeast-raised, classic sourdough version of this bread can be found here.

If you landed here looking for the recipe for Scottish Oat Bannocks, it's here.)

This is hermit bread. It's a sourdough recipe with ancient antecedents, among them the skillet bread dear to my Old Settler ancestors; Canadian bannock; Scottish scones; Australian damper; focaccia; and even pizza. (Pizza was originally soldier bread, baked by the campfire by Roman legionnaires. They took to topping it with whatever they could find, so as to add a bit of variety to their dinners. Eventually the toppings got more limelight than the bread, and the rest is pizza.)

All you need to bake hermit bread is a sufficient heat source. It's easiest in a proper oven, but can be made on a range, near a fire, or in a fire. It's the oldest part of my monastic routine, actually predating my vows by several years. This is the food I take on the road, and what I grab when I'm hungry and need something now. It has become as sustaining to my morale as to my body, a physical manifestation of my vows.

As ever with monastic practices, each stage and feature of the production of this stuff has taken on Deep Meaning over the years. The pre-cut pieces emphasise the fact that it's sojourner bread ("Incola ego sum apud te in terra / Et peregrinus sicut omnes patres mei" Psalm 38, verse 15). They also honour my Scottish forebears. I could also find great Buddhist significance in the number 8, but one has to keep a close eye on one's compulsive Zen tendencies. So for the time being, it just reminds me of the Union Jack. Rule Britannia.

Hermit bread is also hands-down the most popular part of my practice with my friends. I once baked it for an old high school classmate who was visiting with her children. When she asked what it was, I said, "It's just monk bread." Today, fresh-baked "monkey bread" has become one of her kids' favourite treats.

Nothing boosts a sagging spirit like hot hermit bread and tea. For all that, it's ridiculously basic, and easy to make. And it still rolls out a great pizza dough.

HERMIT BREAD

2 cups sourdough starter.
About 2 cups flour
1 tablespoon oil
Flour for kneading
1 teaspoon CORRECTION: 1/2 teaspoon soda mixed with 1/4 cup flour

Liberally grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet. (Number 8, in traditional sizes. You can use a cake pan or cookie sheet, but cast iron gives the best results.)

In a large bowl, beat the flour into the starter with a wooden spoon. Switch to a butter knife when it gets too stiff to stir and continue cutting in flour until the dough balls easily and is almost dry enough to knead.

Cut the flour and soda mixture into the dough, then knead it thoroughly in the bowl, adding any flour necessary to prevent the dough from sticking to the bowl or your hands.

Pat the ball flat, place it in the skillet, and pat it down some more until the edges touch the sides. Turn the skillet upside down, catch the dough as it falls out, and put it back in upside down, greased side up.

Poke the handle of the wooden spoon into the dough systematically, all the way to the pan, until the loaf is well-dimpled. Then cut it into eight pieces.

Cover the skillet and leave the dough to work, up to 3 hours; 30 minutes minimum.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the dough has worked, uncover and bake it in the middle of the oven for 15 - 20 minutes, or until lightly browned on top and dry in the middle.

When done, unpan the loaf or flip it upside down in the skillet to let it cool and harden up for a few minutes. Eat as-is or with any topping. (Butter, jam, herbed oil, sugared berries, etc.)

Traditional baking methods:

Place the skillet over slow coals until the bottom of the loaf is browned. Prop the pan up near a hotter part of the fire to brown the top, or flip the loaf, return the skillet to the coals, and brown the top that way. (Same procedure for range-top baking.)

Or flour the ball and smack it onto a clean rock at the fire's edge, turning to bake evenly.

Or place the ball in a Dutch oven and bury it in the coals.

Or drop the dough ball directly in the coals and bury it. (Works in wood stoves and fireplaces, too.)

Or roll the dough into a rope, wind it around a stick, and toast it over the coals.

You can 'wave a chunk of cold hermit bread for 30 seconds and it'll taste like it just came out of the oven. (Split the piece first and reassemble it before warming; it will be too soft to work afterward.) You can also reheat it on a plate in a covered skillet, with a little water added to make steam.