What’s Food52sday? Read all about it here.
I know I start all of my Food52sdays posts with “I am so excited about this week’s recipe,” so I won’t make you read that beginning again.
Friends, I think that you will be very excited about this week’s Food52sday recipe inspiration! (See? I’m not in a rut)! Rosemary Ciabatta with Stout Beer. Doesn’t it just sound wonderful, dark and malty? I love ciabatta–its light/chewy texture, its runny dough, its big old holes. That it’s named after a slipper. All these things make me very happy. And stout? You know I am a Fan of Stout. The Beloved might like to drink it, but I like to cook and bake with it. I make a mean stout toffee sauce, and the chocolate stout cake with burnt caramel buttercream? It’s really in a class by itself.
But enough about my use of stout. This is about this ciabatta recipe and how stout plays with bread. And since stout is pretty much just bread you can drink, in my book it’s a match made in heaven. Plus, there’s poolish. So there you go.
The original recipe on Food52 is by ChezSuzanne. I don’t think her cook’s page is active on Food52 anymore, but you can read her Chef’s Spotlight here. Two of her recipes made it into the first Food52 Cookbook, and I’m sorry to see she’s not still active on the site.
Through the Magic of a Google search, I did find her happily blogging away at The Wimpy Vegetarian. She also teaches cooking classes in and around San Francisco. Thanks, Susan, for the excellent recipe. I’m looking forward to playing with it! I hope that at least some of you will be inspired to cook along this week. It’ll be fun!
As always, I’ll post my results next Tuesday. If you want to play, post your interpretations in the comments next week, and I’ll link to them. Or, feel free to post them over on the fan page.
I look forward to seeing you next Tuesday. Have a lovely day.
PS Please stop calling it ciabatta bread. Ciabatta is bread. It’s like calling pizza pizza pie. Cut it out. Thank you.
