February 25-26, 2024
I habitually ask for bread when we eat out, which isn’t often, not because I want the bread as much as I do the sauce. It is not generally considered restaurant manners in our culture, although I’ve certainly done it, to full on lick a plate prior to it being cleared, but when so much of the flavor is trapped in streaks on the pottery set before me, one could be forgiven for forgetting that. Bread is an acceptable alternative, although these days it seems to rarely make an unbidden appearance, and usually by the time I’ve thought to ask for it, the main portion of the food is gone and waiters are appearing anxiously by my side to remove the evidence. It’s a bit embarrassing shooing them away while I await a carbohydrate substrate but I like food enough to endure it.
Recently the bread brought to our table was set down and pronounced to be “allium ash sourdough.” I had to do a double take. Allium … ash? Sure enough there were black-ish streaks swirled through the dough, and upon my shameless inquiry I learned it is exactly what it sounds like: onions, leeks, garlic—take your pick—burned, crumbled, mixed in the dough. I inquired as to the percentage of ash by weight in the dough, a perfectly reasonable question for a baker, but the bartender who’d set down the bread did not seem to think this question made sense. I didn’t follow up to ask if the burnt alliums were intentional, or someone left the oven on too long and a crafty baker made the most of it. I couldn’t pick out significant allium ash notes in the bread, either, I must admit, but it may have been my cold interfering, or the fact that my bread was largely swathed in sauces.
Still, it was an intriguing idea. And knowing we had accidental excess stores of spring onions at home I figured I’d give it a try.
Trendy as it may be for a restaurant, I didn’t want pure ash. I thought charred scallions with a range of textures and flavors might be more interesting, so I washed and trimmed our two bags and laid them out on a rack set on a baking tray, with a few unpeeled cloves of garlic, and let them cook at 400 for a spell. It took much longer than I thought it would, but about 45 minutes later I had a nice mix of browned, crispy dehydrated parts—primarily the greens—and some still soft parts. Nothing was full on burnt, so I’m not sure if any of it qualifies as ash, but into the food processor it went.
Unfortunately the combination of textures made it hard to mix, especially because the volume of two full bags of green onions when dehydrated and sliced to tiny bits quickly collapses into too little matter for the blades of the kitchen aid to get a hold on. The long, stringy pieces of scallion kept getting stuck against the mixer wall, a less appetizing visual than anticipated. I added the salt and residual water I would later mix into the dough, which helped. Things really picked up when I migrated it to an immersion blender, where nothing could escape. On a whim I added a pinch of Aleppo pepper-the grassy char of the scallions felt like it would be a suitable match for the smokey flavor of the pepper.
Eventually I was left with a fragrant wet paste, like something you’d imagine folding into freshly cooked pasta or smearing on toast with a poached egg. I, of course, folded into my standard bread dough and waited.
The bread smelled fantastic as it baked, the kind of “mom’s cooking” scent you hear 60’s housewives were supposed to have ready when commuting husbands returned home, but a little edgy from the Aleppo. The baked loaves were not the prettiest I’ve ever done, the crust a bit dull, but still acceptable. The texture is great, soft despite the high whole grain proportion. And the allium ash flavor? Is fine. No, it’s good. It’s interesting. Not as pronounced as I hoped, though there is an intriguing swirl in the bread—more brown than black, given the direction I went with my charring + the Aleppo addition.
It’s something I can imagine handing to a customer with a flourish before pronouncing “allium ash sourdough.” It’s also something I can imagine handing a third slice of to my three year old when she looks up at me with puppy dog eyes and says “Más pan mama!” Probably because this is actually what just happened.
I’m headed to LA for a work retreat, and into the suitcase goes a well-wrapped loaf to share with co-workers. Let’s see if they like it as much as my little girl.
