This recipe from the Greek magazine Gastronomos uses trahana in one of the most wonderfully flavorful breads I have tasted. Trahana is a wheat product mixed with a milk product and then dried. There are many types of it; this recipe calls for the sour version made from wheat. If you can’t find it in your area, you can order it from various online sources.
Bread with Trahana, Yogurt and Herbs
By Dimitris Dimitriadis
A very tasty, easy bread with the full taste of trahana and the distinctive aroma of herbs.
The smell and taste of freshly baked bread is comparable to only a few things. On a slice of fresh handmade bread, we can place a piece of feta from Vytina, Greece topped with freshly grated tomato, a few drops of early harvest olive oil, and coarse salt from Mani. Or scrambled eggs with tomato, or a fried egg, or asparagus – when it is in season – with smoked pork meat. We can also simply accompany the bread with a good thyme honey, or enjoy it plain.
Time
10 minutes preparation
30 minutes baking
1 hour waiting time
Total: 1 hour and 40 minutes
For 2 rectangular loaf pans, 12 x 35 cm or about 5 x 14 inches
Ingredients
- 700 g or 1.54 US pounds soft flour (cake flour or pastry flour; all-purpose flour will also work)
- 300 g or 2/3 pound sour wheat trahana
- 10 g or about 1/3 ounce fresh oregano leaves, finely chopped (or 2 teaspoons dried oregano)
- 10 g or about 1/3 ounce fresh thyme, finely chopped (or 2 teaspoons dried thyme)
- 15 g or about 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 20 g or about 4 3/4 teaspoons sugar
- 45 g or 1 1/2 ounces or about 5 1/2 tablespoons dry yeast
- 4 tablespoons strained yogurt
- 100 ml or a bit less than 1/2 cup olive oil (+ a little more for greasing the pans)
- 600-650 ml or approximately 2 1/2 cups lukewarm water (at about 30°C or 85°F; if we do not have a thermometer, we can check it with our finger – it should be warm, but not hot)
Directions
- Grind the trahana to a powder in a food processor. In a deep bowl or mixer bowl, mix the flour, trahana and herbs with the salt, sugar, yeast, yogurt and oil.
- Knead with your hands or with a dough hook (the special component of the mixer for kneading), gradually adding water, until you have a smooth, elastic dough.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap, and let it rest and rise for about 30 minutes.
- Lightly grease the cake tins or bread pans. Fill them half full of dough, then let the dough rise again for approximately another 30 minutes, until it increases its volume by about 1/3.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C or 350°F.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the bread is golden brown. Remove the bread from the pan very carefully with a towel, to avoid burning yourself, and knock on the bottom of the loaf with your finger joints. If the sound is muted (like a drum), it is ready. Otherwise, bake the bread for about 5 more minutes.
- Let the loaves cool on a wire rack, cover them with a cotton towel, and store them in a bread box.
This recipe was first published in Gastronomos magazine, issue 173, and then published online. Thanks to Gastronomos for permission to translate and republish the recipe. Approximate conversions to United States customary units were added for the convenience of American readers, but the amounts should not be considered exact.
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