Rzhanoy Khleb

Rzhanoy khleb, rye bread, is the foundation of the Russian table in a way no other bread is the foundation of any other cuisine. Rye was the grain that grew in the short, cold Russian growing season, and rye bread has been baked in Russia since the medieval period. Unlike wheat bread, rye bread is leavened with a sourdough starter (not commercial yeast), and the long, slow fermentation gives the bread its characteristic sour flavour and dense, moist texture. The traditional Russian rye is dark, heavy, slightly sticky when fresh, and it keeps for a week or more without staling, a property of rye's high pentosan content. Eaten sliced with butter, herring, caviar, soup or borscht, it is the starch that accompanies every Russian meal, and its absence from the table would be more noticed than the absence of any other food.

Dense, dark, sour and moist, with a complex fermented rye flavour and a close, slightly sticky crumb. Sliced thin and spread with cold butter, it is the taste of the Russian table in its most fundamental form.

The technique is a long rye sourdough fermentation, the same principle as Borodinsky bread but simpler in formulation. A rye sourdough starter is built up over 8 to 12 hours. The dough is rye flour, water, salt and the starter, mixed into a sticky, dense mass that cannot be kneaded like wheat dough, only stirred and folded. It is placed in a loaf tin, proved 3 to 5 hours, and baked at high heat (240 degrees C) then reduced (180 degrees C) for a total of about 60 minutes. Rye has almost no gluten-forming protein, so the bread does not rise in the wheat sense; it ferments and gelatinises, producing a dense, moist, sour loaf that slices rather than tears. The long fermentation and the rye's natural acidity preserve the bread, allowing it to keep for a week.