Dough – Simple Contemporary Bread by Richard Bertinet
April 11th, 2012 | Posted by in Books | Commentary - (0 Comments)
In his book “Dough”, Richard Bertinet does a fantastic job describing the art of making bread. Using just four ingredients you’ll find yourself making delicious breads while following his simple instructions and illustrated kneading techniques. This book is ideal for all of the cooks out there who are interested in getting started with bread making. After reading this book I felt excited and eager to make my first bread. Since then, bread making has become a part of our kitchen twice a week!
The book includes a great collection of recipes and dedicates an entire chapter to each of five types of dough in addition to an introductory chapter on how to make and work the dough. The different types of dough outlined in the book include white, olive, brown, rye and sweet dough recipes. Of the many white dough recipes that can be found in the book, my favorites include the baguette, epi, breadsticks and fougasse. Especially the fougasse is a great first bread to make (as the author states in the included movie). Not only is it easy to make, it tastes great as well!
Another favorite of mine outlined in the book is the olive dough for which you’ll find recipes including flatbread, soup bowls (cool!), pizza and ciabatta bread. I’ve even adapted my own pizza dough recipe to resemble the recipe in this book as I found it to be the easiest and tastiest pizza dough to make.
The brown dough recipes include a whole wheat bread and a personal favorite: the poppy seed star roll. Poppy seed stars are so easy to make and always amaze our guests!
Without a doubt, the DVD included with this book will get you fired up about making bread. Richard Bertinet does an amazing job of getting you excited about making bread and shows you the basics of his own kneading technique which results in lighter breads. In addition to showing you the basics of making and kneading dough, the movie shows you how to make baguette, epi a basic bread loaf and fougasse. The movie is 20 minutes long and isn’t of exceptional quality, but highly recommended! I haven’t bought a store-made bread since I bought this book and watched the DVD.
Richard Bertinet was trained as a baker in France, including formal training at the Grand Moulin de Paris. He now owns his own cookery school in Bath, England named after himself: The Bertinet Kitchen. You can visit the his website to find out about upcoming classes and to leave feedback on the book.
The book sells in hardcover, has 160 pages and is for sale on Amazon.com.
Paper towels are thin, and you go through them quickly, because every time you need one, you actually need three or four of them. Kitchen towels are thicker, and more durable. You can do the same with real cloth napkins. Some people say you waste water when you wash them, but that shouldn’t be the case. Unless you run a load of laundry just for a couple towels, there is no reason why using kitchen towels will increase your use of water. Simply throw in your kitchen towels in with your other colored wash. Your machine won’t notice the difference.
Well, you can keep a couple zip-locks around in case of emergencies, but there is absolutely nothing a zip-lock can do that a plastic container or a bowl and a plate can’t. Bring a sandwich to work in a snap-shut, washer-safe plastic container. Marinate your zucchinis in a container. Need cling wrap to cover the leftovers? Put them in a smaller bowl and cover with a plate.
If you don’t already recycle your paper, glass, cans, and plastic, then you should start off with that. Make room for your recycling bin by using a smaller garbage can, because you will reduce your garbage by a lot. This will also save you time, because you will have so little garbage, you will be taking your garbage out about once a week, or less! You might ask me, well wouldn’t my garbage start smelling? Well, no, because of the next thing you’re going to do.
Make a separate bin in your kitchen for recycling food scraps. This should be about the size of a large margarine tub, or a bit bigger. Because food scraps spoil quickly, you will want to take it out every day. Many cities accept food scraps as part of the yard waste collection, which will be taken to a big compost heap some place outside of town. Make sure you read the guidelines from your city about the types of animal products you are allowed to include. If your city doesn’t already have yard waste service, I highly encourage you to write to your public utility to tell them how you plan on using it. If you have your own yard, you might consider installing your own compost bin. Go 
This one is pretty well known. Most grocery stores sell durable shopping bags, and you can keep a couple in your car, ready at your service upon demand. If you don’t drive, there are tout bags that fit in your purse, and can be quite stylish as well. After a while, you might even find yourself using it for other shopping goods!
Processed foods often have preservatives and other additives that your body will never need. Some canned and jarred products only have salt and water in the ingredients, but cooking with fresh produce is much more healthy, and retains much more of the flavor. Other than tomato paste or the occasional can of sardines for peculiar recipes, I almost never need to go down the can isle. If you need a can of tomatoes, corn, or green beans, try the produce section! They have all of these things too. For kidney beans and other pulses, the bulk section has a much greater selection.
Now that you’re going to the produce section, try to refrain yourself from grabbing the plastic produce bags. Plastic is one of the more difficult things to recycling (maybe not for you, but for the processing facility), and if these little thin bags get loose out in the open, they can be a hazard to small birds. When they have been sitting out in the sun for too long, plastic bags release a chemical that destroys the ozone, which is the thing in the sky that protects us from skin cancer. So do us all a favor. When you grab that broccoli, or when you want to bag up a couple oranges or apples, just skip the bag and put it straight into your cart. They will all get bagged up in the end anyway.
The FDA recommends that each adult drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water each day. That is precisely half a gallon, or two quarts. If you are out of the house most of the day, then you might buy bottled water, and then you won’t know what to do with the bottle afterward. So get yourself a personal water bottle, and keep it by your side– in your car, in the office, or in your purse/briefcase. It’s also a great way to make sure you drink plenty of liquids.
One time, I came across a 5-way intersection, each corner with a garbage can that was overflowing with disposable paper coffee cups. The paper industry estimates that Americans will consume roughly 23 billion paper coffee cups in 2010. Do you want to be one out of millions contributing to that? The next time you are at Starbucks or your local coffee stand, just hand over your personal coffee tumbler, and tell them to fill it up! Starbucks will even rinse it out for you, and give you a 5-cent discount. If you don’t have one already, I recommend getting a double wall, stainless steel, vacuum insulated tumbler. I bring coffee from home, and it’s still steaming hot at lunch time!
