Potato Bread with Herbs, or Pane di Patate alle Erbe: This recipe was published a while back by Arnoldo Mondadori; they don't give any background on it, but it does look tasty. The preparation time should be about 20 minutes, plus three hours of rising time, and they classify it as moderately difficult.
Prep Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients:
- 8 ounces (200 g) potatoes
- 1 tablespoon (10 g, or 1/3 ounces) fresh live baker's yeast (what's sold in the chilled section of the supermarket)
- 1 tablespoon shredded basil
- 1 tablespoon minced parsley
- 4 fresh sage leaves, shredded
- 1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
- 4 1/5 cups (500 g) unbleached all purpose flour
- 3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
- Milk
- Fennel seeds
Preparation:
Crumble the yeast into a large bowl and dilute it with 1 1/3 cups (330 ml) warm water. Stir in the oil, the herbs, the salt, and a cup of the flour, cover the starter, and put it in a warm place for a half hour.Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until a skewer penetrates easily, peel them, put them through a potato ricer, and work the resultant mashed potatoes into the starter loaf.
Next, work the as much of the remaining flour into the mixture as is necessary to obtain a slightly sticky dough. Turn it out onto a floured work surface and knead it for about 10 minutes, or until it has become smooth and elastic, and is no longer sticky.
Return the dough to the bowl, cover it with a cloth and an upside-down plate, and let it rise for 90 minutes. Then knead the dough for about a minute, shape it out into a snake, and form it into a braid, sealing the three eggs between the ropes of dough.
Put the braid on a baking sheet, cover it with a cloth, and let it rise for another hour; towards the end of the rising time preheat your oven to 460 F (230 C). Brush the loaf with milk, dust it with fennel seeds, and put it in the oven. When it has become golden lower the heat to 340 F (170 C) and bake it for about 40 minutes more.
