Rhubarb Sourdough Starter

Photo: Jenny Richards

Ingredients

1 stick rhubarb

210 ml water

2 teaspoons live culture yogurt

100 grams whole wheat flour

100 grams bread flour

Preparation

Day 1: Chop the rhubarb into sizeable pieces and mix with the water and yogurt. Add the flour and stir until well combined. Place in a clean container. Dust with white flour and cover. Leave out somewhere warm (75 degrees or warmer)

Day 2: Stir the mixture. Dust with white flour and cover.

Day 3: Stir the mixture. Add 4 T white flour and 4 T water. Mix well. Dust with white flour and cover.

Days 4 and 5 (do the same thing on both days): Discard 1/3 of the mixture (try to keep the rhubarb, though). Replace with a fresh quantity of all ingredients except for the rhubarb.

Tools

Comments

Permalink Jo lepine
April 26, 2010

I'd love to try this - I have rhubarb growing now. How much is T? a teaspoon or a tablespoon? At what point do you remove the rhubarb pieces, won't they go mouldy eventually? I realise this may be obvious to US readers but please let me know!

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About

This recipe comes from Fergus Henderson's Beyond Nose to Tail cookbook, and is the precursor of a number of bread recipes from that book. This will work well in place of any sour starter, and has the benefit of being derived from purely natural yeasts.

Note: When you need to use some, don't forget to replenish the mother. Do this by re-adding a combination of 1/2 flour, 1/2 water in the same amount that you removed. Make sure to leave it for a day to ferment before using it again.

Note: You can leave mother in the fridge indefinitely, but you will need to restart it 3 - 4 days before you need it. Do thus by discarding 1/3 of the mixture and feeding it equal parts of flour and water. Repeat daily until you see signs of fermentation.