The solar circle

The bread under the sacha is a fine job, full of patience and skill in the experience. In the hands and feel. As my grandmother made it, who baked the best bread in the whole village, so does my mother, my aunts, aunts and in the end I make it whenever I have a chance to find myself by the chimney. The bread is kneaded by hand, exclusively. You can forget about mixers and mixing in the baking pan, because you won’t get what you want, not even close. Yeast is used, almost never yeast, because it used to be non-existent. Measures are odoka because here, as in some other steps, experience plays an important role here. For bread under the baking sheet you need: flour, water, yeast and salt. Flour is best made from wheat mill. Electric mills are out of the question, because they heat the flour, so it loses its quality and spoils easily. Yeast is a part of the dough, which separates when making bread. The size is usually one of my fists. My grandmother kept it in a cup, it used to dry out, so she would stir it with water. It stood somewhere in the house, and there was usually fruit on the kitchen table, which is a great habitat for yeast fungi. You can make your own yeast by mixing flour, honey, warm water and leaving it covered in a warm place for 24 hours. If yeast is not an option, take yeast, but know that the taste is not even close to rustic. It is necessary, which again depends on the size of the baking sheet: 1.5 kg of flour 7 dl of lukewarm water more less salt

Pour the flour into a larger bowl, make a depression in the middle. Add yeast to the cavity and gently stir with your fingers, adding water. It always mixes in a circle. Clockwise. Take it easy. When the yeast has stirred, add a little flour, so that you constantly go in a circle with your hand and add a little flour on all sides. At the same time, add warm water little by little. Knead like this, until you have used up all the flour in the bowl. The dough must be soft and should not be kneaded too much. The dough should be treated gently and respectfully at all times. It is then covered with a cloth and placed in a warm place to rise. Once the dough has risen, mix. If we imagine it as a circle, one side of the circle is lifted and moved towards the middle of the circle. We work like that all the time. If everything is done well, you will see bubbles, bursting. I transfer it so lightly that there is as much air as possible in the dough. We must not knead firmly and turn the dough in a circle. If necessary, add flour little by little. Cover the dough again, letting it rise again. Once it has risen, mix it again lightly, transfer to a floured baking sheet. Spread the dough with your fingers to the desired size, covered and let it rise once more.

Meanwhile, a baking fire is ordered. My grandmother used vine, hornbeam and oak cuttings. Every tree is good, which gives a lot of heat. The fire must be kindled to the end. All that remains is the grill.

It must be heated and baked at the same time. Grandma had a chain, called a komastra, which hung from a wooden beam, which held the roof of the smokehouse, on which she would attach a peka and hold it over a fire to heat and heat. It must burn well. When the baking is ready, remove the heat from the sides with a whisk, and lightly place the bread on the fireclay bricks. Slightly shape it with your hands towards the baking sheet from above, the bread is pressed with your fingers in several places. Cover with a baking sheet, put on a grill hoop and place the embers on it. This is called threatening bread. After some half an hour and a little more, the baker is opened to allow the bread to evaporate, and the bread is turned in a circle a bit and possibly rotated if it bakes harder somewhere. Cover again, heat the grill and bake until done. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Baba would tap her finger on the bread, she knew from the sound whether it was baked or not. It was usually excellently baked. It is a long experience. The baked bread is wrapped in a cloth, placed vertically so that it touches the base with only a small part of the edge. Grandma put it on the cistern by the front door. Bread should not be made hot, but warm. If it is well made, it has such characteristic holes, it stays fresh for a long time and does not crumble. And the best is to warm it with homemade drinjina jam, or dip it in olive oil with garlic. For the end, according to the old belief, bread is always cut towards ourselves to always be, and not from ourselves to be left without bread.