Herbal Transformations For The Humble Loaf

Herbs play an important role in cooking and have the ability to transform a simplest cuisine into a haute cuisine. The same can be said in the in the case of herbal breads. With the ever-increasing emphasis on health, herbal and dietic breads are gaining popularity. The most popular types are the diet and the caloric value added varieties. Among the diet breads, a variety of herbs, multi grains and nutritive value flours are used. These varieties do not contain fatty acids and crystal sugar.

The different varieties of bread have recently been gaining popularity in the Indian market. People have started consuming nutritious breads like whole wheat bread, masala bread, wheat germ bread, garlic bread etc.

The ingredients of some of the popular bread varieties include:

• Rye Bread

Rye meal, wheat bran, wheat flour, honey and black currants

• Multi Grain Bread

Wheat grain, corn maize, oats and dil seeds.

• Harlequin Bread

Whole wheat flour, caramel and bran

• Fruit Bread

Refined flour, sugar, yeast, fat, and mixed dry fruits

• White Bread

Refined flour, sugar, yeast and fat

• Whole Meal Cheese Bread

Whole meal flour, salt, fat, yeast and cheese

• Danish Ring Bread

Refined flour, sugar, salt, butter, yeast and milk powder

• Milk Bread

Refined flour, sugar, salt, yeast, milk powder and fat

• Oat Meal Bread

Refined flour, yeast, sugar, salt and oatmeal

• Swiss bread

Refined flour, yeast, sugar, salt and bread darkener

Preparations

White Bread

White bread is made with flour milled from the inner part of the wheat grain after the husk has been removed. It also contains water and yeast along with various additives, preservatives and emulsifiers.

Brown Bread

Brown bread is made from wheat flour with some of the bran removed. Its colour comes from the brown part of the wheat grain and added caramel colouring.

Rye Bread

Rye bread is popular in the Scandinavian countries, Germany and Russia; it is made with rye flour or with a higher proportion of rye flour mixed with wheat flour and are slightly sour. The low gluten in rye flour makes the bread heavier and denser.

Foccacia

This is Italian yeast dough bread, similar to pizza, usually baked as a large disc and flavoured with olive oil, coarse salt, herbs and garlic.

(The author K Veeramani is Sous Chef, bakery, The Taj Coromandel, Chennai.)