Garlic-Tomato-Durum Sourdough Bread

There is a wonderful sauce for pasta made up only of chopped garlic and halved cherry tomatoes sautéed until the tomatoes break down and partly melt into the sauce.  I thought it might make for an interesting bread.  Since it goes so well with pasta, and pasta is usually made from semolina, I used 50% durum flour in the dough.

The result was a loaf with a fine crumb and a subtle flavor that perfumes each slice and grows on you as you eat more.  Fear not!  There is no harsh raw garlic taste.  The garlic gets transformed into a mellow undertone for the other flavors.  The durum flour also contributes its own shade of flavor.

garlic-tomato-durum-crumb.jpg

The dough is a basic 70% hydration sourdough, with corrections to the water content as covered below. You could change almost anything to fit any other basic dough you like. The flavor is delicate so I wouldn't use a strongly flavored flour.

Here is the basic formula for 450g of flour:

Dough
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225g durum flour (I used "Sifted Durum" from Janie's Mill)
225g all purpose flour (I used Gold Medal Unbleached)
10g salt (2.2%)
starter 135g (30%) (100% hydration)
205g initial water (see below)
30g hold-back water
All the sauce (see below)

Sauce
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12 cloves chopped garlic 
100  - 125g cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp cooking oil
15 - 30g butter

Chop the garlic into pieces roughly the size of a rice grain.  Chop the tomatoes in half or into quarters if they are big.  Heat oil and butter in a moderate frying pan until the butter has melted and mostly stopped spitting.

Add the garlic and cook until the aromatic garlic smell becomes noticeable, then add the tomatoes.  Cook until the tomatoes break down and partly melt into the sauce, probably 5 - 10 minutes. Regulate the heat so the garlic does not burn.  Don't cook it so much that all the water evaporates or if it does, add a little more water back into the pan. You want a sauce with some body but that is not dry. Let the sauce cool, and use all of it in the dough, liquid and all.

Here is how I figured out the amount of water to use in the dough.  The target water would have been 315g (450g flour * 0.70).  I used 115g tomatoes, and assumed that they would be 80% water, or 92g.  But some water would evaporate during cooking, so I guessed that 80g of the tomato water would remain. I held back 30g water so I could make adjustments if necessary since between the sauce and the durum flour I wasn't sure how much would be needed. So the initial water was 315 - 80 - 30 = 205g.

During the initial mix it was obvious that more water was needed so I added 20g of the held-out water.  After a 30-minute rest I thought a little more would be good, so I added the remaining 10g and that seems to have been about right.

The rest of the process was standard and you can just use your usual methods.  I did 2 S&Fs, shaped the loaf without a preform, and proofed free standing. I baked with steam at 405 deg F/207C.

I'm happy with this bread and expect to make it again.