Polish · Sauce
Zakwas Żytni na Żurek
- Easy
- 10 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with an earthy, grounding base, warm spice humming through the middle, opening aromatic and staying there.
Ingredients
- 150 g wholemeal rye flour, coarse if you can get it
- 500 ml water, boiled and cooled to lukewarm
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 allspice berries
- 1 crust of stale rye bread, optional
- 1 tsp coarse salt
The skills inside
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter
Allergen screen
Found: gluten
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk the rye flour into the lukewarm water in a scalded 1 litre jar until no dry lumps remain; it should pour like thin cream.
- Bury the garlic, bay, allspice and salt in the batter and float the bread crust on top if you are using one.
- Cover the jar with a cloth and a rubber band, never a sealed lid, and stand it at around 22C (72F) out of draughts.
- Stir once a day with a clean wooden spoon. By day three or four it should smell of sour apples and buttermilk and taste sharply acid, never bitter or solventy.
- Refrigerate once the sourness bites. It keeps six weeks, settling into cloudy sediment under a clear liquor that you shake back together before use.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter 80 recipes
- The coat is continuous before it goes anywhere near the fat: held up to the light, no bare patch of food shows through anywhere, seams and thin edges included.
- It is bonded rather than resting on top: a gentle shake sheds loose dust only, and the coat does not slide off as a sheet when the piece is handled.
- It bubbles hard and steadily from the moment it enters the fat, and the bubbling visibly slows as it finishes; those bubbles are the surface water leaving, and a quiet entry means the fat is too cool.
- Out and drained, it is an even gold-brown all over and it is still crisp several minutes later on a rack; a coat that softens within a minute of coming out never lost its water.
- Broken open, there is no paste of raw flour under the crust and no hollow gap where the coat has lifted away from the food.
Where it goes wrong The fat was below temperature or the pan was crowded, so the coat drank fat instead of sealing against it: it comes out pale and heavy, greasy to the fingers, and slumps off the food as it cools.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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