Bread-winners: Finding the best complement for your meal<\/p>\n
-------------------
\nMaria Kegel
\nContributor
\nJakarta
\n---------------<\/p>\n
Foccacia. Pannini. Ciabatta. Knowing what bread to serve with
\nyour meal can get downright complicated when faced with the
\nbaker's dozen, and then some, of varieties on the market.<\/p>\n
You can simplify your choice by sticking to the guidelines
\noffered by William Wongso, owner and operator of Vineth bakery
\nand several popular restaurants around town, and Nanang Pratna,
\nthe pastry chef and head baker from the Jakarta Hilton.<\/p>\n
The type of bread to serve during a meal depends on
\nnationality, William, Jakarta's premier restaurateur, said.<\/p>\n
\"The French always like having bread, such as pain au levin or
\na baguette, on the side of a meal, which they use to clean the
\nsauces off their plate with, while Germans eat hard rolls called
\nbrotchen in the morning and rye bread throughout the day.\"<\/p>\n
William chose the baguette as the perfect accompaniment for
\nany meal, because, he said, it is more universal and goes with
\nalmost everything.<\/p>\n
\"When you start serving cheese, then you have to change your
\nbread style to complement what kind of cheese you are serving,\"
\nhe noted, quickly adding that a baguette could be served all the
\nway through.<\/p>\n
Roquefort cheese is quite strong, pungent and salty and
\nWilliam likes to serve a heavy raisin bread with it to balance
\nout its unique flavor.<\/p>\n
Creamier cheeses go well with a walnut bread, and goat cheese
\nis fine with olive bread.<\/p>\n
Herb bread is more modern, and when topped with cheese, it
\nworks well with pasta, as the bread already has a lot of flavor,
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
\"Pain au levain also goes with everything and it has a certain
\nflavor, which you can't get from normal bread that uses normal
\nyeast, and also because of its long process to make it, the slow-
\nproofing method,\" he said, adding that this helped the bread last
\nlonger, allowing it to taste fresh for several days.<\/p>\n
The garlic ficelle bread is a favorite among Indonesian
\ncustomers because of the taste provided by the garlic, and some
\nrestaurants use it for sandwiches, wrapping it in foil and
\nreheating it in the oven; William said he liked his served with
\nFrench Emmenthal cheese.<\/p>\n
German vollkorn bread, which is heavier than the Dutch whole
\nwheat version, can be served with cheeses or at breakfast with a
\npate or jam.<\/p>\n
William said it had a sweet and slightly sour taste, the sweet
\ncoming from the molasses, and it is cut thin to about two to two
\nand a half millimeters as it is a solid bread.<\/p>\n
\"It is baked slowly for eight hours, and then stored for one
\nweek, allowing the flavor to distribute evenly throughout the
\nloaf.\"<\/p>\n
In his opinion, the best choice as table bread for your meals,
\nthough, is French bread, because of its appropriate size.<\/p>\n
\"If you choose a brotchen or tiger bread, they are too big and
\nthey don't look good on your bread and butter plate. The French
\nbread is nice, and you have a lot of flexibility in the way you
\ncut it.\"<\/p>\n
At Vineth bakery, customers can choose from among the volkorn
\nand tiger bread, which are originally from Holland, onion bread,
\nherb bread, olive bread and focaccia from Italy, and the
\nbaguette, garlic ficelle, pain au levin and pain de campagne,
\nwhich are from France.<\/p>\n
The bakery provides bread to all his restaurants: William's
\nFine Dining in the Mitra Hadiprana building in Kemang; William
\nKafe Artistik above the bakery's location on Jl. Panglima Polim;
\nand his two sandwich and grill outlets at Kemang Duty Free and
\nPlaza Senayan, which both opened last year.<\/p>\n
At one of his four restaurants, it is compulsory to serve
\nolive bread, which has small pieces of olive mixed in with the
\ndough.<\/p>\n
\"I've found that with every diner, if I give them a soft roll,
\nthey'll have two or three bites and they're finished. But if you
\nserve a preheated crusty roll that is crunchy on the outside and
\nsoft on the inside, they'll just keep eating and won't be able to
\nstop.\"<\/p>\n
For the two sandwich outlets, William tried to get away from
\nthe sandwich's typical stereotype of American toasted bread cut
\ninto squares or triangles.<\/p>\n
In a deliberate departure from this image, the restaurant
\nserves sandwiches shaped artistically on focaccia, pita bread, or
\non pata, a layered Indian bread, which is done as a hamburger
\nconcept, he said.<\/p>\n
\"Using focaccia as a base, I can create any shape I want, as a
\npizza or sandwich. There are many things you can do with
\nsandwiches,\" he said.<\/p>\n
In contrast to \"no-time bread\", a term given to industrial
\nbread that is made within two or three hours, William said the
\ntraditional way of preserving flavor was the best.<\/p>\n
\"Good bread is based on three main things: time, time and
\ntime. Without this element, you are just making normal bread.\"<\/p>\n
However, the familiar complaint about bread in Jakarta from
\nthe expatriate's view is that it is too sweet, he said.<\/p>\n
So after he opened Vineth bakery in 1977, he went abroad to
\nlearn firsthand in Germany, Italy and France the specific
\nproducts he would use for the market back at home, which caters
\nto the numerous nationalities.<\/p>\n
His secret to creating good food, including bread: Love the
\nproduct first and then learn how to make it.<\/p>\n
His passion for bread has paid off and last year he was
\nawarded a medal by the French Ministry of Agriculture for his
\nefforts to promote French cuisine and wine in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"If I know a bit more about continental bread that is because
\nI tasted a lot of different kinds before I learned how to bake
\nthem. It wasn't learning and then tasting, and this has made a
\nbig difference.\"<\/p>\n
He said he was able to tell the difference between industrial
\nbread and the artisan's bread, and how each country has its own
\ntradition of consuming its type of bread. \"This sort of thing I
\nknow a bit more about than the average baker, and it helps when
\ndealing with the clientele.\"<\/p>\n
In earlier days at about 7 a.m., William said, customers would
\ncome calling to the bakery looking for French bread, with the
\nreasoning that bread in Paris would be ready for the public at 6
\na.m.<\/p>\n
\"The problem is the bakery caters to many nationalities, and
\ntheir types of bread. Since the baking is done at night, we start
\nat the highest temperature, and the bread that is baked at the
\nhighest temperature is German bread, as it is a rye and it is
\nheavier. So (out of practicality) that always comes earlier.\"<\/p>\n
Customers may become confused over the type of sourdough bread
\navailable, and William attributes this to the two varieties on
\nthe market. Germans are used to their country's sourteig, while
\nNorth Americans and French would prefer the pain au levin, which
\nhas a natural yeast.<\/p>\n
Differences also exist between the German vollkorn bread, and
\nthe Dutch volkorn, spelled with one \"l\". The German version is
\nbased on rye and comes out as a solid dark bread, while the Dutch
\nis based on wheat.<\/p>\n
Over at the Hilton bakery, pastry chef and head baker Nanang
\nPratna also gave a thumbs up to the French baguette as the best
\nbread served at the table as it was versatile enough to
\ncomplement any kind of meal.<\/p>\n
He also recommended dinner rolls, which come in brown, plain
\nor with sesame seeds or poppy seeds.<\/p>\n
At the bakery, customers have the pick of tiger, sovital,
\ncountry farmer, raisin, whole wheat, twisted, corn and brown
\nbreads, as well as pretzels and the raisin flower, which
\nseparates into six to eight buns weighing 300 grams each.<\/p>\n
Gressini bread sticks, about 20 to 30 centimeters long and one
\ncm wide, are not displayed with the rest of the breads, but are
\nfor sale if a customer asks for it.<\/p>\n
\"You can serve bread sticks for any occasion, because they're
\nmade from the same dough as French bread,\" Nanang said.<\/p>\n
Focaccia, an Italian flat bread that comes as a round loaf, is
\nalso available on request, and Pratna said the bread was suitable
\nfor sandwiches and as a table bread.<\/p>\n
A serving suggestion for focaccia is dipping pieces of the
\nbread in equal amounts of olive oil and red balsamic vinegar,
\npoured together, but not mixed, in a small dish.<\/p>\n
Pratna recommended the sovital or brown bread for sandwiches,
\nthe French, sovital or tiger breads for accompanying soups and
\nthe raisin bread for coffee time.<\/p>\n
For the different varieties of cheese, Nanang chose white
\nrolls because they do not have a strong taste or aroma and they
\nbalance out a cheese's strong, full flavor.<\/p>\n
The raisin bread is a bit sweet and works best with jam or
\nhoney on it, he said.<\/p>\n
The bakery caters to the differing bread tastes of expatriates
\nand locals by offering the 12 European-style varieties as well as
\neight kinds of single-portion sizes of roti manis (sweet bread),
\nwhich come in sweet hazelnut, coconut, banana and chocolate, beef
\nand mushroom, chocolate, cheese and custard and banana and
\ncheese.<\/p>\n
\"Bread is not really the number one consumed item in
\nIndonesia, but since we have lots of customers (expressing a
\ndesire for it), we serve a large variety. However foreigners
\nusually don't like the sweet bread.\"<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/bread-winners-finding-the-best-complement-for-your-meal-1447899208",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}