A Touch of Levain - Fried Bread Sticks aka "Youtiao"

Описание: Fried Bread Sticks with a touch of Levain
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@Qiongcooking
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   • Chinese Donut Recipe (Youtiao)  

I have been meaning to spice up Youtiao Bread Sticks with Sourdough flavour. So on May 13, I decided to try after watching and adapting the above vloggers' Youtiao videos.  Fried Bread Sticks are easily available in Malaysia and is a popular street snack on its own or as accompaniment to light rice porridge, curries, hot soya bean milk or anything that you like. Its versatility is amazing. But of course those sold outside have no Levain in it and is not needed. I just wanted to see what sort of taste Levain will bring to Youtiao besides the good bacteria and wild yeast. Since the intention is to flavour and not to leaven, I used unmatured and cold Levain straight from the fridge and eventhen just a tiny amount.

In the end I did 2 versions.

1) May 13
4 to 5 minutes of kneading using the Slap and Fold method with 1 min of bowl kneading.
This method produces a more chewy outcome with a bit more bite to it.
The yield was 6 Bread Sticks.

2) May 18
Also about 4mins of gentle Fold and Press method without bowl kneading.
This method gives a lighter and airy crumb.
The yield was 10 Bread Sticks (During the shaping and assembling, I cut at 2.5cm interval and the width was less than 7cm of the 1st Version.)

Final analysis is some prefer 1 and others prefer 2.  And all agreed the Sticks are delicious with added Levain flavour.

The Recipe for both versions are the same. Only difference is the kneading part.
The Ingredients are as follows:-

● 290g Plain Flours
● 2.6g Soda Bicarbonate
● 6g Double Action Baking Powder
● 15g fried onion oil, any vegetable oil will do
● 20g cold Levain
● 1 egg
● 120g cold Water
○ 3g Salts.. I accidentally left salt out in the video. 🙏

Thank you for reading. 🥰

Jaime
17:07
22 May 2023
Writing From the beautiful country of Singapore.

PS  Originally I was only posting Version 1. But because different treatment of kneading produces different results, I decided to show Version 2 too, at least the kneading part. Anyway thank you for watching.