The process of waiting was almost 8 hours on the dot. The scent was a bit like yeast and beer, with fine bubbles dotting up the sides of the container and popping on the surface. The starter was maybe an inch from the top of the quart container at a maximum rise. After an extra 15 minutes, I saw the starter falling so I mixed up the dough quick before taking a photo.

On the left, part whole wheat and bread flour gives the dough a speckled tan color. About 15 scrapes and turns of a spatula got me a nice round mass. The leftover base starter was almost exactly 100 grams, a good amount to keep in cold storage. Immediately after setting the dough out to rise, I fed the starter again and put it back in the fridge. Totally painless!













In fact, making bread was so easy I had time to make Uni Chawan-Mushi with Cabbage Salad and Salmon from Hiroko Shimbo's book The Sushi Experience. I even weighed the uni on the new scale.

This chawan dish is very, very rich with an uni umami flavor balanced perfectly by hot wasabi. Crab and scallop are poached briefly in sake and divided into ramekins. Then the seafood studded uni flavored cream custard is steamed in a bain marie. The garnishes are a dollop of wasabi, a tongue of uni and a basic sushi sauce of mirin, soy and bonito flakes. Unfortunately I poured too much on these ones to show the green wasabi but they still tasted great. I would recommend going light on the sauce however. I bought the cups at Ikea so they were overly healthy portions and the chawan-mushi needed an extra 5 minutes but otherwise the recipe worked perfectly.