In particular, can you make anything with those ingredients, but without a rising agent like yeast or baking soda?
Well, if you’re not married to the idea of it being edible, you can make anything out of flour and water. They’re the main ingredients (other than paper) of papier-mache.
If you’re talking about food…ick. Maybe a very weak, tasteless soup. It would probably sustain life, but you wouldn’t be very satisfied or get much but sustenance out of it.
But I’m no chef…
jayjay
Chapathi. Most recipes will also tell you to add salt, but I think it works ok without too. And salt isn’t a rising agent.
I recommend using whole wheat flour, finely ground, perhaps pastry flour (lower protien/gluten content). Taste pretty damn good with just about anything at all spread on them, and they are fast and easy to make.
IIRC, we used to use Flour and water to create an amporhous(sp?) solid, which, as kids used to give use several hours of amusement. Err, Ok, I used to anyhow.
To clarify, let’s assume there’s a heat source available and maybe some non-perishable other ingredients (nothing too ritzy here). Without that assumption, I suppose the only options are clay and wallpaper paste.
Tourbot has the right idea. You can make a few interesting flatbreads with nothing more than flour and water. Chapatti is one example. Matzoh is another. I’m not totally sure on this, but it might be possible to make dumplings as well without any other ingredients.
If you left a flour + water dough out long enough would naturally occurring yeasts cause the dough to rise before the dough went bad or it likely just go funky?
If you left a flour + water dough out long enough would naturally occurring yeasts cause the dough to rise before the dough went bad or would it likely just go funky?
You can make Lumpia wrappers (it’s like an eggroll, but the wrapper is much thinner) with it. Just make it thin enough to paint onto a hot griddle. Paint it on and when the edges curl up, voila, you have lumpia wrappers (it’s just easier to buy them though).
-Hardtack is made by baking rolled out slabs offlour water and optionally salt.
Leaving a mixture of flour and water to sit out is a good way to capture wild yeasts. It takes a bit of luck to get a good wild yeast. Some will give off tastes, others give a sourdough flavor , and some will act like regular yeasts. Once you get one you like you cover the culture and feed it more flour and water periodically to keep it going.
To make bread with the yeast, just add a cup or so of the mix to the rest of your flour.
Tortillas
Matzah, also spelled matzoh, matzo and mazda.
Actually, I am amazed at the wonderful flavor of matzah. And on the box, it lists the ingredients: flour, water.
It is wonderful with just butter, but almost anything is good on it. And don’t tell my parents, but… ham is good on it too.
I sometimes think that in the future, it will catch on like bagels have.
We used flour and water to make glue.
Also, eggwhite is an excellent glue, great for stamps
and envelopes that wont stick.
Great recipe: for when you’re hungry and broke
Self rising flour
Water
oil
Combine flour and water to make a batter similar to pancakes, add a little oil
Cover frying pan with oil, heat, add batter, fry until golden
brown, turn, fry other side.
VERY GOOD
Nope, you need a little fat in the tortillas to get the right texture. Just flour and water will make them into crunchy disks.
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If you left a flour + water dough out long enough would naturally occurring yeasts cause the dough to rise before the dough went bad or it likely just go funky?
[QUOTE]
You will more likely catch the naturally occuring yeasts before the dough became funky. Food historians believe this is pretty much how ancient man figured out leavened bread. Beforehand, flat breads (like matzoh) were used–often as plates/silverware (either holding the food, or pieces torn off and used as a scoop). The historians believe someone made a dough, and left it out overnight by accident–when baked the next day, it puffed up and left a lighter texture (and a kind of bread that was far easier to digest).
One of my Chef Instructors in school made his own sourdough starter in almost the same way, except that he used some grapes in the process. He drove out to the mountains (we’re in L.A.; he wanted to get out of the smog line :)), took a small container of crushed organic grapes and some fresh distilled water, and let them sit out all day while he and his family frolicked in the forest. He took the grapes & water home, added a little flour to make a batter consistency, and in a few days that baby was bubbling.
I make play-dough with flour and water for my class at school.
You also need salt, cream of tartar and a little oil. Lasts forever (if you close it up tightly after use) and is lots of fun. You also need a packet of unsweetened Kool-Aid to make fun colors.
Want the recipe?
I make homemade pasta all the time. It consists of semolina flour, water, and a touch of olive oil.
I once “won” a baking contest using hardtack (mix flour and water into a stiff dough, bake at 400 or so until it’s bone dry and golden brown). For variety, I sugar glazed the top. For my efforts I won the “Most Inedible” category hands down.
No one said that “interesting” has to equal “good”.
So, there’s a few different breadstuffs that you can make with minimal ingredients. Are they really any different from each other? What’s the difference, for instance, between matzoh and hardtack?
One difference in how the various breads/crackers turn out is whether or not the mixture is kneaded. Chapatis are made with warm water and flour which is kneaded and then rested to allow the gluten in the flour time to relax so they can be rolled. This gives them a nice chewy texture similar to a tortilla.
Matzoh dough is mixed and rolled without kneading.
BTW, you need fat to make flour tortillas, but corn tortillas can be made with just masa flour and water (although most people add salt, too.)
Well for starters the spelling…
I can’t claim any exposure to Matzos. The big difference seems to be that people like to eat Matzos (even aside from the religious connotations) whereas hardtack (aka “Teeth Dullers”, “Sheet Iron”, “Flour Tile”, “Hard Bread”) is a thing to be avoided. My experience with hardtack rendered something that would, in warfare, be more useful as an offensive weapon than a foodstuff.