Love your discard

I have got a confession to make: I am one of those people that made sourdough during the lockdown.

Actually, I became obsessed with it, and I tried to follow as many recipes as possible with my lovely starter: pizza, bread, pancakes, pretzel; you name it, I have probably done it (hundreds of times, with a decent amount of successes and some “interesting”, less successful, results).

I attempted several “miraculous recipes” for sourdough starters, that promised me everything: an unbelievably bubbly bread, the crunchiest pizza ever, the most amazing fluffy pancakes, a new shiny car (spoiler alert: I still have my super old car and all the entartaining noises it makes).

All of these recipes had one thing in common, something that I could never accept in my life: at some point of the development of my starter, I had to discard half of it. I know, I don’t make the rules, but there was no way that I was going to put perfectly good starter in the bin. NO. WAY.

I had to come up with something that would give my discard the glory it deserved: it was just a small piece in the world of sourdough, a world that doesn’t show any mercy or compassion towards my half starter, but I couldn’t be just a spectator or even worse the perpetrator of such a horrific action. I had to do something. (Yes I know I am such a drama queen).

So I started a very long research process on google, all the baking books in my flat, youtube, instagram, my mum, and I came up with a super tasty recipe that I promise you, won’t let you put your discard in the bin ever again. These little snacks dont last more than 24 hours in the house, so I warn you: if you have guests around and you are planning to serve them these crackers, have some backup snacks because I am sure they will be all gone by the time your friends arrive!

Ingredients for one tray of crackers:

-unfed sourdough starter, 130g

-white strong flour, 130g

-olive oil, 60g

-melted butter, 35g

Ingredients for the topping:

-sea salt

-red onion, 1/4

Equipment you need:

-rolling pin

-greaseproof paper

-a tray

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 180° fan assisted
2. Mix together the flour and sourdough starter
3. In the meantime, melt the butter
4. Mix the butter to your dough
5. Add the oil and knead until you have a smooth texture
6. Cut the onion finely
7. Take the greaseproof paper you are going to use on the tray, cut as much as you need
8. Put your dough in the centre of the paper and using a rolling pin, flatten your dough until you get a 3-4 mm width
9. Spread the onion on your dough and gently push it
10. Spread the salt evenly
11. Cut the dough in squares
12. Put in the oven for 20 minutes or until golden

Are you obsessed with sourdough as well? Did you come up with interesting recipes? Let me know!