Bolo do Caco 3 Ways: Madeira's Bread, No Oven
This is bolo do caco, the national bread of Madeira, Portugal. They use it for an amazing steak sandwich, and they serve it with every dinner as a garlic bread starter. This bolo do caco recipe covers all of it, and the bread is very easy, because you don't need an oven. The secret bread ingredient: sweet potato.
Ingredients
- 350 g sweet potatoes (about 2)
- 500 g all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling and dusting
- 12 g instant yeast
- 200 ml water
- a spray olive oil, for the dough
- 9 g salt
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 spoonful chopped parsley
- 150 g softened unsalted butter
- a good pinch salt
- 1 steak (I sous-vided a côte de boeuf with butter, garlic, thyme and rosemary; a flat iron steak straight from the pan, sliced into strips, works too)
- a few pieces iceberg lettuce, torn
- a few slices young cheese
- a few slices thinly sliced ham
- a spread the garlic butter from above
- a few slices tomato, salted
Method
The bread
- 1
Cut the sweet potatoes into large chunks and boil them for 20 to 30 minutes, until they'll mash nicely.
- 2
Meanwhile, mix the flour and instant yeast in one bowl. In another, weigh the water and add the salt.
- 3
Drain the potatoes, put them back in the pan to evaporate the liquid a bit, and peel off the skins, very easy after boiling.
- 4
Mash the flesh to a mash and add it to the water-salt mixture. Mix until smooth; a hand mixer gets it even smoother.
- 5
Add all the flour, in batches for easier mixing. Once it forms a dough ball, work it on the surface, if it's too wet and sticky, add a bit more flour.
- 6
Knead by hand for 20 minutes, or 10 minutes in a stand mixer with a dough hook on medium-high. The dough is kneaded enough when you can stretch it so far that light passes through without it tearing.
- 7
Spray the dough with olive oil, put it in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise 2 to 3 hours, or until doubled in size.
- 8
Dump it out (look at that lovely jiggle) and divide into six even balls of around 150 g each. Make each into a tight ball, roll generously in flour and press a bit flat.
- 9
Rest under a damp kitchen towel on a baking tray for another hour, until nicely puffed up, almost doubled.
- 10
Heat a non-stick pan on medium, dust it with flour, add a bolo do caco and cover with a lid for about 4 minutes, until the bottom has a nice brown crust. Flip and give the other side another 4 minutes. Play around a little with the timing. Repeat for all six.
Garlic bread starter
- 11
Mix the softened butter, garlic cloves, chopped parsley and a good pinch of salt, that's your garlic butter (make it while the dough rises).
- 12
Cut open a bolo do caco that's still a little warm and spread the garlic butter in. This is how they serve it in any restaurant on Madeira, and it's absolutely to die for.
The steak sandwich
- 13
Cook your steak. Mine went sous-vide with butter, garlic, thyme and rosemary for 2 hours at 54°C, then seared and basted for a nice crust. A flat iron steak straight from the pan, sliced into strips, is the faster route.
- 14
Slice and salt the tomatoes, tear the lettuce, and lay out the cheese, ham and garlic butter.
- 15
Assemble the sandwich in a split bolo do caco, cut in half, and look at that beauty. This one was actually better than the one I had on Madeira.
10 tools I used.
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