Precooking for Christmas Dinner Vol. 3

In a few days I am going to publish my seven-course Christmas Dinner that took me 12 hours of cooking, plus let's say another 5 hours in three days for precooking. Until then I want to share those fabulous parmesan grissini by Giorgio Locatelli, that were also part of the dinner. These grissini are simply irresistible!

Ingredients:
50 g butter
200 ml milk
10 g fresh yeast
375 g flour
3 tablespoon grated parmesan
10 g salt

Melt butter, add milk and heat until it is lukewarm. Stir in yeast. Mix parmesan, salt, flour (I used 300 g bakers flour and 75 g Italien Tipo 00), pour in yeast mixture and knead a dough. Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and stretch into a rectangle. Work your way over the entire surface of the dough making deep indentations with eight fingers at once. When the surface of the dough is covered with indentations, fold it in half turn it ninety degrees, stretch it out to an A4 sized rectangle and repeat the indentation making process again. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a wet kitchen towel and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes. Repeat the dimpling and folding process and leave to rise in the covered bowl again for another 30 minutes.


Preheat oven to 150°C. Cut the dough in half and roll each half out into a large rectangle about 30cm or more on its long side. Slice this rectangle of dough into 1cm wide strips.


Roll the strips one at a time on the work surface with your hands to form long thin sausages. Press down on one end to create a flattened spoon shape. Bake for 10-15 minutes.