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Cereals and bread from Turkey

Nohut mayalı ekmek (Turkish chickpea-leavened bread)nohut mayalı ekmek

Nohut mayalı ekmek is a Turkish bread raised with a chickpea leaven instead of yeast. Crushed chickpeas are kept in a sealed jar of warm salted water with a little flour for about 18 hours until the liquid foams; the strained liquid is mixed with flour into a dough, which rises for 2 hours in the study, is shaped and baked.

Fully documentedCereals and bread19 h – 21 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts are the laboratory chickpea leaven of Erginkaya et al. 2016, made after the methods of Özer et al. 2010 and Hatzikamari et al. 2007.
Chickpeas, crushed in a cloth75 g[erginkaya2016]
Water400 ml[erginkaya2016]
Salt0.05%[erginkaya2016]
Wheat flour (in the chickpea jar)6.5 g[erginkaya2016]
Wheat flour for the doughEnough flour to make a dough with the chickpea leaven, about one third flour[erginkaya2016]
Starterspontaneous (chickpea liquid)

Total time across the recorded steps: 19 h – 21 h

Start
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What changes: Crushed chickpeas go into a jar of salted water with a little flour

Step 1 of 5
Crush the chickpeas and seal them in warm salted water with a little flour
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts
Weissella confusa
Weissella
Enterococcus faecium

Output: chickpea jar.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Nohut mayalı ekmek is a Turkish bread raised with a chickpea leaven instead of yeast. Crushed chickpeas are kept in a sealed jar of warm salted water with a little flour for about 18 hours until the liquid foams; the strained liquid is mixed with flour into a dough, which rises for 2 hours in the study, is shaped and baked. Made in 5 steps over 19 h – 21 h. The longest step, ferment until the liquid foams, takes 16–18 h (Erginkaya Z 2016) and runs at 37–40 °C (Erginkaya Z 2016). Weissella confusa (47.8% of lactic isolates) and W. cibaria (12.4%); Weissella dominates the lactic community and Other lactic bacteria: Enterococcus faecium, E. lactis, Levilactobacillus brevis, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, Pediococcus acidilactici, P. pentosaceus and Streptococcus lutetiensis do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step16–18 hReported[erginkaya2016]Ferment until the liquid foams
Temperature37–40 °CReported[erginkaya2016]Ferment until the liquid foams

What makes this one different

The leaven comes from chickpeas fermented in sealed warm water, not from a flour sourdough or baker's yeast. Spore-forming bacteria (Bacillus and Clostridium) take part along with lactic bacteria and yeasts, and the foamy liquid has a strong smell that the baked bread loses.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Weissella confusa starter (research)A selected W. confusa strain was used as a single-strain starter for chickpea sourdough.

Safety

Chickpea liquid starters from Turkish bakeries carried Clostridium perfringens as the major group by DNA analysis; the abstract reports no toxin test. It causes food poisoning and makes protective spores, and CDC links outbreaks to food held between about 4 and 60 °C, which includes this warm jar. A 2016 paper on this bread (Erginkaya et al.) says earlier studies asked for toxin production to be checked, and that one of them said the dominant B. cereus and C. perfringens made no toxin during fermentation and the baked bread posed no health risk. We read that only second-hand, so these cautions stand. Do not taste the liquid or the raw dough. The bread is baked for about 40 minutes at 200–220 °C. Do not keep the loaves warm for long.

Hazards the sources name: Clostridium perfringens, the major group by DNA sequencing in all bakery starters and doughs.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Erginkaya et al. (2016), citing Dikkaya (2011), say Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatname describes chickpea-leavened simit made around Albania as a unique flavour. They call the leaven "sweet yeast" and say it is delicate and hard to start.

  1. [erginkaya2016] Erginkaya Z., Ünal Turhan E., Özer E.A. 2016, Nohut mayalı ekmek üretimi ve hakim mikroflora, Uludağ Üniversitesi Ziraat Fakültesi Dergisi 30(1):89–99paper
  2. [boyaci2020] Boyacı Gündüz C.P., Gaglio R., Franciosi E., Settanni L., Erten H. 2020, Molecular analysis of the dominant lactic acid bacteria of chickpea liquid starters and doughs and propagation of chickpea sourdoughs with selected Weissella confusa, Food Microbiology 91:103490, doi:10.1016/j.fm.2020.103490 (abstract)paper
  3. [boyaci2022] Boyacı Gündüz C.P., Erten H. 2022, Yeast biodiversity in chickpea sourdoughs and comparison of the microbiological and chemical characteristics of the spontaneous chickpea fermentations, Journal of Food Processing and Preservation 46 (abstract)paper
  4. [cdc-perfringens] US CDC, About C. perfringens food poisoninggov