French Bread
4-5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 package active dry yeast (1/4-oz package)
1 2/3 cups warm water (105-115°F)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Mix the flour, salt, and vinegar in a bowl.
Stir together yeast and 1/3 cup water in a small bowl until yeast is dissolved, then let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn’t foam, discard and start over with new yeast.)
Add the yeast mixture and remaining 1 1/3 cups warm water into 2 cups of the flour mixture in a bowl, beat well with a wooden spoon until very elastic. Mix in more of the flour until you can no longer beat it with the spoon. Use some of the remaining flour on the counter or board and scrape the dough out and begin kneading in the rest of the flour. Since I was working by hand and my dough was quite sticky — I live in a very humid climate — I ended up adding in extra flour until I could work the dough easily without it clinging to my fingers. It was still sticky though. Knead until smooth and elastic. Oil a clean bowl; put the dough in the oiled bowl, turning it over once and cover with a lid, plastic wrap of damp towel. Let dough rise until it fills bowl, about 1 hour.
Generously oil a large sheet pan with olive oil. Turn out dough onto your work surface; divide in half. Taking one portion of the dough, press it into a 10- by 8-inch rectangle, begin rolling one long edge of the dough like you are making a jelly roll and pinching edges together when you finish your “log”. Turn over (seam side down), then roll and stretch into a 15-inch-long irregular loaf. Put loaf, seam side up, on the sheet pan and turn to coat with oil, leaving loaf seam side down.
Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Let loaves rise, covered, in a warm draft-free place 30 minutes.
Put oven rack in upper third of oven, then put a large roasting pan with an inch of water in it on lowest rack of electric oven. Preheat oven to 450°F.
Make several shallow diagonal slashes down length of each loaf with razor blade or very sharp knife. Bake loaves 30 minutes, then carefully remove pan of water from oven. Remove bread from the sheet pan and turn upside down on upper oven rack, then bake until golden and crusty all over, about 5 minutes more. Cool loaves on a rack.