Crusty Peasant Rolls

Directions

1. Place flour in large bowl. Stir in salt.
2. Dissolve yeast into water. Pour into flour and stir with a beautiful wooden spoon if you have one, or a dinner fork, until it comes together. Dough will ball up onto the spoon/fork. Remove spoon/fork.
3. Place a few tablespoons of olive oil in a small bowl and set it near your work area. This way, you don’t have to grab the bottle of olive oil with your dough-y hands like I usually do. Drizzle a teaspoon or so of olive oil over the dough and along the sides of the bowl. I use an oiled plastic bowl scraper to help knead the dough, scraping, folding and pressing as you would for any kind of kneading. Do this for a couple minutes.
4. At this point, lift the dough ball up with your lightly oiled hands and hold along one edge of dough, letting the rest of the dough hang down and stretch out. Move along the entire edge of the dough, turning it in more or less a circular steering wheel motion. Don’t be tempted to add more flour. Do this 5 or 6 times, folding the dough back up into a ball each time. Total turning and stretching: a few minutes.
5. Fold the dough up over itself, gather it into a ball and place back in the oiled bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, lay a dish towel over it and place in a warm spot. I always stick my bowl of dough in the microwave, a warm and out of the way place. Sometimes, before putting it in, I heat a mug-full of water, to get the microwave nice and warm.
6. Let rise for 1 hour. Then deflate dough with your fingers, and let rise for another hour.
7. When the second rise is done, place baking stone on center rack of oven. Place a large cast iron skillet on bottom rack. Preheat oven to 435 degrees F. You want the oven good and hot.
8. Pinch off dough into small, 2 ounce pieces (I use a kitchen scale for this; my scale is flat and fits into a gallon zipper bag. I oil the top of the bag so the dough doesn’t stick. Or you can go ahead and lay the dough on your naked scale, swipe it with oil, and clean it when you are done.) I like to roll the dough with my very lightly oiled hands on my marble pastry board that I’ve swiped with a lightly oiled paper towel, so the dough has a little tackiness and resistance to roll smooth, but doesn’t stick like crazy. Now, don’t squish the balls. Form your hand over it like a cage and start rolling in a circle and roll into a smooth, firm ball.
9. Place dough balls on a parchment-lined heavy-duty sheet pan, at least 1 inch apart. Take a long sheet of plastic wrap and brush it lightly with olive oil, or spray it with Pam. Lay the oiled plastic over the buns. Let rise for 30 minutes.
10. Remove the plastic from the buns. Sprinkle some coarse sea salt over and lay a few leaves of rosemary over each.
11. Just before placing the sheet pan in the oven, very carefully, and using oven mitts, pour ½ cup very hot tap water into the cast iron pan that you already set on the bottom rack. Keep your face averted, as the hot steam will billow up, and I do not want you to burn yourself. Immediately place the sheet pan on the baking stone and quickly close oven. After 10 minutes, open the oven door to let the steam out. Total bake time is around 25 – 30 minutes, until tops are a deep golden brown. The bottoms will sound hollow when tapped. Slide rolls, parchment and all, onto a cooling rack. Serve warm.
12. When completely cool, store leftovers in a freezer zip top bag for up to one day. Freeze for longer keeping. These rolls reheat and crisp up very nicely in a 350 degree F oven.
13. Oh, and one last thing. I know I've harped on this before, but seriously, get yourself an oven thermometer. It's really important that you have an accurate read on your oven temperature, regardless of what you are cooking in it.