Ingredients

per 1000gm of finished dough :-

500 gm Shipton Mill strong bread flour, sieved.

280 gm Water (good idea to weigh it - jugs can be inaccurate)

190 gm Mashed or riced potato—Maris Piper or similar

5 gm Chopped rosemary – fresh for preference - it will stand more...

10 gm Salt (sea salt is best—use less if preferred)

15 gm Baker's yeast or 5gm instant dried yeast.

Method

Put the water, pleasantly hand warm, into a large bowl, and dissolve the yeast in it, with about 50gm of the flour, and leave it for 5 minutes. Yeast doesn't need sugar these days!

Gradually stir the rest of the flour, potato and rosemary into the water, and mix with a wooden spoon until it comes together into a lump, then turn it out and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. It will be sticky at first, but keep at it! You can dust the dough with a little bit of extra flour if it’s too sticky, but not too much! You can use a mixer with a dough hook, but it’s less fun!

Cover and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. It's even better to allow it to rise overnight in a cool place if you have the time.

Tip out carefully on to a lightly floured surface and place in a bread tin, or shape into loaves, and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet.

Cover and allow a further 45 minutes or so, until doubled in size, then bake.

Spray water into the oven or place a metal tray of water in the bottom - steam really helps.

Baking will take about 50 minutes, starting high at 200 degrees and turning down to 180 after 5 minutes.

The loaf will sound hollow when tapped on the base. This is a pretty pointless exercise, but who can resist doing it...

Panmarino is an old Tuscan bread. I developed this recipe from the Hairy Bikers' Kartoffelbrot, with far less potato, and with the addition of rosemary.