Hello Friends. No roses, but plenty of bread today I promised to tell you how my stock turned out so…
Yesterday I spent my morning in contemplation of the beauty of a slower pace. I made stock. Here’s how you do it:
Fill a stock pot with water
Chop up 5 carrots, a large onion, a couple stalks of celery and put it in the pot. Get something green like kale stalks. I had no kale so I chopped up about a quarter of a head of cabbage that I had used some of for my minestrone. I went out into my garden and found that some of my parsley from last year had survived the winter, so I cut a handful. Then I cut some of the mint growing nearby and a few sprigs of the thyme that never dies. All of this went into the pot along with 5 cloves of peeled garlic. Then I let it simmer for about an hour while I did other things. At the end I put in some kosher salt.
I strained it all through a colander, and then again through a sieve. The veggies had given up all their flavor and nutrition, so they were discarded. What I ended up with was a beautiful, light golden broth that is now in my freezer.
But the fun was today. Because today I made bread. And not just any bread. Anadama bread. Anadama is the bread equivalent of ambrosia. Bread making is something that should not be rushed, so I was glad to have all day.
I slept in, and then wandered down to the kitchen to start. You start by mixing a half cup of yellow cornmeal (preferably stone ground) into a cup of water. Bring another cup of water to a rapid boil in a saucepan. When the water is boiling, add the cornmeal mixture. Stir and simmer until it is very thick. Then add 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, a teaspoon of salt and half a cup of molasses. When you are done, you get this.
Now you need to remove the roux from the heat and let it cool to tepid. Do not rush this. Go do something else. Run a load of laundry, make the bed, surf the internet. When you come back, fill a little bowl with lukewarm water. It should only be warm enough that you barely feel it when you sprinkle it on a pulse point. (about 100 degrees F for the precise among us). Add a tsp of sugar and then sprinkle a packet of instant yeast in there. Leave it alone for 5 or 10 minutes while the yeast feasts on the sugar. It should foam up like this.
Now mix the yeast and roux in a big bowl and start adding flour. Unbleached all purpose is fine. You’ll need about 5 cups. After the first 3 cups turn it out onto a bread board and knead in the rest of the flour. Give it a 10 minute work out. You want the dough to be smooth and elastic like this.
Put it in a buttered bowl, cover it with a clean damp dishcloth put it in a warm place and go away. It will rise over the course of an hour or two to double in size. Punch it down, form a loaf put it in a buttered loaf pan and let it rise again for about 45 minutes.
Put it in an oven that is preheated to 350 degrees and bake it about 50 minutes. When you slide it out of the pan and tap the bottom it should sound hollow. Run it back into the oven to bake directly on the rack for another 5 minutes.
You’ll get this lovely loaf.
Now whatever you do, don’t cut it while it’s hot. Resist! It will be much better after it’s cool. Oh, alright, you can slice just a little off the end and put some butter on it.
We had it for dinner with soup and red wine. Week day drinking—we are living the high life now.
Stay safe!
