Golden Cornmeal Bread: Sometimes You Need To Knead

I try not to complain. Really, what good is it? And my life is great. It is beyond great. It is more wonderful than I ever could have imagined.  But it has its glitches. And even when the glitches are not apparent, sometimes I wake up and lo and behold! I do not feel like Little Miss Sunshine. The snow is blowing sideways in a dreary sky and it’s the end of March for godssake. That’s not helping. I try to reason with myself, and half the time that works. The other half of the time, I have to say to myself: ‘Honey, you are not in the flow of life, so you better get busy.’ So I sit down and breathe deeply until I feel that flow. And then I get off my butt and go into the kitchen and make bread.

           

 

The bread I want in these moments must be something marvelous:  golden, transforming, as sweet to behold as the honey from the bees. As much as I love the no-knead method (Five Minutes a Day) there are times when I need kitchen therapy. Slap dash won’t do it. The job needs to involve some puttering and elbow grease and contact with beautiful ingredients. It needs my concentration and some hands-on time.

We often lose sight of one important side benefit of cooking: when you are in the flow of the action in the kitchen you are able get OUT of yourself and INTO yourself at the same time. Huh? You get out of the swirl of mental activity (sometimes unproductive) and connect to a flow inside and simultaneously connect to something beyond yourself. It’s a feel-good moment. Bring on the butter.

Golden Cornmeal Bread

Makes one 9-inch round loaf

For the sponge:

2 teaspoons instant yeast

1/2 cup unbleached bread flour or all-purpose flour

1/2 cup warm water

1. Mix the yeast and flour in a small bowl. Stir in the warm water and mix until combined.  A few lumps are okay. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for one hour or up to three hours.

For the bread:

2 cups corn meal

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1 1/3 cups milk

The sponge (above)

2 cups unbleached bread flour or all-purpose flour

Olive oil for the dough bowl

1. Whisk the corn meal and the salt together in large bowl.

2. Heat the milk until scalding in a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave  (about 1 1/2 minutes) or in a saucepan on top of the stove. Pour the hot milk over the cornmeal and stir to mix. Let the mixture stand until tepid, 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Stir the sponge into the cornmeal mixture with a wooden spoon or sturdy spatula. Stir in the flour and mix until you have a shaggy mass. Dump the whole mess onto the countertop. Knead for about 5 minutes, until the dough is elastic. Add flour sparingly; the longer you knead the less sticky the dough will be. It should feel soft and slightly sticky, not stiff or dry.

4. Stretch the blob of dough all around to a point on the bottom to form it into a smooth, round ball. Pour about one teaspoon of oil into a large bowl. Place the dough in the bowl and twirl it around to coat it with oil on all sides. Place the bowl inside a plastic bag  (a clean trash bag or plastic grocery bag will do) and loosely tuck the open ends underneath the bowl. Puff up the top of the bag to form a tent. Leave the dough to rise at warm room temperature until it has doubled in volume, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

5. Line a baking sheet with parchment or brush it lightly with oil. Invert the bowl onto the countertop and let the dough drop onto the counter. Knead it a couple of times to redistribute the yeast cells. Shape the dough into a round and place it on the baking sheet. Flatten the round slightly to form a 9-inch circle. Let it rise on the baking sheet until doubled, about 45 minutes.

6. About 20 minutes before the loaf is ready to be baked, position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 450°F.

7. Brush the dough with water and sprinkle it with about 1 tablespoon cornmeal.  Make three evenly spaced diagonal slashes with a serrated knife across the top of the loaf.  Bake for about 30 minutes, until the crust is golden and the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom. (For more accuracy, insert an instant read thermometer into the bottom of the loaf—the bread is done when the thermometer registers 190 to 200°F.) Transfer the bread to a rack and do not cut into it until it is thoroughly cool. Once it is cool, store it in a plastic bag or wrap it in a clean tea towel.

Laugh. Dance. Bake (Vegan) Cupcakes.

Dear Ellen,

You are my BFF. I know. We’ve never met. Unless you count that time on a wintry night in a New York restaurant when you were sitting at a table in the bar (surprise, surprise). You smiled at me as I walked past, or at least I think you did. Maybe you were smiling at the person behind me? I did not squeal and bounce up to your table and squeal some more. No, I comported myself like a true New Yorker, acting so cool, like, Ellen, I see celebrities all the time, no big deal, even though in truth I’m from New Jersey. Anyway, I would never allow the fact that we’re total strangers, such a small detail, stand in the way of friendship.

When I watch your show (which I do on a daily basis), I wonder. Ellen, how can you always be so happy and upbeat? And then sometimes when I watch you, it occurs to me, wow, maybe Ellen doesn’t necessarily always feel like doing this every damn day. What if her back hurts or she feels cranky because she stopped eating sugar? But by the time that thought computes (about ten seconds) you have already turned it around. You are saying “back at ‘cha” and “kakaka” and the light bulb that is you is beaming full force. I don’t know how you do it.

Obviously, I’m not the only one who is glad you do. Because of you, I’m on twitter. I like to keep in touch. You’re so popular because you’re so nice; no wonder you have over four million followers. I don’t tweet; I follow. Like, who really cares that I’m sitting here writing to you and making soup and listening to the rain raging outside? That just doesn’t make for very scintillating reading, does it? But I like keeping up with you. And with David Lebovitz, since he says things like  “just spent 2 mins looking for my right glove, until I realized I was holding it in my left hand.”  You guys make me laugh.

Oh, I’m not done yet. So many reasons why I choose you as my BFF. You make me laugh, sure, but you do so much more. For everyone. It’s totally weird that your last name is DeGenerous. How did that happen? The world is a spooky place sometimes. When I watch people on your show scrambling for cash in a booth, or a family getting a car, or someone being given something they really, really need because of you, my heart breaks. I think, why couldn’t that be me?

No, really, I think, who does that? The glitches I have in my life are so minor in view of the big picture. If I’m having a bad day, sometimes a little booty-shaking is in order and anything that is weighing me down goes Pouf! by the end of the show. And if that doesn’t work, then it’s time to bake cupcakes. It’s a cure I highly recommend to anyone who feels stuck.

Now what kind of BFF would bring up cupcakes if you are not eating sugar?  Pay attention! I said bake cupcakes, not eat them. The therapy is in the getting-off-the-couch-and-get-moving   part. Eating them is the last line of defense. It’s effective, but it always leaves you in a wake of regret. So I bake cupcakes and give them away to greedy little children.  Or their teachers. These cupcakes are vegan, in honor of you, Ellen. They are gently sweet, so if and when you want to break your sugar fast, no one will have to scrape you off the ceiling after one or two bites. That’s the least I can do for my BFF.

Get Off the Couch and Move Your Butt With Ellen Coconut Cupcakes (Vegan)

These are not excessively sweet. A little bit of glaze hits the spot, unless you like very sweet desserts. Make the glaze first so you can chill it while you make the cupcakes. I have noted the brands I used to make these, but you can substitute other brands if you like. Taste and compare vegan cream cheese spreads. I like Tofutti the best; I found that some brands have a strange flavor. Lemon glaze is also good with these. Just add about 1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest and 1 tablespoon lemon juice to the glaze. The cupcakes are best consumed on the same day you make them.

Makes 1 dozen

For the glaze

8 ounces tofutti cream cheese spread

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon pure coconut flavoring

About 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1. Combine all the ingredients except the coconut in a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Process until smooth. Scrape into a bowl and refrigerate for at least one hour, while you make and cool the cupcakes.

For the cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon Ener-G egg replacer powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (4 ounces, 1 stick) Earth Balance buttery sticks vegan spread

2/3 cup agave syrup

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon pure coconut flavoring

1/2 cup coconut milk

1. Set a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Line 1 dozen molds in a standard size muffin tin with paper liners. Thoroughly whisk the flour, egg replacer, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl.

2. Beat the vegan spread and agave syrup at medium speed until well blended with the paddle attachment in a stand mixer, or with the beaters of a hand-held mixer. Don’t worry if the mixture looks curdled, just keep going. Add the vanilla extract, coconut flavoring, coconut milk and dry ingredients to the bowl.  Beat on low speed, just until smooth and combined. Do not overbeat. Scrape down the bowl and give the batter a final mixing by hand with a rubber spatula.

3. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 molds. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick poked into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let the cupcakes rest in the pan for 10 minutes and carefully lift them out onto on a rack to cool completely before icing.

4. Place a rounded teaspoon of glaze on top of each cupcake and spread it with the back of the spoon. Sprinkle each cupcake with coconut.

           

            

Women Chefs Rock!

Lest I fall into the black hole of regret, an abyss that beckons to me on a daily basis, let me state (to clarify the issue and as a reminder to myself) that I am not, nor have I ever aspired to be, a chef. That thought never seriously occurred to me at the appropriate time in my life. I was too busy messing about in an unfocused, disorganized way, an approach to living that I would not recommend to any child of mine. But life is what happens when you are busy making plans. Or in my case, not making plans.


I backed into the world of cooking by way of a spiritual quest that led me to a yoga ashram that led me to opening a restaurant that led me to finding a mentor that led me to learning to cook from a neighbor who happened to be a French chef. See what I mean? Non-choices become choices in their own sneaky way. In the early 1970’s women were not chefs. Of course, Alice Waters is the exception, but she had to open her own restaurant and figure out by herself how to do it. Instead of wandering around France stomping on grapes, eating vast amounts of cheese and discovering my bliss, I chased my bliss with a lot of deep breathing in a little town near Woodstock, New York. Oh, I should mention, we also opened a tiny roadside restaurant to give us something to do when we weren’t meditating.

When I inquired with all the innocence and earnestness of youth if I could intern at Quo Vadis, the restaurant of my dear friend/chef/neighbor Eugene Bernard, he smirked, chuckled, and shook his head. Women have no place in the restaurant kitchen. Women cook with their hearts, not with their heads. Women are not allowed in the Quo Vadis kitchen. In the 1970’s, the top restaurants in New York City were French, and entering one of them as a female cook would have been a cause célèbre akin to the French revolution. 


But enough about moi. The reason I bring this up is to highlight the strides women have made in crashing that boys’ club. By the 1980’s, women were making headway in the professional kitchen, and Jody Adams of Rialto in Cambridge, Massachusetts was one of them. The other night, at Rialto, she cooked a dinner with another formidable female chef: Benedetta Vitali, from the restaurant Zibbibo in Florence. I suspect that Benedetta’s road to establishing herself in Italy was paved with more than a few bumpy cobblestones. But you would never know it by talking to her. She is lovely, soft-spoken, and unlike some of her male counterparts, totally unassuming. But don’t let those beautiful green eyes fool you. She is filled with the passion, talent and discrimination that makes her, like Jody, an inimitable chef. As Bernard confided to me some years later, after he began teaching at the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, N.Y., women were much better students than men after all (sorry guys).  They are more meticulous, conscientious and diligent. In other words, women chefs rock!

Don’t hate me because I was at that dinner and you weren’t. Benedetta has a book, so you can cook from it yourself. In fact, if you could eat a book you would eat Soffritto. (Sadly it is out of print, but you can still find it.) It is filled with gorgeous photographs of Tuscany and the ardent words of a native Florentine who gives her readers the gift of the region’s food and a disappearing way of life. When she describes how to make soffritto—the underpinning, or base layer upon which a dish is built—she warns not to use a food processor, but to chop the carrot, celery and onion very finely with a knife: “Chopping an onion by hand might induce a few tears, but one should weep from time to time.” How can you not love her?

P.S. Watch Jody Adams compete on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters starting on Wednesday, April 7. And if you live in or near Cambridge, go to Rialto and sample Jody's menu for yourself.

Oven Roasted Peppers with Capers and Olives adapted from Soffritto by Benedetta Vitali

Peppers in March goes against the grain of the true Tuscan spirit of using only seasonal ingredients, but in New England, sometimes you have to break the rules. With apologies to Benedetta Vitali, this recipe uses less olive oil for fat-o-phobes (the original calls for 1/2 cup) and thyme in place of oregano, because it was easier to find. If you are vegetarian, you can omit the anchovies, otherwise full steam ahead on the little fish; they add a ton of flavor. You could serve these as a side dish, over polenta, or on toasted bread as bruschetta.

Serves 8

3 tablespoons or more olive oil

4 small to medium-size yellow and/or orange peppers

2 rounded teaspoons capers

8 anchovies, rinsed and cut into 2 to 3 pieces

1 /2 pint small cherry tomatoes

16 to 24 pitted Kalamata olives

About 1/4 bunch of thyme, or 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped oregano

1/2 cup or more red wine

1/2 cup water or chicken stock

1. Heat the oven to 450°F.

2. Spread 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a large (9 X13-inch) baking dish. (If you like, use up to 1/2 cup of olive oil.)

3. Cut the peppers in half lengthwise through the stem, and pull out the stems and the clump of seeds attached to them. Set the pepper halves in the baking dish with the cut side up. Sprinkle about 1/4 teaspoon capers inside each pepper half. Top them with the anchovies, 2 to 3 cherry tomatoes and top the tomatoes with 2 to 3 olives. Sprinkle lightly with salt (remember, olives and capers are salty) and pepper. Lay a small thyme sprig on top of each pepper half and drizzle the peppers with a little olive oil. Pour the wine and water or stock into the pan to coat the bottom in a thin (1/4-inch) layer and cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake for about 50 minutes on the lower shelf of the oven, until the peppers are soft.

4. Remove the foil and return the peppers to the top shelf of the oven for 10 to 15 more minutes, until the juices in the pan thicken slightly and the peppers have started to brown at the edges. If the bottom of the pan becomes dry at any time, pour in a little more wine. Remove the pan from the oven and serve.

For bruschetta: Toast 8 slices of rustic-style bread under the broiler. The bread should be crisp and golden on the outside, but remain slightly chewy and soft on the inside. Drizzle some pan juices over the bread slices, top with a pepper, and drizzle with additional good quality olive oil.