 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Loafin'October 08, 2007 I celebrated the imminent completion of that wretched "Dear Author" job (it's gone! it's gone!) by baking Anadama bread. Anadama is an old New England corn and molasses bread. Stories vary about the origin of the name, but most involve a farmer who got pissed at his wife, whose name was Anna. This is not an old family recipe. I have virtually no old family recipes, mainly because neither my mother nor either of my grandmothers cooked. If any of them ever baked yeast bread, it was before I was born. (My mother did teach me to make banana bread, but the recipe came from The Joy of Cooking.) I taught myself to bake bread during the winter of 1975–76, right after I returned from England, where I finally learned what good bread tasted like. My instructor was a mass-market paperback written, if I remember correctly, by the editors of Farm Journal. This Anadama bread was one of my first ventures beyond that book. I found it, believe it or not, in the back pages of TV Guide. The original clipping is long since gone, and the copy I typed on my old red Selectric is heading in the same direction: the once-white paper is now, thanks to frequent doses of butter and Crisco, the color of faux parchment, spangled with darker grease spots and smeared ink where I corrected a couple of typos. I just typed a clean copy in Microsoft Word, which is why I'm posting it here: why not? Anadama Bread 2 1/2 cups water (more if needed)* In a saucepan, combine water, cornmeal, butter, molasses, and salt. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, till mixture bubbles and thickens slightly. Take off heat and let cool till tepid. Pour into bread bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top, stir, then start adding flour. When you've got a cohesive dough, turn it onto a floured surface and knead till smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes). Place in greased bowl and let rise till doubled in bulk, about one hour. Knead down, cut into two pieces, and knead each into a ball. Cover with wax paper and/or a dish towel and let stand for about 10 minutes. Roll each one out, form a loaf, and stick it in a greased loaf pan. Let rise until doubled. Bake in a moderate (350-degree) oven until loaf sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom. YIELD: two loaves.
*The amount of water you'll need depends partly on your cornmeal. The wonderfully tasty coarsely ground stuff I've got seems to absorb more water than the popular commercial brand. If your dough starts to get stiff after the addition of only two or three cups of flour, add more water, a quarter cup at a time. You want to get at least five cups of flour into the dough. **The type of molasses is up to you. Blackstrap works, but the strong flavor dominates the bread. I usually go for "dark," which is less obvious but still flavorful. P.S. I tossed two generous handfuls of raisins into this particular dough. Few are the breads that can't be improved by the addition of raisins, and they definitely worked well here. Traditional Anadama bread does not include raisins. Maybe next time I will use dried cranberries.
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||