October 19, 2008

Anadama, Mark II

A new recipe for one of the better early loaves we made...So, start out by proofing 3 scant teaspoons of yeast in 1/4 of a cup of warm evaporated milk. (Full disclaimer: recipe does not call for evaporated milk...but it's been sitting on my cupboard shelf for too long now, and I wanted to come up with some way to use it.) After a few minutes, add another 1 1/4 cups of evaporated milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 2 tablespoons of butter, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 1/4 of a cup of molasses. Stir in 1/2 a cup of medium-grind cornmeal and then 4 cups of all-purpose flour (half a cup at a time). Knead for about 7 minutes, adding enough flour so that the dough is nice and elastic but still slightly moist and sticky. Put in a greased bowl, cover, and realize that the only place in the apartment warm enough to have the dough rise is the oven, turned to its lowest setting. Ah, Autumn finally comes to the Midwest.

First Rising (1 hour and 20 minutes)
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The real reason, of course, that I'm making this loaf this week is that I've just bought my plane ticket (engaged at enormous expense, it rather seems to me) home for Thanksgiving vacation, so I thought an appropriately New England bread was called for. As last year was the very first time I had failed to be home for Thanksgiving, I am quite excited to make it back this year

Speaking of those plane tickets, though... Now, I don't particularly want to complain; indeed, I've had some convoluted air travel adventures in the past, and I'm a big believer in sitting back, taking the almost inevitable delays with an amused smile, and just seeing what happens. However, looking at just the expected itinerary for this upcoming trip (let alone what nearly mandatory missing connections are going to make the trip in reality), my confidence is already a little shaken about this one. In my ideal world, if I had to come up with a flight pattern to get home, wouldn't it just be Chicago to Maine? Heck, since Maine airports are so small, I'll even throw in a plane transfer in Boston. And, if I were to want to stop at Williams along the way, surely we can just go from Chicago to some upstate New York airport, and from there to Boston.

All of this I would fully expect, and would be pretty happy with. What, before I actually bought these tickets, I just couldn't even imagine was that Illinois - Massachusetts - Maine would, in addition to all of the above airports, also involve stops in Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. Remind me, how can that possibly be reflective of a sensible system of air travel?
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Punch the dough down, knead for a minute or two, then shape into a loaf and put into a greased 9x5 pan. Cover, return to the oven, and let sit for the

Second Rising (1 hour)
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Anyway, other than the excitement of buying plane tickets, not a terribly interesting week. I'm happy to say I'm feeling much better than last week.... but otherwise, I've just been doing the usual mix of work, research, with maybe slightly higher levels of sleep and chicken noodle soup than usual. Hopefully, now that I'm feeling better, I'll have more to report next week.
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Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Enjoy the fact that this bread is substantial enough to be sliced while still quite fresh out of the oven.

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Tasting Verdict: Quite good. It's a little hard for me to compare with the last time I made a loaf of anadama, as my memory isn't quite that good. Still, rereading my old tasting notes, it's clear that this is a much richer, denser loaf than the last time around. I'm still really a fan, though, of the extra texture that the cornmeal adds.

Cooking Disaster of the Week: Chicken and rice noodles with a Thai peanut sauce. Somehow, I continue to be totally incapable of making a decent Thai food dish. The noodles always seem to end up with the consistency of one solid blob of mush, and the flavor is, without fail, too muted and vague...One of these days I'll get it, but clearly not this time around...

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