Cooked Corn Meal Cake

Cooked Corn Meal Cake

320g Fine stone ground cornmeal, I like Anson Mills www.ansonmills.com
250 g Superfine sugar or caster sugar
400ml Whole milk
150 ml Sweet butter
3 Large eggs
Zest from one orange
2 Tablespoons dry sherry, the better the sherry the better the taste
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon baking powder
extra butter and cornmeal for preparing the pan

All ingredients should be at room temperature before you begin. Set them out on the counter for at least a half hour before proceeding.

Preheat the oven to 355 degrees

Using a paper towel butter the inside of a tube pan..preferably with a lift our center. Then carefully dust all surfaces with cornmeal so that there is a light dust overall. The original recipe calls for a 23cm pan approx 9.5 inches..I found it too big and as a result my cake is not as tall as I would like.
I would try an 8 or even 7 inch angel cake pan with removable bottom.

Using a heavy pot or casserole heat the milk, over low/medium heat and slowly add the cornmeal a little at a time making sure it is whisked into the milk before adding more..wash down grains that attach to the side of the pot and make sure you get into the corners where the cornmeal can fall and start to cook and burn. Add meal and sugar slowly and continue to stir.  Make sure you beat out any lumps going one direction and another if necessary. Add the butter as you go as well as the three flavorings. When the mixture becomes thickened like good porridge, give a few more stirs then turn out into a large bowl and stir a bit.

Leave any bits that stick to the bottom as you do not want the hard cooked corn goo. Leave it in the bowl and wait for it to cool to warm not hot. Then add the egg yolks and beat.

Finally whip egg whites until they have soft peaks. Take a cup or so of the corn sponge and lightly fold into the whites. It should not be completely blended in.

Stir the baking powder into the corn mixture and finally lightly fold in the egg whites so they are almost but not quite well mixed in.

Immediately pour into the pan and bake 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick plunged into it comes out clean.

Set on a rack and after you see the cake has shrunk from the pan you can lift it out by the bottom piece and let it continue to cool on a rack. When it is thoroughly cool gently with a fine knife remove the bottom of the pan from the cake. 

This gluten free cake is fragrant, soft and makes nice crumbs. Serve with juicy fruit ,plums, pitted cherries, berries or peaches. Next time I am thinking to split it  and fill the layer with custard. You can top it with a bit of ice cream or whipped cream. You can change the flavorings..a standard nutmeg vanilla mace addition might be fun..Use your imagination!



Cooking Notes on Cooked Corn Meal Cake

I always think that the gluten free cakes and breads I have had are really not very appetizing. Without gluten it is hard to make cake and bread that have a nice texture. Also for some reason most gf cakes and breads are filled with strange ingredients trying to emulate wheat flour. My sense is we need to try to find breads or cakes that already exist so that they are good.

I have been considering corn meal to make a cake..It was already in my mind to try to lighten it texturize it and flavor it. Cooking the meal would make a sponge..adding whipped egg whites would further lighten it.

I started to look up recipes on the internet that use corn meal for making a cake. Naturally most had a bit or a lot of wheat flour..But after some time I came upon this recipe:

http://technicolorkitcheninenglish.blogspot.com/2007/03/cooked-cornmeal-cake.html

It is essentially a cooked cornmeal with sugar and milk to which eggs, oil, baking powder etc are added. While I did not make it exactly I did think it would work out fine.

Then I noticed a link on that recipe back to an earlier version..it is in Portuguese..I think.. and is a little different

http://pecadodagula.blogspot.com/2006/11/bolo-de-fub-cozido.html

Then I noticed another picture of another cake..this one has butter not oil and whips the whites of the eggs separately folding them in at the end..Better, I thought..

http://pecadodagula.blogspot.com/2012/03/bolo-de-fuba-cozido-da-vovo-estela.html

Finally I had been reading the recipe on the Anson Mills site, which while it is very complex and has wheat flour had a nice idea for flavoring

http://ansonmills.com/recipes/504
 I loved sound of sherry, orange and vanilla

My recipe above is a combination of my experiences with cakes and the recipes of others before me.
Thanks to all for the help!!

My Son Max

Everyone, this is Max. Max, this is Everyone

I’d like to introduce a fresh face to The Meat Market: Max Gitlen, our new butcher! Born and raised in Albany, Max grew up traveling between New York City, Upstate New York, and The Berkshires (he learned to ski at Butternut when he was three), soaking up the food-centricity of our region, and watching his mother craft a vegetable garden out of a vacant lot near their home. Though he studied architecture in school (Brown University) and toured as a DJ post graduation, he found he couldn’t stop thinking about the potentials of food. Putting aside the beats, Max began working at a Boston-based non-profit called The Food Project, one of the first organizations in the country that sought to unite youth of all stripes through the fun, frustrating business of farming. Seeking to spread the value of local farming even further, Max helped to set up a program that would match low income families’ food stamps at farmers’ markets. He noticed that despite a growing interest in sustainable food practice among his peers, there weren’t nearly enough people willing to get their hands dirty with the nitty gritty of sustainable food production. So, Max set out to get his hands dirty.
It was around this time that his father began raising sheep on a refurbished farm in Greenwich, NY, and Max was inspired; since most of the people he knew that were actively involved in food production were farming vegetables, he decided to focus on animals. As he put it, “if I’m part of a commune some day, someone’s going to have to bring the steaks.” He spent three months apprenticing at Formaggio’s Kitchen in Boston, learning the ins-and-outs of charcuterie production, then moved to New York and spent nine months with Liz Clark at Bubby’s, breaking down whole steer and pigs, before heading back to Rhode Island to work at Farmstead. The more he cut, the more he realized how all his interests seemed to funnel: from biology to architecture to environmental sustainability, all were aligned under the knife.

In many ways our shop espouses the very values he aspires to as a butcher. As he sees it, the key to sustainable meat production is local sourcing of whole animals, and the only way to do that viably is to have a solid business foundation that can take advantage of the whole animal; we agree, hence our extensive charcuterie program and fantastic cafe. As we talked, he noted how rare this type of business was, particularly outside a major city, and how tricky a business like this can be. He sees our business as an opportunity not only to provide a great product but to further the aspirations of local food, to provide the highest quality food to all people, to keep the lines visible between producer and customer, and to build a community that can thrive on these principles.

We here at The Meat Market are very excited to have him as part of the team, and he can’t wait to work with us, and with you, to make the shop better and better. “I’m excited about learning with our customers. We’re all in this together, we’re on the same team. I want the customer to go home with what they want, and I want to hear what works for them, what doesn’t, and how to make the experience better for everyone. It’s a collaboration between both sides of the counter, and it takes trust on both sides. I want to keep on learning, keep on experimenting, and bringing all that knowledge to the community.” Hear hear, Max, and welcome aboard!

FYI Max Gitlen is my Son! More on the Meat Market @ www.themeatmarketgb.com

Beet Borscht

One of my favorite memories from childhood was going to to Lindy's with my dad. The restaurant was large and noisy, the walls were covered with photos of movie stars. Waiters were rushing about and there was a feeling of being at an enormous party. I remember sitting up particularly straight so I could see everything that was going on.
The foods were familiar, Jewish and delicious.
They had an enormous menu. I remember ordering beet borscht and a wonderful apple pancake.

My grandmother had always made the classic Russian cabbage and meat borscht. But prior to this I had only had beet borscht from a jar we bought at the grocery store.  Beet borscht at Lindy's  came not only the standard sour cream but also, with a hot boiled potato! I had never seen it this way and when I put a bit of the hot potato into the soup it was nothing short of miraculous!


I am including  a link  here to a description of the venerable Lindy's that  I visited so long ago with my dad.

http://nyapril1946.blogspot.com/2010/09/lindys-already-legendary-in-1946.html

Beet Borscht

3 large boiling beets
cover with water
Sour Salt, (dried citric acid, available at gourmet stores) or lemon juice
Salt
Potato
Sour Cream
Dill


Wash and scrub beets. Cover beets with water. Add salt and boil. Remove the beets and slip the skins off in cold water. Grate the beets, either a food processor or a medium sized hole of a box grater will do..Rubber gloves will be handy here.
Put the grated beet back into the cooking water. Starting with 1 teaspoon of sour salt or a tablespoon or two of lemon juice and then add some granulated sugar  stirring and adding a little at a time alternating sour salt and sugar if necessary, until you have a tart but not too tart sweet sour taste. Add a little salt if necessary. Chill well and serve with a large dollop of sour cream and a hot boiled potato with a bit of chopped dill
Note: sugar can be replaced with agave syrup or stevia and there is  very good fat free sour cream which I use.

Quick Summer Lobster Salad

My simple summer cottage has the smallest stove on the planet.

 So I thought I would use the local takeouts to help me in my quest for easy and good food. Also..as often is the case.. I am on a diet so I am eating strategically today.

Tonight I am seeing a movie and lecture so I needed to figure out how I could eat early as my diet demands. My solution is to eat breakfast a little late and then skip lunch but have Linner..is that a word??

 Last night's dinner was a lobster and some corn..The local fish market The ClamMan http://www.clamman.com/
very nice people.. steamed me a lobster. Not knowing how much I could eat, I ordered a pound and a half. But I could only finish the claws and legs. So I saved the tail and all those tiny legs for today.

I went online and found a recipe for that cold leftover lobster,  lovely lobster salad. Here is the basic recipe:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Tarragon-Lobster-Salad-105219

I chose it because I love tarragon with lobster and had brought some out from my tiny city herb garden. If you don't have lobster you could easily substitute shrimp or scallops or take it in another direction completely and used chicken or turkey. You might try basil instead of tarragon.

I did not follow the recipe to the letter; rather I picked the lobster meat reserving it in a small bowl..then with a mini food processor I chopped my tarragon and after did my shallots. I eyeballed how much mayo, lemon juice and pepper and mixed it with the shallots and tarragon and added the  lobster. The picture shows some baby red oak leaf lettuce I got in the city and small yellow tomatoes..I wasn't really keen on the tomatoes you might be but if not  I encourage you to try other garnishes..I could imagine a bit of crumbled bacon or maybe some very sweet melon. Cooking is like that! Experiment! Wing it!