#corn flour

It was kind of a slapdash operation and I didn't want to waste food if it didn't work, so I decided to do a quarter portion of this recipe (just 100g flour & 1 egg) as a trial and serve it with brown butter.

It looks like sugar cookie dough, no? It was VERY sticky, even after resting in the fridge, and I realized immediately that it would not stand up to the pasta maker. I'd never rolled or cut noodles by hand before!

That was an experience. It turned out like a very ragged fettuccine. Some were maybe more pappardelle. Others were just shreds. Then I put them in the water and guess what?

Then all of them were shreds! Potion of turn your pasta into spaetzle. It took absolutely forever to cook, too—maybe 4 or 5 times as long as fresh wheat pasta? I think they also grew in size a lot more too. They tasted very, very, very beany while they were al dente, but the flavor became more neutral the longer they cooked. However, by the time it tasted like pasta, it was just a pile of shreds.

But a delicious pile of shreds! It was tasty and satisfying with brown butter, cracked pepper, parmigiano-reggiano cheese, and a bit of chili flake. If you used a real sauce, you might actually mistake the flavor for real pasta.

Not so much the texture, though. It was noticeably different than wheat pasta, but people said it was still within the realm of pasta texture and therefore better than some other non-wheat pastas they'd tried. (This was my first so I had no basis for comparison.)

I did forget the corn flour, which I think would've added something nice but not changed the outcome much. Most other recipes use things like xantham gum and tapioca flour, which I assume would make it stronger and smoother, buuut we didn't have them and my aunt would definitely refuse to eat them anyway, so!!! I was happy to find a recipe with minimal/pantry ingredients.

Corn Flour Dinner Rolls

In September I spent a weekend with friends in Portland Maine. The trip was all about food. Trips to the Farmer's market, a cheese festival, and the fish market led to a great meal in the apartment. We had great lobster rolls from a local take out and a wonderful dinner at the restaurant Scales (see my article on Anadama Bread.) But perhaps our most memorable meal was at the restaurant Twelve, a new restaurant listed by the New York Times as one of the best restaurants in the country.

One highlight of the meal were a group of four corn flour rolls brought to the table in the small cast iron pan in which they were baked.

They were wonderful, no mere Parker House roll, these were really special. Thus upon my return from Portland, I vowed to bake my own. After a couple less successful attempts. Here they are.

The first step is an unusual one. Make some polenta. Two cups of whole milk are heated to a simmer in a small sauce pan, then 120 grams of fine ground corn meal is added. The mixture is stirred continuously under gentle heat until it becomes nice and thick. The polenta is cooled in the fridge until it is about 100 degrees then it is transferred to the bowl of the stand mixer.

With the stand mixer on low, 80 grams of sugar, a tablespoon of yeast, a teaspoon of salt and three eggs are added. Once this is all combined 800 grams of flour are added, followed by a stick of butter, one tablespoon at a time.

The dough is kneaded in the stand mixer for a good five minutes. My dough looked a little too sticky so I added another tablespoon of flour to bring it all together. At this point the dough ball is picked up and shaped at bit and placed in a large bowl for a ninety minute rise.

Weigh your dough (you did remember to tare bowl didn't you?) and divide it into 24 equal pieces (should be about 68 grams each.) Roll each piece into a smooth tight ball and place them on a parchment covered half sheet pan. They make a nice 4 x 6 pattern with a couple inches in between them.

Let the rolls rise in a warm place until they double in size and touch each other. This took me about 45 minutes. Bake them in a 375 degree oven for 16 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let the rolls cool, but not too much before eating them.

I can't say my rolls are as great as the rolls at Twelve, since the ambiance of Twelve surely makes their rolls extra special.