Handmade Corn Tortillas

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There are plenty of things I don’t buy pre-made anymore—bread, salad dressing, pizza dough, ice cream, pasta—but corn tortillas are among the simplest, and the flavor is far superior to the ones I find in the supermarket. Even the “authentic” corn tortillas at the grocery are mass-produced with all kinds of processed ingredients, conditioners, preservatives and heaven knows what else. When you make them from scratch, you only need two ingredients—masa harina, which is finely ground corn that has been alkalized with lime (the mineral, not the citrus), and water. The dough rests for a short time, then it is rolled into balls and flattened into discs. Cook them on a hot griddle or cast-iron skillet, and you’ll enjoy tortillas that will make you skip store bought forever.

Flavoring the tortillas is simple, also. I like to put a couple of shakes of onion powder into a basic batch, for a quick little savory “something.” But if you want more noticeable flavor—spinach, for example—simply puree a small amount of cooked spinach with some water and measure it out in the same measurement as water in the recipe. You could do the same with cilantro, pumpkin, garlic, tomato or black beans. If you can imagine it, you can make it. Experimenting in the kitchen has resulted in some of my favorite foods!

I use a tortilla press to create the perfect round shape, but you can also use the flat bottom of a large glass bowl to do this. Once cooked, the tortillas can be used for soft tacos or enchiladas, fried crisp for hard-shell tacos or tostadas (one of my faves), or cut into wedges and fried to become homemade tortilla chips, perfect for dips and salsas.

Making tortillas can be a little challenging at first. The ratio of ingredients is printed on the masa flour bag, but your technique can only be developed with practice. See my tips for success at the end of the instructions. No reason you should go through all the frustrating mistakes I’ve made. One of these days, I’ll make a list of all the cuss words I’ve made up in the kitchen. 😊

Ingredients for Basic Tortillas

1 cup masa harina (I like Maseca brand, white, yellow or blue)

2/3 cup very warm water (or 50/50 mix of water and puree of choice)

A pinch of kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until liquid is absorbed. Knead the dough ball a few times until mixture is smooth, soft and uniform in texture. Cover the dough ball snugly with plastic wrap and allow it to rest at least 20 minutes.
  2. Preheat a cast-iron skillet or griddle over medium-high heat, about 375° F.
  3. Divide masa dough into 8 equal pieces, then roll each piece into a smooth ball. Keep the dough balls covered to prevent drying out as you shape and press them into flat tortillas.
  4. Place a dough ball between two squares of plastic wrap, or cut apart a zip-top bag. The thicker plastic gives better results. Use the tortilla press to slowly flatten the dough to a disc that is about 5 to 6 inches across. Alternatively, press the flat bottom of a clear glass bowl evenly over the surface of the dough ball until the tortilla is about 5 to 6 inches across.
  5. Carefully peel one side of the plastic away from the tortilla, then turn the tortilla out into your hand and peel away the second piece of plastic. Be prepared to ruin a few, but don’t panic if you do (see Tips below)!
  6. Turn the tortilla onto the preheated griddle and cook the first side 60 to 90 seconds, until the edges look dry and steam is emerging from underneath. Use a spatula to flip the tortilla over and cook the second side about 60 seconds.
  7. Transfer the hot tortilla to a plate lined with a clean kitchen towel and fold the towel over to keep them warm as you finish the remaining tortillas.
  • For basic tortillas, you can embellish the flavor with a slight sprinkling of spice. Here, I’ve used white corn masa, with a few shakes of onion powder and a pinch or two of salt.
  • In my experience, warm water does a better job hydrating the masa. Add all at once, then stir and knead a minute or so, until the dough is smooth.
  • The masa should feel soft but not sticky. If it seems dry, wet your hands and knead a few more times. Too wet? sprinkle with masa and knead again.
  • Cover or wrap the masa dough, and rest 20 minutes for the grain to fully hydrate. This will improve the texture of the dough for pressing into tortillas.
  • This is the easiest way to divide the dough into relatively equal portions, then roll the sections into dough balls. They will be about the size of ping pong balls.
  • A zip top bag is heavier and more effective than regular plastic wrap. Cut the zipper side off completely, and then cut down both sides, leaving only the bottom attached.
  • Keep the dough balls covered to prevent drying as you work through flattening and cooking them. It’s OK if they are not exactly the same size.
  • Have your griddle or cast iron pan heated and ready before you begin. Place a dough ball roughly in the center of the plastic sleeve.
  • Gently close the lid on the tortilla press. I find it works best to have the dough ball slightly off center, closer to the hinge than the front.
  • Easy does it on the pressing. If you go too hard and squish the dough too thin, simply scrape it off with your hands and ball it up again. There is no gluten here, so the tortillas will not get tough when reworked.
  • Check the tortilla. If it seems drastically thinner on one edge, turn the plastic to face the other way and press lightly again to even it out. If it’s paper thin, roll into a ball and start over.
  • Peel the plastic sleeve away from the tortilla, then turn it into your hand to peel away the other side. I find it helpful to keep a tight angle on the plastic. It’s also helpful (for me) to have a glass of wine nearby. 😉
  • Working quickly, turn the tortilla over onto the preheated (dry) griddle or skillet. Don’t try to lay it down, just flip it.
  • Whoa, my hubby was quick with the camera to catch that in mid-air! It doesn’t need to be dramatic, you just want to do it quickly so the tortilla doesn’t stick to your hand.
  • Cook the first side about 60 seconds, up to 90 seconds. Watch for the edges to lift away, and steam to emerge from below.
  • Then, flip it! Again, nice camera work, Babe! 🙂

If you love corn tortillas and want to make them at home more regularly, I recommend investment in a tortilla press because it makes it so simple. I picked mine up in a specialty market that carries a wide array of foods and products for Mexican cuisine, and you can easily find them online, too. But what if you’re jonesing to make them right now? Here’s one easy way to do it, using a flat-bottomed glass dish as your “press.” For this batch, I used the blue corn masa harina, and I demonstrate how to incorporate another ingredient: black beans!

  • To spice up the black bean tortillas, I have added a few shakes of onion powder and ground cumin, plus my pink sea salt.
  • Heating the beans and water together ensures I have enough of both, and the beans will puree more easily. I’ll whip it up in my smoothie blender, then measure the amount of liquid needed for the tortillas.
  • From this point, the recipe is the same as for basic tortillas. Mix the liquid into the masa, knead and rest 20 minutes.
  • You can see little flecks of black bean in the dough, which I love. 🙂
  • Cut equal wedges and roll each into a ball. Keep the extras covered as you shape them.
  • Here’s the fun part! Use a flat-bottomed pot or baking dish to press the tortilla. The masa dough is inside the zip top bag as before. Using a clear dish allows me to see how it’s going.
  • This dish is perfect because the center of the bottom is slightly recessed from the edges. I can press all the way down and still have even thickness.
  • It’s no big deal if you make a mistake, Just scrape it off the plastic and reshape it into a ball.
  • Peel the plastic as before and cook on the dry skillet. Place finished tortillas inside a folded clean towel so they remain soft as you cook the others.
Once you get the hang of it, you’re good to go!
Handmade Corn TortillasDownload

Tips for Success

Follow the same guidelines for measuring the masa harina as I offer for measuring flour—fluff it up, sprinkle over the measuring cup to overflowing, and then level it off. If you dig a measuring cup directly into the masa bag, you’ll end up with too much and the dough will be dry. The masa should be soft and loose in the measuring cup, not packed tight.

Use warm water, not cold, to mix with the masa flour. I’ve found that the warm water is more easily absorbed and helps to create better dough. Knead the dough until it is soft and smooth, which is usually only a minute or two, though longer kneading will not cause any harm.

Don’t skip the rest time after mixing the masa. This gives enough time for the masa to hydrate fully. If you rush this step, you may find the dough crumbly or sticky (or both) during pressing.

When you roll the dough into balls, it should hold together easily without sticking to your hands, and only showing slight cracks. Trust your instinct; if it feels too dry, wet your hands and knead a few more times. If it’s sticky, lightly dust it with additional masa flour, then knead and rest it again.

I have found a modified zip-top bag more useful than plastic wrap for pressing the tortillas. Use a freezer bag if possible, as it is thicker than a sandwich bag. Cut off the zipper top entirely, and cut down the sides, leaving only the bottom of the bag attached.

Shape the sections of dough into balls all at once, and then place one dough ball inside the zip top bag layers. Keep the other dough balls covered with a damp paper towel or plastic wrap so they don’t dry out. When placing the dough ball in the tortilla press, arrange it slightly off center toward the hinge side. Close the press and use the lever to apply gentle pressure. If the tortilla is noticeably thinner on one edge, turn it and gently press again to even it out. Until you get used to this process, it may help to make slightly thicker tortillas. If you are using a flat-bottomed dish to press them, press your hands on it in a rocking motion all the way around until the tortilla is about 5 inches across. It’s helpful to have a clear dish so you can see the progress.

Focus on peeling the plastic away from the dough, not the other way around, and accept that you may find the first few tries unsuccessful. Hold the plastic bag flat in one hand, and use the other hand to peel, keeping the plastic at a sharp angle to the tortilla. Don’t peel straight up or the tortilla will tear. If the tortilla falls apart, just scrape it into a ball and try again. There is no gluten in corn tortillas, so they will not get tough from extra handling. If the dough feels dry after a few failed attempts, wet your hands and knead it a bit.

The initial cooking of the tortillas should be on a dry skillet or pancake griddle. If you want to fry them later to suit a dish you are making, that will be a separate process. Think of it as a form of bread, which must be baked before it can be toasted or grilled.

Give your griddle or cast-iron skillet enough time to pre-heat, and plan to let your first tortilla be a test. It may take some practice to get the right temperature on your stove or griddle. Be ready to flip them when they look “right,” not by the clock, but aim for somewhere between 60 and 90 seconds.

Have a plate ready, lined with a clean kitchen towel. You’ll want to keep the freshly cooked tortillas wrapped as you complete the rest of the batch—for warmth and also for softness.

If you decide to use pureed vegetables to make flavored tortillas, start with a liquid mixture that is at least 50% water. Pureed vegetables such as spinach or pumpkin are wet, but there is also fiber in them that may change the consistency of the masa. I recommend making basic tortillas a few times to get used to it. As you gain experience making them, you will instinctively know what the dough should feel like, and how to best adjust ratios of other ingredients to produce fun colors and flavors. Here are a few of my favorites: spinach, black bean, pumpkin, cilantro, roasted garlic.

Handmade Lemon-herb Pasta

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March was National Flour Month, and I’m finally catching up on paying respect to the many ways flour feeds us, beyond the obvious (bread). My first attempts at making handmade pasta 10 years ago were outright disastrous, mostly because I had assumed the method of stirring eggs by fork into a mountain-like peak of all-purpose flour was going to be easy. In my defense, the shows I had watched on Food Network made it seem easy, but in real life, it was a humongous freaking mess that left me cussing up a storm and vowing that I’d “never make that again.” Truth is, it is those really frustrating failures that inspire me the most to give it another go, and I’m so glad I did!

In my later efforts, I enjoyed more success, letting my KitchenAid do the mixing, but there was always something about the handmade pasta that didn’t sit right with me, even after I had invested in a “Made in Italy” hand-crank pasta roller. The dough always seemed heavy or thick, even on the thin roller setting. It fell apart or crumbled, or stuck to the roller or cutting blades. But a few years ago, I found the perfect, James Beard Foundation-approved recipe that fixed all the problems I had encountered. My issue was not only how I was making the dough or rolling the pasta, but also the ratio of ingredients I was using. To that point, I had been using only all-purpose flour and whole eggs (yolks and whites). I had no idea what temperature was best for my ingredients, nor did I fully understand how long to knead the dough or whether it needed to be rested.

I cringe when I see this old photo. Besides all the background junk in my tiny, post-divorce apartment kitchen, the ragged edges on my pasta sheet reveal how much I had yet to learn! 🙂

The better recipe, and the one I use to this day, takes advantage of a special variety of wheat called durum, which is used to make semolina flour, the gold standard in authentic Italian pasta recipes. Semolina lends a warm, slightly nutty flavor, a light yellowish color and a firmer, more toothsome texture. It has been a game changer in my journey to making handmade pasta.

The other big difference was a shift in liquid ingredients in my formula. Rather than using whole eggs, the recipe that has become my standard requires separation of the eggs, using only the yolks, plus an amount of water. Once I found this easy formula, the flavor possibilities became near-endless. And that’s where the real fun of making handmade pasta begins! Being creative with the colors, flavors and shapes of handmade pasta is one of the things that gives me—a home cook—a very satisfying sense of accomplishment.

I won’t claim that handmade pasta is “easy,” because I still feel the ego bruises from my early attempts, but I will say that if you are already making handmade pasta, go on and experiment with the flavors until you find something amazing. New flavors make their way into the mix either in the liquid, perhaps by using finely pureed vegetables as part of the water measurement, or by way of dry add-ins, as I am sharing in today’s post. And if you’re still on the fence about trying handmade pasta, I hope my adventure inspires you!

This recipe has helped me use some of the abundance of fresh herbs I’ve had since my husband, Les, gifted me the countertop hydroponic herb garden that keeps throwing parsley at me. The lemon, parsley and basil combination is terrific and perfect for spring, but you could just as easily flavor your pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, dried mushrooms, roasted red peppers or—well, you can imagine your own (and I do hope you’ll share those fabulous ideas).

Making your own pasta is so much fun. I hope you’ll try it!

Adapted from
Semolina Pasta Dough Recipe | James Beard Foundation

Ingredients

8 oz. semolina flour (plus extra for rolling pasta dough)

4 oz. unbleached, all-purpose flour* (see notes)

2 oz. white whole wheat flour*

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 cup filtered water, room temperature*

2 egg yolks, room temperature*

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil (mine is whole lemon-fused for bright lemon flavor)

Zest of one organic lemon* (only the bright yellow peel)

2 Tbsp. very finely minced fresh herbs (I used a combination of Italian parsley and Genovese basil)

*Notes

All-purpose flour is easy to find, but “00” flour is better if you can get your hands on it. The double-zero flour is milled to a very fine texture, and its use results in tender, silky pasta. I have seen it in well-stocked larger supermarkets, gourmet shops and online. I also use some portion of whole grain flour in my pasta dough, but if you prefer, skip the white whole wheat and make up the difference with equal amount of additional all-purpose or 00 flour.

As with bread dough, I have found that hydration of flour for pasta dough is much improved with room temperature or slightly warm water. Cold water makes for very stiff dough that is tougher to knead.

Eggs are more easily separated when cold, but once this is done, cover the bowl of yolks and let it rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before you begin mixing the pasta dough.

Most of the time, conventionally-grown citrus is fine. But when you intend to eat any part of the peel, it’s best to choose organic to avoid chemical pesticides.

Instructions – making the dough

  • I used a microplane on the lemon, and left the zest and the finely chopped herbs to dry a bit on the cutting board.
  • Clockwise from the top: all-purpose flour, semolina, white whole wheat (with salt in the center) and a last minute addition of garlic powder right in the middle of it all.
  • Use a whisk to blend the slightly dried herbs into the dry ingredients.
  • Combine the egg yolks, olive oil and lemon zest in a glass measuring cup.
  • Pour in room temperature water and whisk until evenly combined.
  • Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour the egg-water mixture into the center of it.
  • Use the dough hook of the stand mixer, which mimics the action of mixing with a fork. This will take a while, and you’ll want to avoid the temptation to add more water at this point.
  • At my first squeeze of the pasta dough, it is evident that my mixture is too dry. It should come together in a shaggy but cohesive mass. This is dry and grainy, so I’ll add a tablespoon of water and mix again.
  • Much better! You can see the difference in hydration already, and it feels more smooth on the surface.
  • If I can use the mass of dough to pick up all the crumbs from inside the bowl, it’s ready to knead. If too many crumbs stay behind, I would add another small splash of water. This is just right.
  • Get ready for a workout in this phase. I don’t like the knead that my KitchenAid mixer does here, so I move the dough to the counter and start rolling the dough over itself, rotating it a quarter turn with each knead.
  • My dough is very firm, and I see lots of “breaking” in the surface as I continue kneading. This is a sign that the dough is still too dry.
  • I wet my hands and continue to knead. If the dough continues to crack and break a lot, I’ll repeat this as many times as necessary.
  • Kneading develops the gluten, which allows the pasta to take and hold shape. Some of my early handmade pasta attempts were unsuccessful because I didn’t knead the dough long enough. Go at least 10 minutes, or 15 if you can.
  • When finished, the kneaded dough should be firm, smooth and supple. A few stretch marks on the surface will be fine, but it should not appear broken. Wrap it tightly in plastic, and send it to the fridge.
  1. Zest the lemon and mince the herbs first, and spread them out on a cutting board so that the add-in ingredients dry out a bit.
  2. Combine flours, salt, lemon zest and lightly dried herbs in the bowl of a stand mixer.
  3. Combine egg yolks and water in a separate bowl and whisk them together until the mixture is light and frothy.
  4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour the wet ingredients into the center and use the dough hook to do the blending. Though it might seem logical to mix with the beater blade, using the dough hook completes the blending from the center-out, in the same way as the chefs using only a fork to gradually mix the eggs into the flour. Allow the mixer to do this work for you, until the dough mixture is combined but crumbly, and no dry flour remains in the bowl. Add more water, one tablespoon at a time, if needed to achieve this stage.
  5. Empty the dough onto your work surface, and knead by hand for at least 10 minutes, probably more like 15 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic, with no creases or cracks or lumps. If the dough shows any sign of cracking or breaking, wet your hands and continue to knead, repeating as many times as necessary until the smooth texture is achieved.
  6. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough ball at least one hour, or up to overnight. Do not refrigerate more than a day.

Time to make the pasta!

Here’s my work station for rolling pasta dough. My machine is clamped onto the edge of the counter, my cookie sheet and drying rack are ready, and my chilled dough is resting at room temperature.

Remove the pasta dough from the fridge (still wrapped) about 30 minutes before you plan to roll it, to remove some of the chill. Set up your pasta rolling machine, and keep fresh semolina out to aid in rolling and to prevent the dough from sticking. Have a parchment-lined cookie sheet within reach, and set up your drying rack if you’re using one.

Instructions – rolling the pasta

  • I love my hand-crank pasta machine. ❤ It’s made in Italy, and is very easy to use. The nearby attachment lets me cut my pasta sheets into fettuccine or linguine.
  • Unwrap the dough and use a bench scraper tool to slice off thick disks of dough. Roll out one disk at a time, and keep the rest tightly wrapped to prevent drying.
  • Begin by flattening a disk into a long oval shape. You can use a rolling pin to do this, but I usually flatten it by hand. Keep a small pile of semolina handy to dust each side before rolling it through the machine.
  • With the dial set on the thickest setting, turn the crank to run the dough through the pasta machine. Be ready to receive it on the underside as you go.
  • The first run-through makes a significant difference in thickness, but don’t rush through the next steps.
  • After the first pass, fold the rolled dough in half and roll it through again. Repeat this a couple of times.
  • When the dough passes through the machine easily, Fold it into thirds, as if folding a letter, and then run it through the pasta machine the other direction. This helps build strength in the dough, and also helps prevent curling of the fettuccine later when it is drying.
  • When the dough is passing evenly, reduce the thickness by one notch and repeat passing it through. On these thinner passes, you do not need to fold and turn the dough as before.
  • When I get several notches into the process, I find that the dough sheets are too long for me to easily manage. I use the bench scraper to cut the sheet into two pieces, then I continue rolling the sheets individually.
  • On the thinnest setting, the pasta will be very thin, which is great for a delicate ravioli, but this is too thin for fettuccine. I’ll fold it onto itself and run it through the machine again at the next thicker setting.
  • How about those beautiful flecks of herb and lemon?! Rest the sheets on a semolina-dusted tray for a few minutes before cutting.
  • I’ve attached the cutter to my pasta machine, and begin passing the sheets of pasta dough through the fettuccine blades. It helps to have a friend to assist with catching the pasta. I found myself in very awkward positions this time because I was making room for my Les to take pictures. 🙂
  • To keep the pasta from sticking to itself, toss gently in flour before placing it on a drying rack. I use semolina for this because it is not easily absorbed into the finished dough, and it falls into the pot during cooking.
  • Separate the pasta strands a bit as you place them on the drying rack. If they stick together, it makes cooking them more challenging. No rack? No problem. Toss the strands in semolina and arrange in small piles on a parchment sheet.
  • The amount of dough in this recipe will just about fill up a standard drying rack. If you are using the dough to make ravioli, it will make about 30 pillows.
  1. Unwrap the pasta dough and use a bench scraper or sharp knife to slice off sections of dough about one inch thick. Keep remaining dough tightly wrapped until ready to roll, so it doesn’t dry out.
  2. Flatten a piece of dough into an oval-shaped disk, then roll it through the pasta machine on the thickest setting. For the first few passes, fold the pressed dough in half and run it through again on the same setting. Fold it in thirds, as you would fold up a letter, and turn the dough 90° so that it runs through the machine at a different angle. This helps to reduce curling or bending when the pasta dries later. When the dough feels supple after running through the press several times, begin reducing to thinner setting with each pass.
  3. When the dough reaches the desired thickness (either the thinnest or next-to-thinnest setting, allow the sheet to dry slightly before cutting into strips or using as ravioli. In my experience with pasta, the cutting and shaping stage seems to work better when the pasta is not super-soft. If you rush directly to cutting it, at least with a machine, the dough tends to stick in the rollers, and it will definitely stick to a ravioli mold.
  4. After pasta sheets are complete, allow them to rest for a couple of minutes before cutting, either with the pasta machine or by hand with a fluted pasta trimmer, pizza slicer or sharp knife. If cutting by hand, the simplest way is to fold the pasta sheet crosswise multiple times, and slice through the layers with a pizza wheel or sharp knife. Dust the pasta really well with extra semolina flour before cutting to minimize sticking.

This time, I’ve opted to use the cutter attachment for my pasta roller to fashion my lemon-herb pasta into fettucine strips, but this lemony pasta would also be terrific for making sweet crab-stuffed ravioli, or ricotta-filled tortellini. I will save those for another day. 🙂

We used the lemon-herb pasta in a couple of ways—first, with littleneck clams in white wine broth, and again as a base for an amazing dish of chicken thighs in vodka sauce that Les made for us.

Handmade Lemon-Herb PastaPrint It!

Sourdough Pumpernickel

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We have entered the last full week of March, and I’ve yet to mention that it is “National Flour Month,” a near-unforgivable oversight for someone who enjoys making homemade bread as much as I do. My adventures with sourdough have been well-documented here on Comfort du Jour, but it took St. Patrick’s Day to bring me back around to making our favorite sourdough pumpernickel. It had to be done, given the volume of homemade corned beef we have (not to mention all that pastrami), and the rising aroma of this bread from the oven was enough on its own to convince me I’d waited too long.

What makes this bread extra special for me is that I make my own flour for it, from freshly milled rye grain. This sounds more impressive than it really is, thanks to a handy grain mill that latches onto my KitchenAid stand mixer. I just turn the dial to select the grind, pour in the grain and turn it on. I purchased the mill in the summer of 2016, when “Pete,” my sourdough starter, was still wet behind the ears, and I’ve found it particularly useful for some of my lesser-used grains, including rye. After whole grain has been milled into flour, the freshness clock starts ticking, and there is nothing tasty about rancid flour. Now, when I want to make rye bread (or pumpernickel, which is technically almost the same), I mill the grain fresh, but only the amount I need, and I’m good to go with flour that far excels what I could have bought pre-milled.

Milling the grain myself allows me to grind only the amount I need, so my whole grain stays fresh longer.

This recipe relies on sourdough for rise and flavor, though there is also a small (optional) amount of instant dry yeast to boost the rising power and make the ferment time more predictable. As with many other sourdough loaves, this one begins the day before with a pre-ferment called a “sponge,” and that’s when the freshly milled rye flour starts working its magic. The rest of the flour is high-protein bread flour, which is needed for its strength because rye does not have a lot of gluten.

Coarse-milled whole rye grain is known as pumpernickel meal, and it may surprise you to know that the dark, rich color of “pumpernickel” bread is mostly for show, and it comes into the bread by way of either caramel color (which isn’t likely in your pantry), strong coffee (either liquid or powdered) or—as is the case with mine—cocoa powder! And no, it does not make the bread taste like chocolate. There’s also an unusual, time-honored technique that will come into play with this bread, and it involves bread from another time (more on that in a minute).

Up to this point, the sourdough pumpernickel recipe I’m describing has been drawn straight from p. 246 of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, the same book I depended on to learn sourdough baking in the first place. But something in my nature will not let me leave well enough alone, and I have put my own spin on this recipe—not because I think I know better than the author, but because I love certain additional flavors in my rye breads, and so I have either substituted or added ingredients, following rules that Reinhart himself would approve. Rather than brown sugar, I add molasses for a deep, earthy sweetness, and I accent this bread with onions, dill and caraway seeds, none of which are called for in the original recipe.

  • Molasses adds an earthy sweetness, as well as deep color.
  • Onion is a terrific companion to the rye, dill and caraway. I use about a tablespoon of minced dry onion, moistened with just enough hot water to cover it. Give it a few minutes to plump up.
  • My recipe requires oil, and I’ve chosen this dill-infused olive oil. I’m always pushing my foods an extra step forward in flavor.
  • Caraway is the flavor most people associate with rye or pumpernickel bread, and it can be polarizing. If you “don’t like rye,” it’s probably not the rye grain, but the caraway.

The resulting bread never ceases to thrill my taste buds, and it has been terrific this past week with our homemade corned beef, but I confess my favorite way to enjoy it is the same as most every bread—it makes fabulous toast!

Just give me this, every day for the rest of my life, please!

Ingredients

On Day 1:

7 oz. ripe (recently fed) sourdough starter

4.25 oz. coarse whole grain rye flour* (see notes)

6 oz. water, room temperature

Combine the starter, coarse rye flour and water in a medium bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let it ferment at room temperature about 5 hours, until it looks very bubbly and active. Transfer the sponge to the refrigerator overnight.

On Day 2:

2 Tbsp. molasses

2 oz. water, room temperature

2 Tbsp. olive oil (mine is infused with dill)

1 heaping Tbsp. minced dried onion, rehydrated with warm water

9 oz. bread flour*

1 Tbsp. cocoa powder* (optional, see notes)

1 tsp. instant dry yeast*

1 1/2 tsp. fine-textured salt

1 Tbsp. caraway seed, plus a few sprinkles for topping* (optional)

Up to a cup of dry bread crumbs from a previous rye loaf* (optional)

1 or 2 tsp. dried dill leaves (optional)

Egg wash for topping and cornmeal for baking

*Notes

If you don’t have a grain mill, it’s no problem. Use whole rye flour, which is available in specialty markets such as Whole Foods. The pre-milled flour and resulting bread will have a finer texture, but all the flavors will still be present.

I mentioned above that strong coffee is sometimes used to give deep color to pumpernickel, but for this recipe, I would not recommend using brewed coffee in the overnight sponge. Espresso powder or a fine-textured instant coffee mixed with the flour would be a better bet if coffee is your coloring agent of choice.

Caraway seeds give a distinct note to rye or pumpernickel bread, but it is a polarizing flavor for some people. When someone tells me they don’t like rye bread, I usually assume it is the caraway. It is a warm, slightly biting flavor, and I love it, so I put it in the dough and also on top of the bread.

The addition of the “old” bread crumbs is optional, but it adds an interesting texture and depth of flavor to the finished bread. In a way, the secondary crumbs are another type of sourdough, given that the flavor and existing yeast in them contribute something to the final product. If you choose to try this, I would recommend using crumbs from a home-baked bread, and preferably sourdough, to exclude unnecessary commercial preservatives and such.

Instructions

  • The whole rye grain, plus water, is added to a cup of ripe sourdough starter, and it ferments to become a “sponge” for the finished dough.
  • Here is the sponge at the starting point, freshly mixed.
  • And after! I allowed the sponge to ferment about 5 hours, then it went into the refrigerator overnight, where even more flavor develops from the grain. It needs an hour or so to warm up, then I’ll begin making the final dough.
  • Though technically still a sourdough recipe, the dough gets about a teaspoon of instant dry yeast. It gives a boost to raise the dense rye dough, and makes rising time more predictable.
  • For the deep color associated with pumpernickel, I’ve chosen a tablespoon of my double Dutch dark cocoa from King Arthur. Regular cocoa will do just fine, or equal amount of espresso powder. Neither affects the flavor of the bread.
  • This is the weird, old-fashioned trick. Adding a small amount of “old” rye bread crumbs to the dough adds really interesting texture. It is optional, and I would not recommend store-bought bread for this. I will save a slice of this current loaf for the same purpose next time.
  • Mix together all the dry ingredients in one bowl.
  • Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl.
  • Mix the two together, rest for a few minutes, then knead a few minutes.
  • Shape the pumpernickel dough into a ball and transfer it to an oiled bowl. Cover it with plastic, a damp towel or an elastic bowl cover. Place it somewhere warm, such as the microwave above the stove until it doubles in size.
  • Boom! My pumpernickel dough went a little crazy in two hours time. It has more than doubled, so I will have to watch it closely in the next stage.
  • Spread the dough out into a rectangle on a clean, lightly floured countertop, sprinkle with dill leaves, and roll it up tightly, tucking the sides as you go.
  • When the roll is complete, pinch along the edge of the roll to seal it.
  • Place the dough, seam side down, into a 9-inch bread pan that has been oiled and lightly dusted with cornmeal. Cover and proof in a warm place until the dough has risen to one inch above the top.
  • Holy moly, it went crazy again! This dough has some serious yeast action going on, but this is not a disaster. I brushed it with egg wash and sprinkled it with seeds, and into the 350° oven it went.
  • Bake the bread 20 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake 20 to 30 minutes more. Mine was done (190° F internal temp) at 50 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely before slicing.
  • The outside of the bread has a slight chewiness, and the inside (we bread nerds call it “the crumb”) is soft and tender, with little flecks of onion, caraway and dill throughout.
  1. The day before you intend to make this sourdough pumpernickel, you will need to feed your starter with the entire amount of coarse, whole grain rye flour and water to make it a soupy mixture. Cover it with plastic wrap and give it a few hours at room temperature until it becomes foamy and bubbly, then put it to bed in the fridge until morning.
  2. Remove the sponge from the fridge for about an hour to knock the chill off it. Pour a small amount of boiling water over the dried chopped onions to re-hydrate them.
  3. In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, combine the bread flour, cocoa, salt, instant dry yeast and caraway seed. If using the “old bread” technique, also add the crumbs to the flour blend.
  4. Stir water, molasses and oil into the fermented sponge.
  5. Combine the sponge mixture and re-hydrated onions with the dry ingredients and mix with a beater blade until dough becomes a cohesive mass around the beater. Scrape down dough, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a slightly damp towel and rest 30 minutes.
  6. Switch to the dough hook and knead in the stand mixer about 5 minutes. The dough will be dense and sticky, but resist the temptation to add more flour or you will end up with a gummy bread.
  7. Shape dough into a smooth ball and place it in a large, oiled bowl. Cover and rest in a quiet, warm spot of the kitchen until dough has doubled in size, which may be anywhere from 2 to 3 hours, depending on ambient room temperature.
  8. Grease a 9-inch loaf pan and sprinkle corn meal into the pan, tapping to distribute it evenly in the pan.
  9. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured counter, pressing and stretching the dough into an oblong shape, about 8 inches wide and 16 inches long. Sprinkle the dried dill onto the dough, then roll it up into a loaf shape to match the length of your bread pan. The loaf will rise more evenly if the ends of the dough meet the ends of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap or an elastic cover and let the bread proof 60 to 90 minutes, until dough has risen to about an inch above the rim of the pan.
  10. Near the end of the proofing time, preheat the oven to 350° F, with rack in the center.
  11. Brush the surface of the bread with egg wash and sprinkle it with additional caraway seeds.
  12. Bake for 45 minutes, turning bread halfway through baking time. Internal temperature should be about 190° F and the bread should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
  13. Turn bread out onto a cooling rack, and cool completely before slicing.

No, this pretty girl is not asking for pumpernickel. She can smell butter from 100 miles away!

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Sourdough Pumpernickel

Not Quite Katz’s (but darn good pastrami)

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April, I have decided, is a lovely time to visit New York. When my husband, Les, and I traveled there for our honeymoon trip a few years ago, I realized that being in the city with someone who grew up in the city is the best experience of all. When you are traveling with a “native son,” you don’t feel as much like a tourist, but you quickly get used to the idea of walking—a lot. Les and I walked, on average, about 6 miles each day, and I was free to enjoy the scenery along the way. In New York, in April, there were tulips everywhere.

I especially love the single red tulip amongst all the black and whites!

The city was abuzz with the sounds, sights and smell of spring, and I was positively in love—with N.Y., of course, but especially with my husband of only a few days. His confidence in navigating the city of his youth gave me even more reason to appreciate being with him. I didn’t have to worry about a thing! Les knew instinctively which subway trains to take for various planned excursions, what time to leave and (most importantly) where to go for the best food, including John’s on Bleecker Street for pizza, which became the gold standard in my own effort to achieve the perfect N.Y. pizza dough.

One of our day trips included a visit to the Freedom Tower, now the tallest building in N.Y., at the site where the North Tower of the World Trade Center once stood. We had visited the landmark and the memorial earlier in the week, and merely seeing the names of the people who died on that dark day of history was truly devastating. I cannot (and don’t want to) imagine what it must have been like to witness those events.

There are not enough words.

We had intended to ascend the Freedom Tower on that first visit, but were offered a reschedule on our tickets because of heavy fog that apparently made visibility from the top almost nil. We had better luck on the second visit, and the view from the One World Observatory was jaw-dropping.

I wondered how many people down there might have been looking up to where we were standing.
And how about that dreadful smog?

All that walking left us feeling pretty hungry, and our steps (and appetite) led us to the Lower East Side, to the most iconic eatery in all of Manhattan.

You know you’re excited when you take a screenshot of your “arrival!” 🙂

From the outside, Katz’s Delicatessen is pretty unassuming—just an old-school corner building with a neon-letter sign—but inside, the joint was jumping! We squeezed into line with all the other hungry tourists and locals, pulled our tickets and shouted our orders to the sandwich makers behind the counter, who were generously offering samples of the deliciousness to come. It was the most exciting lunch I’ve ever eaten, in a place you’ve probably seen, even if you have never visited New York. Katz’s Deli was the setting for the famous “I’ll have what she’s having” scene in the film, When Harry Met Sally. And if you do visit the city—you know, when the world reopens—I highly recommend a visit to Katz’s, and I highly recommend that you have what I had—the $23 pastrami on rye. Worth. Every. Penny.

My pastrami in the foreground; Les’s corned beef in the back. It was a collective mountain of food!

When business is booming, Katz’s reportedly sells 15,000 pounds of pastrami a week—and as you can see, most of that ends up on one sandwich. I did my best to stretch my jaw onto that thing, and my city-savvy hubby had to show me how it’s done, face-first and with both hands.

  • How are you even supposed to eat a sandwich that big?!
  • Like this, Love!

We had a ton of leftovers, of course, so we wrapped up the remains of our sammies and took them back to our room. It was on this trip that I learned cold leftover pastrami on rye is fantastic for breakfast.

I’ve had a hankering to try making pastrami at home ever since that trip, and although we cannot match what they do at Katz’s (at least, not without giving up our full-time jobs), Les and I were pretty darn excited with the results of our first pastrami effort. When we began our corned beef adventure this year, we had purchased two large, grass-fed briskets, knowing that both would be brined at least a week, and that one would travel on to the smoker with a spicy dry rub to become pastrami. My inspiration came from Katz’s, but my recipe is drawn mostly from The Gefilte Manifesto (Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern), the same book that inspired my pierogi with potato, leek and spinach last fall. Jeffrey’s pastrami recipe instructed a 7-day brine, followed by extensive rinsing, a generous rub-down with copious amounts of spices and, finally, several hours in the smoker.

Our driveway, where the smoker was set up, smelled like the stuff deli dreams are made of, and our first pastrami was fabulous! I will not torture you with three pages of ingredients and details, because you probably just want to see the pictures, anyway. So, here you go!

  • After the brine, we rinsed the brisket continuously for over an hour. Can’t wait to get our next water bill!
  • I ground all the spices in my old coffee grinder. The aroma was intoxicating.
  • We dried the brisket thoroughly, then brushed it all over with oil.
  • The ground spice rub was massaged into every fiber of the meat.
  • My hands may be permanently stained!
  • After a night uncovered in the fridge, it’s ready for smoke!
  • Hubby is the “smoke master.” We also smoked a variety of sausages and a big slab of fresh salmon.
  • We did our best to keep it at 225 F the entire time.
  • The salmon came off first, and it was UNBELIEVABLE.
  • Would you please join me in admiring this perfect smoke ring? Wow.
  • The pastrami was about half its original size after smoking, and it smelled amazing.
  • Pastrami bark! Burnt ends are the best things ever.
  • And that smoke ring…

In reviewing all my notes and looking back at the instructions offered in The Gefilte Manifesto, we realize that we made a couple of missteps, primarily with the finishing of the pastrami. We should have waited to cut into it, pending an overnight in the fridge and a two-hour steaming. But the aroma caused us to lose our minds a bit, and so we just charged in and cut the thing. Fantastic flavors, and we will steam the slices as we go. We’ve got nothing on Katz’s Delicatessen, but our pastrami was pretty darn delicious. We will absolutely do this again, and by that time, we hope to invite all of our meat-loving friends to join us for a pastrami feast, fresh and hot off the smoker. Who’s bringing the potato salad? 😀

DIY Corned Beef—Done!

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It has been a fun week of St. Patrick’s Day-themed food prep at our house. As I’ve chopped and cooked, hustling from one recipe to another and digging into the history of the foods associated with Ireland, I’ve felt an almost spiritual connection to the Irish people. Theirs is a rich and layered culture, and my background music of choice, the Springsteen album Live in Dublin, gave me additional inspiration. Here’s a taste, for your listening pleasure as you tag along for the rest of my corned beef adventure.

It has been a deliciously rich week, too. We’ve shared these tasty recipes, including two versions of mashed potatoes, a no-yeast bread, a no-bake dessert and some bangin’ sausages. By the time we finish the leftovers, I expect I will have sweet Irish butter flowing through my veins. Wow!

The Irish food party started last week, when I detailed our adventures with making our own corned beef. Whether or not you jumped on the DIY wagon with us, I thought you may appreciate seeing the end result. As mentioned, we avoid meats processed with nitrates and nitrites, so I certainly do not go out of my way to find or use them in our homemade version of this St. Patrick’s Day classic. The ingredients we do use to brine our grass-fed brisket—kosher salt, pickling spices, brown sugar, Irish ale, celery juice and sauerkraut brine—add layers of flavor, and we don’t care about the pinkish color the added nitrates would have otherwise lent.

Let’s pick up where we left off, from the point of pouring the brine over the briskets and sending them to the refrigerator for a nice, long nap. I noted that we would finally make good on our goal of making pastrami from one of the briskets, and we have done that (I’ll share it tomorrow), but corned beef is the guest of honor this week, and the post-brine process is very simple. I turned the briskets each day to help them brine evenly, and the corned beef got an extra day’s soak on Sunday—a total of eight days, which is about right for a nearly 6-pound hunk of meat. I rinsed it thoroughly, nestled it into the slow cooker on top of celery and onion chunks, and sprinkled it with about half a bottle of fresh pickling spices. We have done corned beef nearly the same way for several years, so I decided to try a twist that I saw in my news feed, though I cannot for the life of me remember the source. Anyway, the suggestion was to use white wine in the brining liquid. This makes perfect sense to me, given that I use wine to roast so many other meats, so I tried it. This will become a new standard for us.

This may well be the best batch of homemade corned beef we have ever made. The meat is perfectly tender and easy to slice, and the flavors are richly entwined with every fiber of the meat. The flavor is richer and more complex than any store-bought corned beef I’ve had, and my husband, Les, suggested that it rivaled the delicious corned beef we enjoyed a few years ago at Katz’s delicatessen in New York!

Instructions

  • After eight days in the flavorful brine, our brisket is ready to be cooked. You can cook it stovetop, or follow my lead and use the slow cooker.
  • I don’t intend to serve the onions and celery, and I’ve only used enough to keep the brisket off the bottom of the slow cooker.
  • My brisket is longer than the slow cooker, so I’ve tucked one end under to make it fit.
  • I’ve talked to several people this week who had trouble finding the pickling spice. Isn’t it strange, how the pandemic has interrupted the supply chain for such specific things? Anyway, I sprinkled half the bottle over the brisket.
  • Secret weapon: dry white wine! I found this tip online and it makes sense. I used 1/2 cup of pinot grigio, plus enough water to cover the brisket.
  • Despite my efforts to keep the brisket submerged, it kept floating up! No worries, I turned it over and it came out completely tender.
  • Corned beef, meet your BFF, cabbage and carrots. I boiled them in a couple of ladles of the brisket’s cooking broth.
  • It always startles me to see how much a brisket shrinks when you cook it. This corned beef is not pink like the grocery store version, but it packs a ton of terrific flavor!
  • I cut this point piece along the fat line, to remove it from the “flat” part of the brisket (see next slide).
  • These two pieces are sometimes sold individually at the meat counter. Both are delicious as corned beef.
  • For best results, and a tender bite, you want to pay attention to the “grain” of the meat and cut against it. Here, my knife is pointed along the same direction as the meat fibers. These slices would be tough.
  • Here, my knife is angled to cut across the meat fibers, and my thin slices will be tender and easy to eat.
  • Even without the added nitrates, there is a slight pink color to my corned beef. It’s completely moist and tender, and so yummy!
  • Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

  1. Remove brisket from brine and brush away as much of the picking spice mixture as possible. Discard the brine, and I’d recommend that you pour it through a colander to strain out the seeds, berries, bay leaves, and chunky solids that might otherwise clog your kitchen drain.
  2. Rinse the brisket. Cut up a whole yellow onion and a few stalks of celery. Scatter the aromatic vegetables into the bottom of a large pot or slow cooker. Place the brisket, fat side-up, on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle about half a bottle of fresh pickling spices over the brisket.
  3. Pour in 1/2 cup dry white wine, and enough water into the pot to completely cover the meat. Bring pot to a slight boil, then reduce heat and simmer about one hour per pound of meat, until brisket is desired tenderness.
  4. Carefully remove brisket from the cooking liquid and rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes before cutting.
  5. If you are cooking cabbage and carrots to accompany the corned beef, but them on to boil now, and use the brisket braising liquid to echo the corned beef flavors.
  6. Slice brisket against the grain—opposite the direction of the meat fibers.
  7. You’ll find that the corned beef slices particularly well after chilling. To reheat slices of corned beef, place slices in a steamer basket over simmering water. Or, strain more of the braising liquid into a jar and keep it in the fridge for steaming the leftovers. Why waste that flavor? 🙂
You don’t have to be Irish to love it!

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Corned Beef and CabbageDownload it!

DIY Corned Beef? (yes, you can!)

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Today is March 9, and we need to talk about St. Patrick’s Day. Why the urgency, you may ask, with eight days to go? In our home, the food preparation for this fun holiday has already begun, in that we have started the brining process for our annual home-cured corned beef. Several years ago, I swore off meats processed with unnecessary nitrate and nitrite chemicals, and though it’s easy enough today to find commercially prepared “uncured” versions of corned beef in supermarkets such as Whole Foods, I get a kick out of doing it myself. This year, my husband, Les, and I purchased two large grass-fed briskets for this purpose. One will be a traditional corned beef preparation, and the other will travel an extra mile to become pastrami. The brining step takes anywhere from seven to 10 days, so we started ahead accordingly.

If this sounds exciting to you, then hightail it to the market today or tomorrow to procure the necessary supplies, and you’ll find directions for brining at the end of this post. Otherwise, sit back and relax for a brief “did you know” lesson on some of the dishes we think of this time of year, and a sneak peek at what I’ll be preparing in the week ahead. For many Irish-Americans, this mid-March holiday is usually a time for lively street parades (especially in Boston and New York), the wearing of the green (lest ye be pinched), toasting to good health with a pint (green or otherwise), and feasting on corned beef and cabbage, colcannon, bangers and mash, or Irish soda bread. But how authentic are these “St. Patrick’s Day” foods, really?

I’ve done some research this week, and honestly, it’s hit-or-miss. But in searching out stock photos from the internet, I’m drooling a bit, just thinking about these delectable foods!

Corned beef is associated with Ireland, but it originated in the U.S., where Irish immigrants found beef to be plentiful and more affordable than in their native land. Traditional Irish cuisine leans more heavily on proteins that are native to the land, including lamb and fish.

Colcannon, a mixture of cabbage and mashed potatoes, is an authentically Irish food, but is traditionally made around Halloween, not St. Patrick’s Day. Playful (or superstitious) cooks might still hide coins or lucky charms (not the cereal!) inside, giving dinner guests a chance at good fortune, though it sounds more like a good shot at a trip to the ER, or perhaps a ruse to convince children to finish their vegetables.

Bangers and mash is a rustic dish of sausage (usually pork or lamb) on top of mashed potatoes with onion gravy. This dish is definitely original to Ireland, as well as other parts of the U.K., and it earned its nickname because of the sound the moisture-heavy sausages made when they “popped” during cooking. I love bangers and mash with Guinness-based gravy, and the immature side of me just thinks it’s fun to say “bangers and mash.”

Finally, soda bread, long considered to be an original Irish food, technically isn’t. Culinary historians credit Native Americans as the first to use soda ash as a leavening agent in bread, but Irish immigrants to the new country quickly recognized the technique as a means to enjoy bread during yeast shortages. When baking soda became available in the U.K., the Irish adopted the chemical leavening trick to make breads from the stuff they had on hand—soft, low-protein wheat flour and sour or cultured milk.

I love food history, and even though some of these foods are questionable in their authenticity to St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll be making (and sharing with you) some version of all of them between now and next week.

Our corned beef is already underway, and if you’d like to play along at home, here’s how to begin. As I mentioned, I do not use the nitrate chemical known as “curing salt,” and it is not necessary for home-cured corned beef. The intended purpose of curing salt is to inhibit growth of bad bacteria while the meat is brining, but between modern refrigeration and the natural nitrites that occur in another ingredient I use, my brisket is well protected. One noticeable difference in nitrate- and nitrite-free corned beef is the color; mine will not have the rosy hue you see in commercially processed corned beef. The flavor, however, is exactly the same (or better).

Essential gear

You will need a container for brining the corned beef. It should be large enough to hold your brisket, plus about a gallon of liquid brine mixture. Choose a non-reactive, sealable vessel for this purpose—in other words, do not use a metal pot! A plastic container with a tight lid is fine, as is a food-grade plastic brining bag (plus a container large enough to hold it). Depending on your container, you may also need a non-reactive bowl or plate heavy enough to weigh down the brisket so that it is fully submerged at all times. For cooking the brined brisket, any slow cooker, roasting pan or Dutch oven will do, but you won’t need that until next week. You will also need enough space in your fridge for said container.

Essential tips

Prepare your brining liquid in advance, and allow time for it to cool completely before adding your brisket. I’ve seen some recipes that begin with cold water, and that may be OK, but the coarse salt and sugar will dissolve better and more quickly over heat, so I usually warm the liquid to incorporate those grainy ingredients, then cool it down (usually with ice cubes) before adding the rest. Do not pour warm brine onto the brisket—this would promote bacteria growth.

Essential Ingredients

These are the must-haves for making corned beef at home.

4- 5 pound beef brisket, preferably flat-cut, trimmed of excess fat

3 quarts filtered water

About a cup of kosher salt or coarse sea salt* (see notes)

About 1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1 packet or bottle of pickling spices*

Optional Ingredients

These are the must-haves PLUS the extra stuff I add to my brine. Isn’t it funny that all the extras have GREEN labels? 🙂

12 oz. bottle Irish ale*

12 oz. bottle celery juice*

1/2 cup real fermented sauerkraut brine*

*Notes

Kosher salt and coarse sea salt are about the same by volume and can be used interchangeably here. You can also use canning and pickling salt, or fine-textured sea salt, but because the crystals are much smaller, you should use slightly less (somewhere between 3/4 and 7/8 cup). Do not use table salt containing iodine.

Pickling spice is a blend of dry ingredients, usually including peppercorns, mustard and coriander seeds, allspice berries, ginger, garlic, bay leaves and sometimes chile peppers. You could whip up your own blend if you so desired, but the simplest thing to do is purchase a jar of spices ready to go. McCormick makes a good one that you will find in the regular spice aisle of just about any supermarket. You will use the entire bottle, and you may as well pick up two of them so you’ll have extra spices later for cooking your corned beef.

The remaining ingredients are optional, but I’ll explain here why I use them. A few years ago, a guest at our big Super Bowl party had left behind a growler jug of a local IPA that was much more “hoppy” than beers we usually enjoy. Not wanting to waste it, I glugged about a pint of it into our corned beef brine, and it was fantastic. Every year since then, I’ve put a bottle of Irish ale into the recipe and it always turns out great with that little extra layer of flavor. I think a bottle of Guinness would be great, too.

Celery juice powder is a natural source of nitrites, one of the same chemical additives in commercially processed corned beef. I haven’t yet seen the powder available anywhere, but my supermarket carries celery juice in the same refrigerated section as kombucha and probiotic drinks. Check the ingredients of any celery juice product you choose. This one I use is only celery juice and a hint of lemon juice. I don’t want to know who is actually drinking this stuff, but I’m glad it’s available. 🙂

Real sauerkraut is a naturally fermented product, containing loads of healthy probiotics. Good bacteria threaten bad bacteria, so a few splashes of the brine from the natural sauerkraut is my extra security measure during the brining process. I would not recommend using the brine in canned sauerkraut, as it likely contains vinegar and who-knows-what else. But if your kraut came from the refrigerated case, and the ingredients listed on the package are only cabbage and salt, and it says “naturally fermented” or “live cultures” somewhere on the jar, you’re good to go. Hang onto the sauerkraut for all the yummy Reuben sandwiches you’ll make next week.

About the pink color:

I’ve tried a few other tricks to get the reddish color that is typical of commercially produced corned beef, but most did not work and others were only nominally effective. If you feel inclined, try adding about a cup of pure beet juice to the brine (more seems to affect the flavor), or try some beet powder if you can get your hands on it. But if you can overlook the idea of artificially enhanced color, I promise the flavor of home-cured corned beef is even tastier than the pink version you grew up with. It’s a good trade-off.

Ready? Let’s do this!

  • The salt should be kosher or sea salt, but NOT table salt with iodine.
  • Brown sugar adds balance to the salty brine and spices. Use dark brown sugar if possible.
  • Stir it into the heated water until dissolved, then cool completely. Add a couple of cups of ice to speed things up.
  • This is about the right amount of fat you want on each brisket.
  • Use an entire package of pickling spice for the brine, and you’ll need more when it’s time to cook the brisket.
  • When the brine base is fully cooled, add the Irish ale (or other beer), if using.
  • And the whole bottle celery juice, which is the color of Mr. Grinch.
  • Finally, spoon in the sauerkraut juice. You want the brine base to be absolutely cold before adding this, so you don’t kill the good bacteria.
  • Be sure your container will be large enough to hold your brisket and ALL of the brine mixture. If there’s extra room, add a few ice cubes but don’t dilute the brine too much.
  • Finally, press the meat down below the surface, and use a heavy plate or other non-reactive dish to weigh it down. The meat should stay submerged the whole time.
  1. Heat about 3 quarts of filtered water to a near boil, then turn off the heat.
  2. Add kosher salt and brown sugar. Stir until dissolved, then toss in a couple of cups of ice to cool it down.
  3. When the brine is fully cooled, add the Irish ale, celery juice and sauerkraut brine.
  4. Place your brisket into the non-reactive container. Sprinkle the pickling spice over the top of the meat. Carefully pour the cold brine over the meat.
  5. Use a heavy, non-reactive plate or dish to hold the brisket under the brine liquid. You don’t want the top or any edges exposed to air while the curing takes place. I usually use a flat-bottomed Pyrex dish to press it down, and when I seal the container, it becomes sort of wedged to keep the brisket from floating to the surface.
  6. Refrigerate on the lowest shelf of your refrigerator for at least 5 days for a smallish brisket, or up to 10 days if your brisket is on the larger side. Check on the brisket each day, and turn it so the brine and seasonings make their way into every fiber of the meat. Keep it submerged.

If you don’t have room in the refrigerator, you can do the brine step in a cooler. Be sure the container holding the brisket and liquid is fully sealed, and refresh the ice as needed to keep it cold for the duration of the brining process.

When brining is complete, rinse the brisket under cold running water for several minutes, then proceed with cooking as usual.

Are you gonna try it?

DIY Corned BeefShopping List and Instructions

Later this week, I’ll post my recipes for Irish soda bread and “bangers and mash.” Stay tuned!

Green Goddess Dressing

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Don’t be surprised to see a lot of late winter recipes showing up here with highlights of fresh summer herbs. No, I haven’t lost track of the seasons (not possible with all the bad weather news everywhere). It’s more a situation of appreciating the Christmas gift that keeps on giving.

My husband, Les, undoubtedly tired of my chronic lament over the deer having eaten my summer garden, gifted me this year with an AeroGarden. It’s a hydroponic, countertop device with individual seed pods for growing whatever your heart desires (or, at least, whatever is legal in your state). Knowing my love of using fresh herbs in the kitchen, Les opted for the herbal variety pack, which included two basil varieties, chives, mint, thyme and two kinds of parsley.

At first, the thing just sort of sat on the table by the kitchen window, blazing its bright blue light across the kitchen for 15 hours a day. The thing comes on by itself at 5:00 a.m., waking the pets, who then wander in to wake us, because they know it must be almost time to eat. It took me a couple weeks to adjust to this new growing schedule, about the same time that tiny sprouts emerged, first from the Genovese basil. It has been fun to watch our little herb babies grow. 🙂

  • December 31st, just beginning.
  • February 2nd, already growing beautifully.
  • February 12th, time to start using all these beautiful herbs!

What began as a fun “let’s see what happens” Christmas gift has turned into a “holy moly, what are we gonna do with all this parsley” adventure. By Valentine’s weekend, I realized I needed to do something with the parsley before it consumed the kitchen, as my outdoor basil did last summer in the backyard garden. Les had asked for simple embellishments to our romantic dinner of lobster tails, including roasted asparagus and a Caesar salad (his fave).

“How do you feel about green goddess dressing,” I asked. And so it was.

Green goddess is a throwback food, originally created in the early 1920s at a San Francisco restaurant, and at that time the dressing included mayonnaise, chives, scallions, parsley, garlic, anchovies and tarragon vinegar. By the late ‘40s, The New York Times published a recipe for it, and it hit the grocery shelves in bottled form about 1973. Thank you, Wikipedia, for all that helpful information.

Like any other recipe, green goddess can be switched up to match your flavor (and consistency) preferences. If you want to use it as a dip, ease up on the buttermilk and add more mayo. Hate basil? Leave it out and use extra parsley. If you are gaga for garlic, double it—or roast it for milder flavor. I went rogue a little bit and added a small handful of baby spinach leaves to this version (hey, they’re green), and I love a recipe that is so flexible. The dressing seems to me a mash-up of ranch and Caesar, but with a bounty of freshness to punch up the flavor and, thankfully, a perfect vehicle for freshly picked herbs.

I’ve made my own salad dressing for years, and this was my first green goddess but definitely not my last. Obviously!

Ingredients

1/4 cup thick cultured buttermilk

Small handful of fresh basil leaves

Small handful of curly or flat parsley leaves

Several stems of fresh chives

2 scallions (white and green parts), trimmed

2 cloves fresh garlic

4 to 6 fillets of anchovy, to taste* (see notes)

2 tsp. prepared Dijon mustard

Juice of 1/2 fresh lemon

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup whole milk Greek yogurt

Small handful fresh baby spinach leaves (optional)

1 to 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

*Notes

Remember that anchovies are fairly salty on their own, and you may or may not want additional salt in the mix. If you prefer to omit the anchovies, consider substituting a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce to add a similar punch.

Instructions

  • You know what’s great about these fresh herbs growing in the kitchen window? I don’t need to wash them first! 🙂
  • Combine the herbs, scallions, garlic, Dijon, anchovies, salt and pepper in the processor bowl. Pour in the buttermilk and pulse several times.
  • Scrape down the sides of the processor bowl, add the mayo and yogurt and pulse again to blend.
  • I started with four anchovies, and went for two more, leaning into the “Caesar” request my dear hubby had made for our Valentine’s meal.
  • A slow, steady drizzle of oil is best when mixing salad dressing. It emulsifies better into the mayonnaise-buttermilk mixture.
  • My husband would never complain about me adding spinach to anything!
  • If you want a thinner consistency, whisk in an extra splash of buttermilk; if you want it thicker for dipping, whisk in a couple spoons of mayo.
  • After some time in the fridge, the dressing will take on more of the green color of the fresh herbs.
  1. In the small insert bowl of a food processor, combine herbs, scallions, Dijon, salt and pepper, anchovies and lemon juice. Pulse several times to chop herbs into somewhat uniform mixture.
  2. Add mayonnaise and Greek yogurt and pulse about 8 times. Give it a taste and adjust seasonings or ingredients as desired, pulsing to incorporate additions.
  3. Turn processor on steady and slowly drizzle olive oil into the dressing. Transfer dressing to a bowl and chill several hours or overnight.
Great as a dressing for crisp salad, or dipping sauce for fresh cut veggies!

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My Dad’s Homemade Irish Creme

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The Christmas season doesn’t feel real in our house until the refrigerator holds a bottle of this luxurious libation. My father has made this homemade version of Irish creme (his spelling) for years, and whenever I visited his house during the holidays, I knew I could count on him to have a beige Tupperware pitcher of it in the fridge. It is rich and decadent, far creamier than the shelf-stable stuff you can buy at the liquor store. When I first asked for his recipe, I was surprised to realize that it has both coffee and chocolate in it—I never tasted either of them in the Irish cream, but when I’ve reduced or omitted either, I found that it just wasn’t the same.

For sure, double the recipe, even if there aren’t a lot of folks.

My father’s original recipe suggests using heavy cream and whole milk, but I have fiddled with the recipe and found that light cream and half & half makes it every bit as creamy, without the clumping that sometimes occurs with chilled heavy cream. Increase the Irish whiskey if you like (my dad does), but I think the ratios are perfect just as they are.

This homemade Irish cream is perfect for gift-giving, and it’s so darn easy to make that you’ll find yourself asking “Bailey who?”

Enjoy this straight, on ice or as a decadent flavor addition to your Christmas morning coffee or hot cocoa.

Homemade Irish Cream is a wonderful gift, too!

Ingredients

4 oz. (1/2 cup) light cream* (see notes)

2 tsp. espresso powder (or instant coffee)*

1 Tbsp. chocolate syrup (I use an all-natural brand with no high fructose corn syrup)

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

8 oz. (1 cup) half & half*

6 oz. (3/4 cup) Irish whiskey

The original recipe calls for heavy cream and whole milk, but I’ve substituted similarly rich products with no clumping.

*Notes

Light cream is 20% milkfat, compared to nearly 40% milkfat in heavy cream. For readers abroad, the term “half & half” may not make sense, given that the European market does not have a product labeled this way. According to this article I found, half & half checks in at 12% milkfat. If you combine equal parts light cream with whole milk, you’ll strike a similar balance to the fat in half & half.

If my suggested ingredients are not available where you are, go with my dad’s original suggestion for 4 oz. heavy cream and 8 oz. whole milk, and perhaps use a blender to mix the Irish cream to help avoid the clumps that occur with cold heavy cream.

Espresso powder is available in the baking aisle of many well-stocked supermarkets or online from King Arthur Baking Company. You may substitute a high-quality instant coffee, such as Starbucks Via brand. I’ve used Starbucks “dark French roast” instant coffee with very good results.

Instructions

  • The espresso powder should be dissolved completely in the light cream, then cooled before adding other ingredients.
  • Whisk to combine the half & half with the thick sweetened condensed milk.
  • Whisk in the light cream-espresso-chocolate mixture.
  • Finally, stir in your favorite Irish whiskey. Start with recipe amount, and adjust as desired.
  • I have already made a second batch because homemade Irish cream is a great gift for the holidays.
  1. Place a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat. Warm the light cream, espresso powder and chocolate syrup until the mixture steams and the espresso powder is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and cool completely.
  2. Use a whisk to blend the coffee-infused cream, condensed milk and half & half.
  3. Stir in Irish whiskey. Give it a taste and adjust any ingredient as desired.
  4. Divide Irish cream into sealable bottles and refrigerate.

Recipe makes about 4 cups.

Enjoy within three weeks. At our house, it is usually gone within three hours. 😉

Now, it feels like Christmas.

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Chunky Bleu Cheese Dressing

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It’s natural, I suppose, for kids to assume the taste and preference of their parents—either based on what they are told or perhaps based on the fact that they don’t really get to experience the flavors of foods the parents dislike.

For many years, I had the impression that “bleu cheese is terrible” was truth. My mother does not have the sense of adventure for food that I have, and come to think of it, my father doesn’t either. Over and over growing up, I heard negative opinion about certain foods from them, and bleu cheese fell into that category, at least with my mom. It had not occurred to me that my own opinion of those foods might be different.

That is, until the day that my grandmother served a casual salad at dinner with a thick, creamy dressing we spooned from one of the Depression glass bowls that was not set aside for special occasions.

I love the creaminess of this dressing, and the fresh taste from the buttermilk and sour cream. And those funky chunks, oh yes!

“What kind of dressing is this, Gram?” I asked. She informed me it was her “homemade” dressing. And I really liked it! Later, when she dropped the truth that it was her homemade bleu cheese dressing, I felt betrayed and compelled to act offended, as I’d been taught. That wild, funky flavor though! Yeah, I couldn’t fake not liking it, and I guess that was one of the first “aha” moments when I realized I was a separate person from my parents.

I loved bleu cheese and I was not ashamed.

If you aren’t making your own salad dressings, you’re missing out on a simple joy and a world of flavor. For the sake of a true story, I can’t claim for certain that my grandma taught me how to make this bleu cheese dressing, but I know she made her own salad dressings quite regularly, and it was one of the first things I began to make on my own when I got serious about cooking. Whether a vinaigrette, Italian dressing or creamy dressing such as ranch or bleu cheese, homemade dressing is remarkably simple to make. I rarely ever buy it anymore.

This is my version of bleu cheese, and unlike most of the dressings you’ll find in a supermarket, it is not loaded up with soybean oil and preservatives. Unlike many restaurant versions, it is not just a mayonnaise-y mess with bleu cheese crumbles (I hate when it gets that awful greasy sheen to it when you serve it with something warm). No, mine is generous with the bleu cheese, both in the base and in chunky texture, and it has buttermilk and sour cream for a lovely, creamy tang. Gram would certainly have approved.

I hope you enjoy this dressing—for its simplicity and its flavor. Use it this weekend to dress up some mixed greens or a wedge salad or a tray of real Buffalo-style chicken wings. Oh yeah, now we’re talking!

Let me know in the comments section what dressings you like, and I’ll share more of my easy recipes. 🙂

Ingredients

3/4 cup mayonnaise* (see notes)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup sour cream

4 oz. wedge of deli-quality bleu cheese*

1 tsp. red wine vinegar (or fresh lemon juice)

1/4 tsp. onion powder

1/4 tsp. white pepper

*Notes

My preference for mayonnaise is canola rather than soybean. If you have a Trader Joe’s, they make a terrific version of mayo that is made with expeller pressed canola oil. It keeps its creamy texture and doesn’t have a greasy flavor.

Bleu cheese is made in various places, and they all seem to call it something different. Roquefort, stilton and gorgonzola would all be acceptable substitutes, so choose your favorite. I usually go with Amish or Danish, and for sure, I recommend a wedge of bleu cheese rather than pre-packaged crumbles.

Instructions

  • Blend the non-veiny part of the cheese right into the base, so the bleu cheese flavor runs through the entire dressing, not just the chunks.
  • The base will be full of bubbles and may seem slightly watery after blending. Resist temptation to add more mayonnaise, as it will thicken up again in the fridge.
  • Cut or crumble the remaining bleu cheese into bits and gently fold them into the blended dressing base.
  • You get to decide how large to make the “chunks” when you make your own bleu cheese dressing!
  1. Trim the white, non-veiny part of the bleu cheese to blend into the dressing.
  2. Combine buttermilk, sour cream and white part of bleu cheese in a smoothie blender or regular blender and mix until smooth. No blender? Mash this portion of bleu cheese with a fork and whisk vigorously with the buttermilk and sour cream.
  3. Transfer dressing to a bowl. Stir in mayo, vinegar and spices.
  4. Crumble remaining bleu cheese and gently fold into the dressing.

This recipe makes about two cups of dressing. It can be served right away, but the texture is greatly improved after a night in the refrigerator. Keeps in a sealed jar or bowl for about a week.

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DIY Parm-Romano Blend

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This post might seem like the simplest thing in the world, but in keeping with my realization that the “why” reveals a great deal about the “what” in my kitchen, I’m about to unwrap the secret of the most favored cheese in the Gura household—the parm-romano blend. We buy chunks of parmesan or Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino-Romano and shred them together at home. All the hyphenated names can be a little confusing, and the quality of the cheese is of utmost concern, so here’s a little background info to help you identify one from another.

What kind of cheese is parmesan?

Parmesan and Parmigiano-Reggiano (which might be one and the same) are made with cow’s milk, then aged for a period of time—depending on where the cheese is produced, it could be aged for a year or up to three years. The longer it ages, the sharper and more salty the cheese becomes. It is crumbly and doesn’t melt well, but parmesan’s intense flavor provides a nice “finishing” touch, as you have no doubt enjoyed on foods such as pizza, mac & cheese or pasta dishes.

What’s the difference between “parmesan” and “Parmigiano-Reggiano?”

Maybe nothing—or perhaps everything, depending on where the cheese is made. Within Europe, both terms are protected under European Union laws and used to identify that the cheeses are produced in the upper-middle region of Italy under the supervision of a special consortium. But once you move outside the E.U., the term “parmesan” could indicate the cheese is a similar style, but not authentic to that region. If you really want to dive deep into this subject, check this out, but you better pack a lunch because it’s a lot to learn. The bottom line is, the only way to know for sure that you have the real deal cheese is to look for this seal of authenticity, which you can really only see if you’re looking at one of the huge wheels of cheese.

This is serious business!

Once the cheese is already cut and wrapped or shredded, its true origin is anybody’s guess, but the seal doesn’t lie and reputable suppliers won’t either.

What kind of cheese is pecorino? And how is it different from Pecorino-Romano?

Like Parmigiano-Reggiano, pecorino is a hard, salty cheese produced in Italy and name-protected by the EU laws. This one, however, is made from sheep’s milk rather than cow’s milk. It is lighter in color (and typically less expensive) than parmesan and has a slightly funky flavor, though not in a pungent way as goat cheese. The word “pecorino” literally means “sheep” and the other name listed with it identifies where the cheese was produced. Thus, Pecorino-Romano is sheep’s milk cheese, produced in Rome. You might also see pecorino produced in Sicily, Tuscany, Sardinia or other Italian regions, and they will also be high quality and delicious.

Why do you blend the cheeses?

Put simply, I love blends of many things, including wine, coffee and grains because you get the best of what’s great about the individual components. The same is true with cheese—marrying two (or more) varieties creates complexity and interest. As with so many things I do in the kitchen, shredding the blocks of cheese at home ensures that we have a more pure product, free from additives such as cellulose powder and artificial preservatives. This DIY cheese tradition was started in our house by my husband, Les, who began shredding his own blend many moons ago. It’s cost-effective and easy to do (especially with a food processor), and we go through it pretty quickly because we love it in so many different foods, including many of the dishes I’ll share with you closer to Thanksgiving.

Let’s start shredding!

Ingredients

1 block parmesan or Parmigiano-Reggiano (cold)*

1 block Pecorino-Romano (cold)

*Notes

It is not necessary to use equal amounts of the cheeses you’re blending. At our house, we frequently use a slightly higher percentage of parmesan, and we have also occasionally thrown a third cheese such as asiago into the mix. The important thing to consider for long-term freshness is moisture content—you want to keep it low. I would not recommend adding a soft, high-moisture cheese such as mozzarella or fontina to this mix, as you will lose the texture and also the longevity of the finished blend.

I recommend working with cold cheese, as it shreds more evenly and reduces clumping in the final mixture.

Instructions

  • All the appropriate certification is shown here on my purchase from Costco.
  • Use a sharp knife to trim away the darker edges of rind, but do not discard them!
  • Wrap the rinds and freeze them. They will add incredible flavor to your next batch of Italian red sauce or minestrone soup. Waste nothing!
  • If using a processor, choose the fine shred blade, and be sure to insert it in the correct position.
  • Stack the wedges opposite each other for faster work of shredding. See the white spots? Perfectly normal clusters of amino acids—they give the cheese a distinctly sharp, savory flavor.
  • Use the lightest touch to ease the cheese down to the blade. If you go too fast, you risk heating up the blade (or worse, blowing out the motor on your processor).
  • For safety sake, do not put your fingers down into the feed chute! Use the plunger tool, but keep the pressure very light when shredding.
  • You’ll have a few stragglers of parm on top of the blade. You can add them to the shreds, or do what I usually do…
  • I like to share the little remnants with my kitchen helper, who eagerly awaits cheese crumbs. ❤
  • Follow the same steps with the pecorino until all the cheese is shredded.
  • The pecorino (on left) is lighter in color and slightly softer than the parmesan.
  • These shreds are soft and fine, and you could stop right here if you prefer this texture. I usually go one more step for grated cheese.
  • I swap in the chopping blade and return the cheese to the bowl (in batches).
  • Hit the pulse button about 12 times. The short bursts will result in the finest powder of parm-romano blend, perfect for last minute sprinkling on your favorite dishes.
  • See how much finer the twice-grated cheese in the spoon is, compared to the initial shreds in the bowl. The texture is purely a matter of preference.
  • Transfer the finished cheeses to a sealable container, and store in the refrigerator until needed.
  • About five cups of finely grated cheese here, should be enough to get us through Thanksgiving!

I’ve used this parm-romano blend in several recipes already on Comfort du Jour. Obviously, any kind of pizza and most Italian foods are a perfect canvas for this cheese blend, but as you see, there are many other great uses as well. Leave a comment to share your own ideas!

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