Back to Butter: A Traditional Foods Cookbook - Nourishing Recipes Inspired by Our Ancestors (9 page)

In a glass container with a lid, combine the rice, 3 cups (705 ml) of the water, and 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of the activator. Cover and set aside for 12 hours.

Pour the rice into a fine-mesh strainer and rinse well. Rinse the glass container. Return the rice to the container with the remaining 3 cups (705 ml) fresh water and remaining 2 tablespoons (30 ml) activator. Set aside for another 12 hours. Again, using the fine-mesh strainer, rinse the rice thoroughly.

In a small-size pot with a lid over high heat, bring the chicken stock and sea salt to a boil. Once boiling, add the rinsed rice to the pot, stir once, and wait until the stock returns to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to low to maintain a gentle simmer. Set a timer for 50 minutes and don’t peek!

After 50 minutes, lift the lid and check for liquid. To do so, push the handle of a wooden spoon straight down into the rice and pull along the bottom of the pot. If water appears, return the lid and cook in 5-minute increments until no water appears. Once done, replace the lid, turn off the heat, and allow to rest for 10 minutes, then fluff with a fork and serve (or refrigerate until needed).

YIELD: 3
1
/
3
CUPS (550 G)

This technique can be used for all types of wheat berries, including spelt, einkorn, and kamut. The berries are soaked, sprouted, and dehydrated, then finally ground into what we refer to throughout the book as “fresh-milled, sprouted flour.” We grind our berries using a residential mill grinder (
page 217
).

2 cups (140 g) wheat berries

Purchase or make a sprouting jar. To make it yourself, simply replace the lid of a 2-quart (2 L) Mason jar with mesh screening.

Add the wheat berries to the sprouting jar and fill the jar two-thirds full with water. Set aside, out of direct light, to soak for 8 hours, or overnight.

Drain off the soaking water and rinse the berries directly in the jar until foam subsides. Carefully tilt the jar to drain off the rinsing water, allowing the berries to disperse evenly along the full length of the jar.

Tilt the jar to a 45-degree angle, resting it in a dish rack or bowl. Make sure the mesh screen is not completely covered with berries to allow airflow into the jar, preventing mold. Make sure the angle ensures enough airflow into the screen.

Every 12 hours, rinse and drain the berries and return to position. After about 12 to 24 hours, the berries will begin to sprout. The berries need only grow tiny tails, as the best nutritional results (with grains) are achieved through minimal sprouting. At completion, the berries will look similar to an olive with a pimento barely sticking out (see photo on next page). Too long of a tail will cause issues with entering the mouth of the grain mill.

Once sprouted, rinse and drain one final time.

YIELD: 2
1
/
4
CUPS (160 G)

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: Sprouting jar with mesh lid; Dish rack set-up for airflow; Wheat berry with tiny sprout; Spreading sprouts to dry on dehydrator sheets

To prevent mold, the berries now need to be dried completely in a food dehydrator or an oven. Using a spatula, spread the berries
1
/
4
-inch (6 mm) thick on a dehydrator tray with a mesh insert or on a sheet pan if using an oven. Dry slowly at 150°F (66°C) for 12 to 24 hours. The berries are finished when they crunch when bitten. Cool completely before storing at room temperature in a sealed container.

Use a grain mill (
page 217
) to grind the dried berries into flour. Be sure to grind well; you’re looking for a similar texture to that of store-bought whole wheat flour.

RECIPE NOTE

If drying your sprouted berries to grind into flour, keep in mind that the type of wheat used will change the end result. Hard red wheat berries yield bread flour; hard white wheat berries or golden 86 yield a lighter “all-purpose” flour; and soft white wheat berries yield pastry flour.

In the beginnings of the summer on a breezy day, making a sourdough starter is pretty easy. But what about starting one in mid-winter? After many failed experiments in my kitchen, which stays cool year-round from Spanish tile, I decided I needed something to give the starter a jump-start. It was then that I glanced over at my kombucha … success!

Freshly milled (unsprouted) whole rye flour

Plain kombucha (
page 209
)

In the morning or evening, in a quart-size (1 L) Mason jar, combine
1
/
4
cup (30 g) rye flour and
1
/
4
cup (60 ml) kombucha. Stir until thoroughly combined. Cover the top with a cloth and set in a spot that is about 75°F (24°C); an oven with the light on and the door cracked works well.

Every 12 hours (morning and night) for 7 days, add
1
/
4
cup (30 g) rye flour and
1
/
4
cup (60 ml) kombucha to the jar and stir. Once the jar is halfway full, dump out half, then add the flour and kombucha. Do this each time it reaches this halfway point.

After 7 days, the starter should be bubbly and ready to use. Continue to feed the starter every 12 hours, discarding half before each feeding, but switch to water instead of kombucha. Once the starter is going strong, it can be kept in the fridge with a lid on it. Pull it out and feed it weekly when not in use, discarding half of the starter when necessary.

If your starter has been kept in the fridge for some time, pull it out a few days before you want to use it in a recipe. Keep it on the counter and feed morning and night with
1
/
4
cup (30 g) rye flour and
1
/
4
cup (60 ml) water for approximately 2 days, or until actively bubbly again.

Use recently fed starter in our Rustic Sourdough Bread recipe (
page 186
).

Although dried corn products are only eaten occasionally in the United States, it is still good practice to soak corn properly in an alkaline solution (such as ash, pickling lime, or baking soda) before grinding into cornmeal, the common term for all ground corn. Polenta and common American grits, two types of cornmeal on the market today, are not properly soaked and should therefore be used conservatively. Hominy grits and masa harina, on the other hand, are the soaked equivalents to polenta and cornmeal/flour. These are widely available, but are often not organic.

Fortunately for us, hominy, the basis for all other soaked corn products, can be made at home from dried corn, as described in the following recipe. The terminology in the world of corn is a bit complicated, however, so bear with me first for a quick overview. After
dried corn
gets an alkaline soak and a slow cook, the resulting puffy corn is known as
hominy
or
nixtamal
.
Fresh hominy
is used to make the dough for traditional corn tortillas;
dried hominy
is commonly used to make pozole, a delicious Mexican soup. When dried hominy is
coarsely
ground, it is called
hominy grits
, which is the equivalent of polenta, albeit properly treated; when dried hominy is
finely
ground, it is called
masa harina
, which is the equivalent to corn flour, but again properly treated.
Maize
is simply the Spanish word for corn that’s now become commonplace in the United States as well.

Freshly cooked hominy is a wonderful substitute for pasta in soups and salads, or used as you would any bean. Although hominy can be made using several different alkaline solutions, including commercial lye, lye made from wood ash, pickling lime, or baking soda, we recommend pickling lime (also called cal or food-grade lime) because it is readily available, is safe and efficient, and leaves behind a clean-tasting hominy. Be sure to follow the instructions closely, especially the rinsing details, because lime is very alkaline and can mess with stomach acid if not properly rinsed. Note that this technique takes about 32 hours of preparation, though most of it is hands-off!

Inspired by Irv Kanode

1
/
2
cup (120 ml) pickling lime (
page 217
)

4 cups (540 g) dried corn

In a large-size stainless steel or enamel-coated pot, add 5 quarts (4.5 L) of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Immediately upon boiling, turn off the heat, and stir in the lime using a wooden spoon, stirring until completely dispersed. Set aside to cool and settle for 5 hours, covered.

After 5 hours, the water will be almost clear with a layer of powdered lime resting on the bottom of the pot and a thin, crispy layer of lime coating the surface. Have ready another 7-quart (6.3 L) or larger enamel-coated pot, such as a Dutch oven, and rest a fine-mesh strainer across the top of the pot to catch the crispy layer (which you’ll discard). Carefully pour the limewater through the strainer and into the clean pot without disturbing the powdered lime resting on the bottom. Stop pouring before the bulk of the powdered lime releases; this will result in about a cup or two of liquid left behind. A little bit of light powder may sneak into the pot, which is okay. If the lime powder stirs and causes too much liquid to be left behind, let the remainder settle again and rather than pouring, use a ladle to scoop off the last of the clear liquid.

Add the corn to the limewater in the clean pot, cover, and place in a room-temperature spot for 12 hours.

After soaking, preheat the oven to 250°F (120°C, or gas mark
1
/
2
) and position the racks so that the pot can sit in the center of the oven. Over high heat, bring the covered limewater and corn to a boil. Keep a close eye on the pot, as you want to catch it right when it boils so that it doesn’t boil over. As soon as it boils, turn off the heat and transfer the covered pot to the preheated oven for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, remove the pot from the oven. To test for doneness, use a slotted spoon to scoop several kernels into a fine-mesh strainer and run the strainer under cold water, until the kernels are cool and thoroughly rinsed. Bite into a kernel—it should seem cooked or al dente, without being hard. Test several before determining doneness, and return the pot to the hot oven for 15-minute increments until it reaches the desired tenderness.

Once cooked, carefully pour the kernels into a stainless steel colander and rinse with cool water for about a minute. Wash out the pot and return the kernels to it. Refill with cool, fresh water and set aside to soak for 5 minutes to remove any remaining lime. Strain once more through the colander and rinse for another minute, then drain.

Cooked hominy can be refrigerated for up to a week. It can also be frozen, but tends to be a bit mushy when thawed. To freeze, spread hominy in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze. Once frozen, transfer the hominy to a container and store in the freezer for several months. If dried hominy is preferred, spread fresh hominy on the mesh inserts of dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 125°F (52°C) for 12 hours, or until the kernels are crisp throughout. Dried hominy can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature, and then ground into hominy grits or masa harina (see sidebar).

YIELD: 11 CUPS (1725 G) FRESH OR 6 CUPS (840 G) DRIED

RECIPE NOTES

• Any type of whole, dried, non-GMO, organic corn, except popcorn, works for this recipe. Popcorn can work, but it doesn’t plump up very nicely.

• The recipe calls for stainless steel or enamel-coated pots, which is an important step to follow. The lime can react with other types of pots and cause discoloration.