BEAN SOUP AND CUBAN BREAD
Yesterday morning, with an ice storm in the forecast, I decided that it would
be great to hole up indoors with a nice warming dinner of old-fashioned bean
soup and crusty homemade French/'talian/Cuban bread.
As it turned out, we not only didn't get an ice storm but it turned mild; but
the dinner was a good one anyway.
Both components require a little planning ahead and scheduling; I started
puttering in the kitchen around 3 for dinner at 7. But it was by no means
four hours in the kitchen; rather, it's a matter of wandering in, handling a
procedure, and then going back to work on other things until time for the
next chore.
The soup is a simple rendition pretty much based on the ubiquitous Senate
Bean Soup recipe; the bread is my evolved version of James Beard's
"French-style bread," which is actually Cuban bread and the best FAST
French-bread recipe I know of. Just for fun, I'll put both recipes
together, time-table style, to show how I worked it:
3 p.m.: Put 2 cups dry navy beans in a dutch oven with enough water to cover
by 1 inch. Bring to the boil, boil for 2 minutes, then cover and turn off
heat; let stand for 1 hour.
Go back to what you were doing for about an hour.
3:55 p.m.: Start bread. Put 2 cups warm water in a large crockery mixing
bowl; stir in 1 tablespoon sugar and 2 packages dry yeast; stir with a fork
until the yeast dissolves, then set aside for about 10 minutes until it
starts to bubble.
4 p.m.: Drain soaking liquid from beans, leaving them in the pot. Put in 5
cups water, 1 ham hock, 1 whole peeled onion, 1 bay leaf, 6 whole cloves and
12 whole black peppercorns. Bring to the boil, then turn down heat to a bare
simmer and let cook for 3 hours, stirring occasionally and adjusting heat as
necessary to keep it at a bare simmer.
4:05 p.m.: Mix 1 tablespoon salt into 5 cups bread flour. Start stirring the
flour, a cup at a time, into the water-yeast mixture, continuing to work in
flour until the dough is stiff; turn it out onto a floured bread board and
knead, working in a little more flour if necessary, until the dough is smooth
and not at all sticky, about 10 minutes. Clean the bowl, pour in a little
olive oil, and put in the dough, turning it so the upper surface has a little
oil on it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth towel and put it in a warm place
(inside a gas oven with the pilot light on is perfect) to rise until more
than doubled, about two hours. (If you want to do this a little earlier, no
problem, just punch down the dough when it's fully risen and let it rise
again; this will give you an extra hour and possibly result in even better
bread.)
Now you can knock off for another hour-and-a-half or so before you're needed
back in the kitchen.
5:40 p.m.: Peel a large baking potato, cut it into cubes, put them in a
saucepan in salted water to cover, and bring to the boil, turning down heat
when the water boils.
5:45 p.m.: Peel a large carrot, cut it into chunks, and put it in the
Cuisinart (steel blade). Cut 2 celery stalks into chunks, and put them in
the Cuisinart. Peel a couple of garlic cloves and add them to the
Cuisinart. Process all together until it's very finely chopped. Add all
these vegetables to the soup.
6 p.m.: Drain the potatoes, reserving the cooking water. Mash them with a
fork, stirring in enough potato water to make a thin, creamy batch of mashed
potatoes. Put this in the soup, stirring it in well. Take out the onion and
the ham hock. Chop the onion (which will be very soft and sweet) into a
puree; put it back in the soup. When the hock cools a little, trim away all
the fat and bone and chop the edible ham parts into tiny dice. Put them back
in the soup. Remove the cover and continue simmering with the cover off for
the last hour, stirring a little more frequently now that it's getting very
thick.
6:10 p.m.: Take out the risen dough, punch it down, and pat it out flat on
your floured board. Cut it into two equal pieces and roll each into a long,
free-form loaf. Sprinkle a little cornmeal on a baking sheet and place the
loaves on it. Slash the top of each loaf with a sharp knife, making four or
five diagonal slashes.
6:20 p.m.: Put the loaves in a COLD oven. Turn the heat to 400F, and bake
for 35 minutes or until they're golden brown and sound hollow when you thump
them.
6:30 p.m.: Throw together a quick salad.
7 p.m.: Check the soup for seasoning, and serve.
Looking at this closely, it appears that I actually spent about 1 hour
actually working in the kitchen; it's just that it was spread out over four
hours!