a day ago
The Secret to Perfect Cornbread? Wrap It in Cabbage.
It wasn't until six years after moving to the United States that the French-born chef Yann Nury, 41, tried his first bite of cornbread, at a downtown Manhattan restaurant where it was served alongside fried chicken. Nury, who's known for cooking luxurious versions of comfort food for art and fashion world parties, was, he says, 'amazed by its dense texture and pure corn flavor' and set out to create his own spin on the American classic.
Nury prefers the heartiness and savory profile of Southern cornbread, which has an all-cornmeal base, finding the Northern version, which includes wheat flour and sugar in the batter, too 'bready and sweet.' He favors stone-ground varieties of the grain — 'the coarser the better,' he says — and, to banish any grittiness, allows the cornmeal to hydrate and soften for an hour in buttermilk. The result: 'texture, but without any sandy bites that crack under your teeth.'
For years, Nury was of the belief that his cornbread, eaten warm with butter, caviar and a drizzle of maple syrup, was the ideal, often serving it alongside grilled meats with a light, chilled red wine. But after his wife and frequent collaborator, Grace Douglas, showed him a photo she'd come across of bread baked in cabbage leaves, he decided to try that method and found it to be 'an amazing way to encase flavor,' he says, pointing to traditional French choux farci, or meat-stuffed cabbage, as another example of the technique. Now he makes the straight-up version for his kids but otherwise wraps his cornbread in the leafy greens before baking. 'The smell of the cabbage caramelizing is intoxicating,' he says.
Yann Nury's Classic Cornbread, Plus a Cabbage-Wrapped Variation
Makes one 8-10 inch round loaf
Ingredients
1½ cups/300 grams coarse cornmeal
1¼ cups/325 grams buttermilk
1 large egg, beaten
7 tablespoons/100 grams salted butter, melted, plus more for serving
1 teaspoon/5 grams baking soda
1 teaspoon/5 grams baking powder
1½ teaspoons/10 grams fine sea salt
1 head of savoy or napa cabbage (optional)
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