I grew up hearing the story of anadama -- a bread which supposedly arose when a fisherman got tired of his wife Anna making the same cornmeal porridge every day -- but I'd never actually tried it before. I generally like cornbread and other baked goods containing cornmeal, so I was hopeful that this bread would also be a success.

I think it was reasonably successful in the end. The flavour is good and everyone seems to like it. But man-oh-man, this was by far the most miserable, difficult dough I've ever had to work with! And I got ZERO oven spring from it. Which was somewhat disappointing. I am inclined to experiment with some different recipes and mixing techniques to see if I can find something that works a little better.

I'm writing this version up now, just to have a record of what I did and how it behaved. I wouldn't recommend trying to follow this recipe unless you're prepared for a big mess and a relatively dense (but flavourful) bread though.

Anadama

Slightly adapted from The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book

Ingredients

• 1 c. water
• 1 c. cornmeal
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)
• 1 2/3 c. warm water
• 600g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/3 c. molasses
• 1/4 c. oil

Directions

1. Combine the cornmeal with 1 c. of water and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.
2. Cook until thick and just starting to stick to the bottom a little.
3. Remove from heat, cover, and set aside to cool and hydrate. Time needed will vary from 15 minutes to as long as overnight depending on how coarse your cornmeal is.
4. Once the cornmeal has cooled and softened, dissolve the yeast in the warm water and set aside for 10 minutes.
5. Combine flour and salt and mix well.
6. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.
7. Gradually incorporate flour into liquids, working from the centre outward.
8. Once a stiff dough has formed, turn it out and kead it for ~10 minutes.
9. Use a fork to mix the molasses and oil into the cornmeal, breaking up any lumps.
10. Press dough flat and spread cornmeal mixture on top.
11. Knead cornmeal mixture into dough. This will be very messy. The dough will become quite wet. Mine became so soupy that I had to add a couple Tbsp. of flour despite the authors' dire warnings not to add any flour at this stage. Once the cornmeal was incorporated, it basically became a batter. It was pourable. The addition of a couple Tbsp. of gluten flour took it to being merely incredibly messy, sticky, and sloppy rather than actually runny.
12. Transfer the sloppy mess to a bowl, cover, and set aside to rise for ~90 minutes.
13. Even after sitting for an hour and a half, my dough was still completely unworkable, so I worked in ~1/4 c. more flour at this point to try to make it a little more manageable. It was still extremely sticky and wet even so.
14. Return to bowl, cover, and allow to rise for another hour or so. (I found it completely impossible to do a finger poke test with this dough, even with a very wet finger. The dough was just way too sticky.)
15. Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and divide into two equal portions.
16. I found trying to round the portions to be a fool's errand. It was just too wet and too lacking in structure. I probably ended up working in another 2-3 Tbsp. of flour at this stage.
17. Cover and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
18. Shape into loaves (as best you can) and place into greased loaf pans.
19. Cover and allow to rise for another 45 minutes or so.
20. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for ~1 hour.