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
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1½ cups/300 grams coarse cornmeal
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1¼ cups/325 grams buttermilk
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1 large egg, beaten
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7 tablespoons/100 grams salted butter, melted, plus more for serving
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1 teaspoon/5 grams baking soda
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1 teaspoon/5 grams baking powder
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1½ teaspoons/10 grams fine sea salt
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1 head of savoy or napa cabbage (optional)
1. In a large bowl, mix together the cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
2. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and buttermilk to combine.
3. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. With a spoon or spatula, gradually draw the dry ingredients into the wet until the batter is well incorporated and free of any large lumps.
4. Cover the bowl with a clean dish towel or plastic wrap and let it rest for one hour. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 475 degrees with a rack in the middle.
5. Heat an 8-10 inch cast-iron pan in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Mix about three quarters of the butter into the rested batter and pour the remaining butter into the hot pan, swirling to coat the bottom and sides.
6. Spoon the batter into the pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula or butter knife.
7. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the top is a deep golden brown.
8. Serve warm with butter, flaky salt and a drizzle of maple syrup. Nury also recommends a dollop of Golden Kaluga caviar.
To make cabbage-wrapped cornbread:
1. Follow steps 1 to 4 above.
2. Put an 8-10 inch cast-iron pan in the oven to heat up for 10 minutes. Mix about three quarters of the butter into the rested batter, reserving some to coat your pan and brush on top.
3. Meanwhile, separate the leaves from the head of cabbage and blanch them in generously salted water for a minute or two, then plunge them into a bowl of ice water until cool. Drain, pat the leaves dry and lay them flat on paper towels or clean dish towels to absorb excess moisture. If the leaves have particularly thick stems, roll them with a rolling pin to tenderize or remove the stems with a knife.
4. Remove the hot cast-iron pan from the oven and pour most of the remaining butter into the hot pan, swirling to coat the bottom and sides.
5. Carefully place the leaves along the bottom of the hot pan, creating a single layer with no gaps and leaving 2 to 3 inches of overhang around the edges. Spoon in the batter, fold the ends over the top and then cover with another layer of leaves, overlapping them by about an inch so the bread has room to rise. Brush with the rest of the melted butter and bake for 20 minutes.
6. Let cool just slightly before flipping the bread onto a plate and serving warm with butter and flaky salt.
The post The Secret to Perfect Cornbread? Cabbage. appeared first on New York Times.
