Indian Bread

A steamed brown bread in the New England style, leaning on molasses for sweetness and soda for lift. The whole method is borrowed from the Boston Brown Bread recipe elsewhere in this chapter, so the technique needs spelling out.

• Indian mealThis is plain cornmeal, yellow or white. Fine or medium grind gives the smoothest crumb; stone-ground coarse meal stays gritty even after long steaming.
• Graham flourWhole-wheat flour, originally coarser and less uniformly milled than today's. Standard whole-wheat works; for a closer texture use a coarse or stone-ground whole wheat.
• Soda, and how muchHalf a tablespoon is 1 1/2 teaspoons, which is a heavy hand for 2 1/2 cups of dry ingredients. Older molasses was more acidic than modern light table syrup, so a full-flavour or blackstrap molasses will neutralise the soda better; with a light syrup the loaf may taste soapy.
• MilkRecipes of this period often assumed sour milk with soda. Sweet whole milk is what the recipe asks for and will work; buttermilk is a reasonable substitute if you prefer a tangier crumb.
• Steaming, the hingeFill a greased mould or two 1-lb coffee-style tins no more than two-thirds full, cover tightly with foil or a lid, and stand them on a rack in a deep pot with boiling water reaching halfway up. Keep the water at a bare simmer and top it up as it falls; steam 2 1/2 to 3 hours until a skewer comes out clean.
• FinishingSome steamed brown bread recipes finish the uncovered loaf briefly in a moderate oven to dry the surface. This recipe does not call for it, but it can make the bread easier to turn out.
• Yield and servingOne good-sized loaf, about eight to ten slices. Cut with a thin blade or, traditionally, a length of thread pulled through; it is best warm with butter, and it steams again well the next day.