I’ve been doing less cooking over the last few months. Instead, I’ve been drawing on the stores of supplies from last summer and fall. But this weekend I got the bug and spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen. First, I made a lot of tamales. Most of them got divided into bunches and ended up in the freezer.
Pizza was also on the menu. I love a good white pizza, so that’s what I decided to make. Unfortunately, I discovered after I’d already started the crust that I was pretty low on flour. I threw in some whole wheat, but I only had a little bit. It didn’t go far.
So, naturally, I was at a loss when the time came to make the bechamel. The only real starch I had was masa (see how I looped back?), so I gave that a shot. (I also used the rendered fat from the roast I had cooked for the tamale filling.) It didn’t work out all that great. Masa, as you may know, is basically ground corn, just finer ground than “corn meal.” That doesn’t mean that it’s ground as fine as flour, though.
End result: the roux thickened nicely, but the end product was a bit more grainy than I would like. Very flavorful, though. And piling on the toppings greatly mitigated any problem with the bechamel.
Needless to say, I went out and bought flour yesterday. AP and whole wheat.
It’s also just a smidge overcooked. I’ll correct that (and I’ll have proper roux) when I use the second half of the dough, either tonight or tomorrow.
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