Skip to main content

Cornbread (Corn Bread?) Part Two

Image
By

Super Excellent Southern/Southwestern Cornbread


Recently, addressing the extremely important issue of cornbread, I said that I'd share my super secret recipe.  It is fast and easy. Here it is (with appropriate commentary).
Most of the needed ingredients for superior southern cornbread


 Notes

Cast Iron Skillet - HAS to be cooked in cast iron, nothing else will do.

 Corn Meal:  Stone Ground Preferred - In New England the Hogdsons Mill or Indian Head brands make good choices and are actually less expensive than the over-processed brand in the round box with which we are all familiar.  But if that's all you have, then use it. I prefer corn meal that has not been de-germinated and is hopefully GMO free.

 Liquid: The recipe calls for butermilk, which is best.  however, yogurt, or sour milk may be substituted and are almost as good.  If you have milk that has soured  - don't discard it! Use it in this or another baking recipe.  Pancakes, scones, muffins or yeast bread. It won't hurt you and can add a pleasant tanginess.

Oil:  I use Canola oil.  My original recipe calls for melted shortening.  Lard, Pork or bacon fat will also do quite well. Bacon fat imparts a more authentic "Southern" flavor, but is perhaps not the best choice for everybody.  

The Recipe

Ingredients

Corn Meal: 1 1/2 cups
Salt: 1 teaspoon
Baking Soda: 3/4 Teaspoon
Eggs: 2 of 'em
Buttermilk: 1 1/3 cups - Yogurt will do if you are out of buttermilk.  Butermilk is better
Oil: 2 tablespoons

Preparation Instructions

  • Heat the oven to 450 deg.  
  • put a enough oil in the skillet to coat the bottom and sides.  (this is in addition to the oil in the batter). Put the empty skillet in the oven - you want it nice and hot when you add the batter,
  • Mix the eggs, and buttermilk - some recipes say to separate the eggs, but I have found that it makes no difference. I usually use a whisk or a hand mixer, but a spoon works too.
  • If you have a sifter, sift the dry ingredients together then add to the wet mixture.  If you don't have a sifter, or don't want to bother, sprinkle the the baking soda and salt over the corn meal, mix it up a bit, then add it to the wet ingredients.  
  • Mix until the batter has a uniform consistency.
  • Pour he batter into the HOT cast iron skillet and bake at 450 deg. for about 30 min.
You now have great cornbread.

Try a few Tasty Additions

In addition to the basic cornbread above, we often "dress it up" in one (or more) of the following ways.
Add a can of chopped green chilies to the batter (Hatch brand chilies are the best, but are not readily available outside the Southwest except via Mail Order).  Mix the can's contents into the batter. Green chilies are quite mild.
For a spicier batter, mix in a can of chopped chipotle chillies.
Sprinkle a good handful (1/4 to 1/3 lb) of shredded cheese on the top of the batter before putting the skillet into the oven.  It's all good.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reach for your Wallet!

By
  What about Ransomware? Incidents of computer system hacking and ransomware attacks are chronicled almost eery day.  From the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center last yea, the Erie County Medical Center and many others have been victimized by ransomware attacks.  Our own Fairview Hospital was recently targeted by hackers who managed, at the very least, to scramble some of the information stored in their system.  All Berkshire Health Systems ' computers may have been targeted but I cannot find any mention of  the incident in The Berkshire Eagle or other news sources.  More on that as I learn more. In the Hollywood Medical Center incident, The criminals encrypted the hospital's complete file system informing the hospital that they would "sell" the decryption keys to the hospital for a fee.  The Medical Center eventually paid $17 million dollars in Bitcoin for the keys.  Presumably they got access to their patient data. What is Ransomware?  The Hollyw
Post a Comment
Read more

Hoppin' John

By
A bowl of dried black-eyed peas artfully arranged for photographic effect My Great Barrington neighborhood, "The Hill", (we live on a hill)  is one of the best aspects of life in the Berkshires.  Although it has been my home for almost 50 years, my roots trace to the deep south.  My 98 yr old Aunt Mil still lives in the Burgaw North Carolina house where I originated and remember from my early school days.  My father was born and reared on a farm at the edge of Georgia's  Okefenokee Swamp .  Generations of my direct forbears share North Carolina, Georgia Texas and Tennessee as places of birth, life and death.  A direct Grandfather who was at Valley Forge, his wife and many descendants are buried in the Ebenezer Baptist cemetery in Hendersonville NC.  I migrated to the Berkshires from Eastern New Mexico, my mother's birthplace, just a spit from the Texas Panhandle, where I had lived since my 10th year. Mrs Cowboy got started in Puerto Rico, (which is way, way so
Post a Comment
Read more

The Thing About Cornbread. Or is it Corn Bread?

By
A Blogger's Burden Fresh from my oven: Southern cornbread in cast iron skillet The major burden of having a blog is that the blogger actually needs to blog something from time to time.   Good intentions don't cut it.  Postings have to be posted. Today I  realized that my one, and only, post on Berkshire Pundit was more than three months ago.  Learning to do this correctly means learning to look everywhere for inspiration, then actually doing it. What does that have to do with cornbread?  
Post a Comment
Read more