Cornbread [MERGED TOPIC]

[Wilfrid]

Perhaps if Toby has time, and of course if she feels comfortable, she might post the recipe I used (or give me permission to do so) - I don't know if there are copyright issues. Sorry, Suvir, but the extra eggs definitely worked for me. My previous efforts were concrete.

[Suvir Saran]

Perhaps if Toby has time, and of course if she feels comfortable, she might post the recipe I used (or give me permission to do so) - I don't know if there are copyright issues.  Sorry, Suvir, but the extra eggs definitely worked for me.  My previous efforts were concrete.

I am glad it worked for you WIlfrid. In the end it is that which matters.

[Suvir Saran]

Suvir-- the addition of a little more flour and all the chilies probably offsets some of the sweetness, and I will try yours soon.  I always add frozen corn kernels or creamed corn, jalapeno peppers, finley chopped onion and cheddar to mine. There's never any left .

Did you try it Dana?

I always add a little cayenne and some extra salt and black pepper into the mix.

Yesterday I added cheese, cilantro, jalapenos as well.

I also browned the butter after melting it.

Made the corn bread even more savory. And the sweetness and the smell of the corn was contrasted beautifully.

[Suvir Saran]

Perhaps if Toby has time, and of course if she feels comfortable, she might post the recipe I used (or give me permission to do so) - I don't know if there are copyright issues.  Sorry, Suvir, but the extra eggs definitely worked for me.  My previous efforts were concrete.

I see Toby had posted her recipe in another thread. I am pasting it below and also the link for that thread.

Only one egg in the recipe. I am sure Toby has another recipe up her sleeve. Maybe a corn pudding that she gave you Wilfrid. We will have to wait for that eggier one for anothe time...

What Toby has shared seems to be what I have been given by grandmas and chefs from the South. And I can tell it is two recipes...

Smart Toby! Thanks Toby, for the recipe that is. I will give it a try and then thank you even more I think.

The cornbread recipe is two different recipes cobbled together. First you have to cook some grits. I get yellow grits in bulk at Commodities Natural Store (I actually think what they sell there is closer to polenta). I used to buy fancy stone ground grits at Dean&Deluca, but they went rancid very fast. Either is preferable to instant grits or the white supermarket stuff.

I cook the 1/4 cup of grits in 1 cup half&half, a teaspoon of garlic, and a small amount of salt and black pepper. Bring to a simmer, turn heat down very low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring once in a while. Let grits cool. (They can be made ahead and refrigerated).

For the cornbread: sift together 1 cup yellow cornmeal, 1 cup white flour, 1-1/2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 3/4 teaspoon salt. In another bowl, mix together 1/2 cup of the cooled cooked grits and 1 large egg. Mix well, breaking up the grits. Add 1-2/3 cups buttermilk and mix again until smooth.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in the oven in either a 9" round cake pan or a 9" cast-iron skillet. Let the pan get very hot and the butter really start to bubble and even get a little brown. Pour all but 1 tablespoon of the butter into the buttermilk-egg-grits mixtures and stir well. Sprinkle a spoonful of flour over the bottom of the baking pan and pour the batter into the pan, working quickly, as the mixture immediately stirs to rise. Sprinkle freshly ground black pepper and/or freshly crushed red pepper flakes over the top of the bread and bake at 450 for 35 minutes. Let rest for a minute or two and then turn out of the pan.

(I actually made two breads, one in a cake pan and one in a cast-iron skillet. The cake pan one always rises a little more and seems slightly lighter in texture; the one made in the cast-iron pan is crustier.)

5 eGulleteers and 3 SOs

[Toby]

The recipe I suggested to Wilfrid came from Bill Neal's Southern Cooking. His recipe included pork sidemeat cooked down into cracklings, the fat and cracklings added to the bread. I omitted the pork and substituted butter for the pork fat. The bread doesn't taste eggy, but it is nice and moist.

The other recipe I posted, that Suvir cut and pasted in, is a combination of a recipe from Bill Neal's Good Old Grits Cookbook, combined with the method for cooking the grits from Bradley Ogden's grits and garlic custards in Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. I think the one egg works there because the grits are very rich (1 cup half and half) and there's 4 tablespoons of butter and 1-2/3 cups of buttermilk, so there's plenty of both liquid and fat.

[phaelon56]

First, you slowly cook 1/4 cup real (not instant) grits (either white or yellow)

Just when I'd started to think that no one else (even my friedns who grew up in the South) knew about yellow grits! I had them once in an Amtrak dining car and loved them. Finally stumbled across them in an airport store fo all places and have been meaning to use them - now I have a good excuse.

In support of Jiffy Mix it should be noted that I added some to my sausage, pear and walnut stuffing a few weeks ago when I cooked Cornish hens for a culinarily challenged new girlfriend (perhaps not really challenged but she just doesn't like to cook). Used chicken broth for moisture, some pre-seasoned stuffing mix, added sauteed garlic and onion and some of my own spices. The sausage was just garden variety pan sausage from the local grocery store but this stuffing rocked! Best I've ever had and I'm pretty damn fussy about stuffing) it's almost always too dry and usually lacks the variwety of tastes that I seek.

[Dana]

Yes, Suvir, I did try it, in fact I made it today to go with a pot of Red Beans and Rice. (talk about comfort food!!!) I use a non-stick LeCreuset pan, and it comes out beautifully. I really like the crispy texture on the bottom of the pan - I wasn't getting that from the mix I was using. The extra sugar in Jiffy combined with the butter (I'm guessing) creates the crispness and the cakey interior makes the contrasting textures divine. It wasn't too sweet, either. The additional flour and the chiles I think helped foil some the sweetness I'm not so fond of. I also added a little cheddar.

thanks so much

I'm making the tomato chutney on Sunday. I'll let you know how it comes out.

[Suvir Saran]

Yes, Suvir, I did try it, in fact I made it today to go with a pot of Red Beans and Rice. (talk about comfort food!!!) I use a non-stick LeCreuset pan, and it comes out beautifully. I really like the crispy texture on the bottom of the pan - I wasn't getting that from the mix I was using. The extra sugar in Jiffy combined with the butter (I'm guessing) creates the crispness and the cakey interior makes the contrasting textures divine. It wasn't too sweet, either. The additional flour and the chiles I think helped foil some the sweetness I'm not so fond of. I also added a little cheddar.

thanks so much

I'm making the tomato chutney on Sunday. I'll let you know how it comes out.

I am so glad it came out well. It has become a favorite of many in my circle of friends (foodie or non). In fact the friend whose grandma gave the recipe is going to make this revised recipe for grandma on Christmas.

Did you add corn kernels? They make a great difference. You are also sooo right about the texture. It is indeed amazing. And the moist, cakey and intensely corn tasting and smiling interior makes it deeply addictive. I can finish a batch of it myself.. But I am trying hard to come back to my Girlish figure.

Let us know about the Tomato Chutney. You should check out the thread... you may learn a lot from what the others have done. In fact, cooking it in this time of the year, add some canned tomato paste... It would be a great addition.. Check out what CathyL did.

Have fun... I wish I knew how to make red beans... I would have made some corn bread now... I am craving it already.

[Jaymes]

Used chicken broth for moisture, some pre-seasoned stuffing mix, added sauteed garlic and onion and some of my own spices. The sausage was just garden variety pan sausage from the local grocery store but this stuffing rocked!  Best I've ever had and I'm pretty damn fussy about stuffing) it's almost always too dry...

In addition to turkey/chicken broth, add a couple beaten eggs to your cornbread dressing.

[Dana]

For red beans----Presoak a pound of red kidney beans overnight. Simmer 3 ham hocks (or a leftover ham bone) in 4 cups of water for a couple of hours. Cut meat off the bones. Combine the ham broth with the beans and add enough water to cover the beans by an inch or so. Add a chopped onion, a couple of ribs of celery, chopped, and 4 cloves of garlic, mashed. Throw in a 1/2 lb of good smoked sausage and the chopped up ham bits. Let all simmer together till beans are done, about an hour, watching that the level of the water/broth doesn't get below the beans. With a wooden spoon, mash some of the beans against the side of the pot. This will create a thick gravy. Serve over rice with a big wedge of cornbread. Divine.

[Suvir Saran]

Thanks Dana!

[Suvir Saran]

I made two batches of corn bread to take to our Christmas Eve dinner at our neighbors home. Also I made kidney beans with inspiration from Danas recipe.

I made one batch in a skillet and one in a round baking pan. They each rose similarly and cooked almost identically. The one baked in the cast iron skillet had a curved edge and the crust was darker and crunchier. The main body of the bread was the same.

Also served at the table was Ham, venison meat balls, ribs, potato salad (I missed Ed Schoenfeld's), haricots verts, beets and asparagus.

The corn bread was received as the surprise of the evening. People that taste it can never seem to understand how something so simple can be so good. I am always bashful to come out and say it is plain ole Jiffy Mix.

I add LOTS of corn kernels into the bread. I also use Aleppo pepper and cayenne. Instead of milk I add buttermilk. And I add cheese into the bread. And for 1 package of Jiffy Mix, I used 1 stick of butter in the skillet and pan.

[vengroff]

Recipes from this thread are now in the eGullet Recipe Archive. Using the new Ingredient Wizard feature, it took just a few minutes per recipe to put them in.

Here's a link to the Cornbread Recipes in the eGRA.

To try it out, and enter your own recipes from other threads, simply click the Add A Recipe link from any eGRA page, and then click the "Ingredient Wizard..." button to bring up a window where you can paste your ingredients. The window has directions explaining the units it recognizes, and how it determines what lines are headers.

[TrishCT]

Reminds me of a story...

A woman talking to her friend says,

"If I die first, I swear my husband will marry the first woman who walks in here with a pan of cornbread!"

The friend says, "Does he like butter on it..?"

[Jaymes]

Reminds me of a story...

A woman talking to her friend says,

"If I die first, I swear my husband will marry the first woman who walks in here with a pan of cornbread!"

The friend says, "Does he like butter on it..?"

[Stone]

I made Snowangel's recipe. Cornbread with Flour.

I doubled it for a 12" skillet. Thought it was odd to just melt 1/4 cup of shortening in the skillet and pour the batter on top. This is what it looks like coming out of the oven:

I'll let it cool and see how it tastes. Gonna make two for tomorrow.

Edited June 14, 2003 by Stone (log)

[Stone]

Mmm. That's good. Turned out onto a plate easily. Not the moistest I've ever had, but not the least bit dry. Great with a dollop of honey.

Edited June 14, 2003 by Stone (log)

[jhlurie]

Isn't the honey just another way to put the sugar back in which you took out by making the "Southern" recipe? It's like a cornbread crutch!

(Okay Stone, I'm just yanking your chain)

[fifi]

Oh... It has flour. That is why it looks so pale.

Forgive me. I am a Texan. Flour in cornbread is heresy.

[Stone]

Isn't the honey just another way to put the sugar back in which you took out by making the "Southern" recipe?  It's like a cornbread crutch!

(Okay Stone, I'm just yanking your chain)

"Southern?" Well beyond my cornbread ken. I just did the easiest recipe.

[Suzanne F]

The "double everything for a 12" skillet" came from me. I too tried Snowangel's recipe because it was so easy. And I shall keep on making it because it is so good.

Mine came out more golden, but then my oven is somewhat unreliable and tends to do its own thing on temperature, usually getting high(er). We had it with pulled pork in bbq sauce (not real barbecue, alas). Yum.

It's nice to be from a non-cornbread-making background. That way we get to try everybody's traditions and make up a few of our own.

[Stone]

What do you think about cooking up some breakfast sausage and crumbling it into the cornbread batter before baking?

[snowangel]

What do you think about cooking up some breakfast sausage and crumbling it into the cornbread batter before baking?

It's wonderful. It's also wonderful with bacon and bacon grease.

Ah, pork fat. I just love pork fat.

[Stone]

If any purists want to post a good recipe made without flour, please do. Sized for a 12" cast iron skillet please.

Edited October 23, 2003 by Stone (log)

[Rachel Perlow]

1/4 cup of shortening

No shortening. Bacon grease.

Skillet Cornbread with Bacon. Sorry, it has flour, but it's still real good.