From a reader:
Now that I've hit the big time (;>) Thanks for the blog mention.
...........
We
would have cornbread for supper occasionally during the winter.
Breakfast was always a big meal. Dinner was bigger. So, by the time
supper came around, we were occasionally at wit's end. When we did
cornbread it was always in a 9 x 12 pan. We served it with whatever ...
sausage, bacon, ham, eggs and lots of hot syrup. The men loved it.
But, we referred to it as Johnny cake - and never made it to accompany any other meal.
So,
when I moved to New Mexico, I discovered cornbread as a more common
offering. Furr's Cafeterias have individual loaves of Jalapeno
Cornbread. You can select that instead of a dinner roll. It is
delicious. So, the hunt was on and I discovered a recipe in a small
booklet previously offered by the local version of MDU. It was the best
cornbread I'd ever eaten. It has a cup of creamed corn in it and as
many chopped jalapenos as you hanker. I made it for years and then one
day some dinner guests (she's from old countryesque Florida, he's a
Georgia boy) suggested I melt a stick of butter in my cast iron skillet
before adding the batter. The heavens shone brightly! Sometimes I just
add half a stick - ha! But you want the skillet preheated and
everything mixed and handy. That butter browns quickly and you have to
add the batter instantly before it turns from brown to black.
Felt pretty confident that that was the best cornbread in the world and I can make it in my sleep....
Pride goeth before a fall.
------- set up a barbecue place
for a [local] family. This was well underway when I moved here. He ended
up without a share of the restaurant, and they had his recipe. Grrr.
Anyway - great pork ribs, slabby steak fries. Best pork ribs I've ever
had. The beef wasn't.
So,
after his ouster, he'd opened a little joint in the South Valley -
looked like it must have been an old Tastee Freez. I'd go down there
and get meat to go. There was no place to sit inside. One day he asked
if I'd like a few hoecakes to go with that. He wasn't chatty - it was a
one-man operation, so he was normally busy. I had no idea what he'd
even asked me, but I said "Sure" - because his food was fabulous, so
there was no risk. He just poured 6 or 8 batter circles about the size
of a hamburger patty, flipped them and threw them in a sack that
normally would have held fries. To die for. Not on the menu.
The
next time I went down I waited til there was an interval between
customers and asked what that magic cornbread was. Hoecakes like his
Mom used to make out in the field was the answer. I doubt a hoe was
involved, but it was probably just some old heavy metal over a wood
fire. The Mexicans have had quite a bit of publicity making
tacos/fajitas on old plow discs - same publicist.
He
wouldn't have wanted a choregirl, but had he lived longer I would have
made myself useful just to watch him and pick up a few pointers
............
I tried various hoecake recipes/techniques years ago and gave up. Just went back to my big skillet of jalapeno cornbread.
If
you were going to make hoecakes for more than 1 person, you really need
a good-sized griddle so I normally just make cornbread for company and
freeze a slice for little old me. A little butter and my trusty black
cast iron pan warms it up good as new. I love cornbread with smoked
beef brisket.
I buy some
cheap white cornmeal in a big cardboard box at Smith's (a/k/a Kroger).
It's the best I've found. Don't know the brand, because I decant it
into a sealed container. It's in an orange and navy blue rectangular
box. About the size of an old cereal box before they got so huge.
1 Cup All Purpose flour
1 Cup Cornmeal
1/4 Cup table sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
...............
Stir together:
2 beaten eggs
1 cup milk
8 ounces canned creamed corn
2 Tablespoons or more chopped, pickled jalapenos
1/4 Cup shortening, melted
Put dry ingredients in a big bowl. Have wet ingredients -except melted shortening- stirred together and handy.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
When
ready to cook, Heat a 10 inch or larger cast iron skillet on top of the
range. After the pan is hot, melt the shortening and dump it in the
wet ingredients. Then add to dry ingreadients in big bowl. Stir all
together.
Add a stick of
butter to the pan and let it get brown and fragrant. Immediately add
the batter. The butter will bubble up around the edges. Pop the
skillet in the oven and bake about 15 minutes.
...........
Don't
substitute oil for the shortening. Don't bother with any pan other
than a cast iron skillet. Buttermilk is fine instead of milk. Don't use
skim milk. I give all the wet ingredients a quick stir into the dry.
You don't want the shortening solidified. Then I plop the butter in the
skillet and finish stirring the batter. You don't want to overwork the
batter - just get it barely combined.
I've
done this outside numerous times. Just have one side of the grill a
little cooler and throw a lid on the skillet. Actually easier inside,
but there's times when you just don't want to crank the oven on - and
other times when everybody wants to cook everything outside, whether or
not it makes particular sense.
