Lunch At The Hawthornes - Corn Bread Salad.

This is what the Hawthornes did last Sunday, October 16, 2011. We'd been on a week-long trip in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina and we happily returned home last Sunday around lunch time. And we began to cook. Not unpack. Cook. Mr. Hawthorne wanted to make that cornbread salad which I actually ate from the salad bar at Lynn's Place in Robbinsville, NC. I raved about it to Mr. Hawthorne who didn't even put it on his plate because, he "didn't know what it was." Huh? So he's making corn bread salad second hand. He didn't try the salad at the restaurant, but the waitress was kind enough to tell us the ingredients- corn bread, mayo, vinegar, sugar, diced peppers and onions, salt and pepper. First, he made cornbread.

Mr. Hawthorne's Cornbread:

1 cup corn meal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
 1 TB flour
 1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 cup milk (part skim part heavy cream)
 1 egg
1 1/2 TB lard
 Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Heat an 8-inch iron skillet on stove top and melt lard in skillet.
 Mix remaining ingredients
 and pour hot melted lard into mixture.
Pour mixture into hot skillet
and heat on stove top 2-3 minutes over medium heat,
until it starts to crust,
then place in oven and bake about 25-30 minutes, until browned.

A little butter on top never hurts.

Well done, Mr. Hawthorne. Check out that tight crumb.

Very nice texture.

So nice in fact, that I needed to saute a couple slices of corn bread in butter and bacon grease and fix me a sunny-side up egg with grated cheese on top.

Look at that crumb.

Now, back to the corn bread salad.
2 cups crumbled corn bread
 2 TB minced red onion
 3 TB minced red pepper
1/3 cup mayonnaise
 3 tsp white vinegar
 5 tsp sugar
 salt and pepper to taste
 Mr. Hawthorne tasted and tested along the way.
 This made 3/4 cup of dressing.

Action shot!

Minced red onion.

I would have liked a bit of green pepper in there but that's just me. I like a pepper confetti.

Pour in the dressing.

And mix well.

Remember, Mr. Hawthorne never tasted the original salad. But he came darn close. This was slightly on the sweet side, for my tastes. Very good. But sweet. And Rosie runs tart not sweet.

Serve in a tostito scoop.

This was very good.

I'll be making this on my own. It's quite a versatile dish. You could add in corn kernels, black beans. I think it needed more onion. Cilantro would be a nice touch. Tomatoes would be good. Maybe a sprinkling of cumin. Take it and make it.