Rosie Loves Her Corn Bread.

You know how Rosie loves her cornbread.
I'm always trying to find the "ultimate" cornbread, and I've come quite close several times.  One recipe I have that was probably the best so far I can't share with you, because I was sworn to secrecy.
(Looking at you, Debbie!)

So I've gone on my merry little way, experimenting...

Mr. Hawthorne and Good Neighbor Zippy drove up to Currituck the other day and came back with some mighty fine Currituck Corn.  Sweet as can be!  And it makes some mighty fine cornbread.

 I was getting ready to shoot the first picture of the cornbread and suddenly, there was this hand, reaching into the picture.

Someone couldn't wait.

I searched for cornbread recipes and found this one from America's Test Kitchen.
Mr. Hawthorne and I usually watch America's Test Kitchen every afternoon on PBS and find it to be the best food show.  Period.  Food Network basically sucks.  It's a poor attempt at "entertainment," which is the only thing that can explain some of the crap that airs on that network.  Food Network is basically worthless.  America's Test Kitchen is informative and the book compendium of their shows is a terrific source of information.  They explain to you the whys and wherefores of what they do.  What worked and what didn't.  That said, here's ATK's recipe for corn bread.

America's Test Kitchen Cornbread

1 1/3 cups stone-ground cornmeal
1 cup flour
2 TB sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
 1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
3 ears corn, kernels cut off
6 TB unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, plus 1 yolk

Heat oven to 400°.

Whisk cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in large bowl.

Process corn kernels in blender until very smooth, scraping down sides, about 2-3 minutes.

Transfer purée to medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until very thick and deep yellow, about 10 minutes.  Remove pan from heat.  Add 5 TB butter and whisk until melted and incorporated.  Add buttermilk and whisk until incorporated.  Add eggs and yolk and whisk until incorporated.  Transfer corn mixture to bowl with cornmeal mixture and, using rubber spatula, fold together until just combined.  Melt remaining tablespoon butter in 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat.  Scrape batter into skillet and spread into even layer.  Bake until top is golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 23-28 minutes.  Let cool on wire rack for 5 minutes.  Remove cornbread from skillet and let cool for 20 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.

Enjoy!

 Now, once you have your basic cornbread,

what else can you do with it?

 You can make a cornbread salad.

 Just cube the remaining cornbread...

   Add a bunch of other stuff...
Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, beans...

 

 And pour in some ranch dressing.

I made my own, but Hidden Valley ranch packets

will do in a pinch.

Rosie's Cornbread Salad

2 cups cubed cornbread
1/2 cup diced cucumber
1/2 cup diced green, yellow, orange, and red pepper
(I like all the colors.)
1 tomato, peeled, seeded, juiced, and diced
2 scallions, sliced
1 cup kidney beans
Combine all ingredients and toss with 1/2 cup ranch dressing,
or more to taste.

Rosie Note: I always use dried beans and simmer until tender.
Then rinse and drain.
It's really not necessary to soak overnight.
I rarely do.  Don't have the time.


And I don't like canned beans.
You can use them if you must.
Le sigh...
Just rinse the slime off first.


 Rosie's Ranch Dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp sugar
2 TB cider vingear
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
Mix all together until smooth.
Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes before using
to let all the flavors get acquainted.

Toss cornbread salad ingredients with Ranch Dressing

and enjoy!

Sunday Lunch At the Hawthornes.

 Welcome to the Hawthornes' Sunday meal.


 We're having a southern favorite - a fried concoction - along with cornbread made in a cast iron skillet and coleslaw.
 And it's ohsogood!

One of my favorite things to eat, EVER, is oysters.
In particular - FRIED oysters.


Mr. Hawthorne is in charge of the oysters today.
I'll be making the cornbread, the coleslaw, and the sauces for the oysters - a regular cocktail sauce with ketchup and horseradish and a remoulade sauce.

 A remoulade sauce is a French sauce, popularized in New Orleans, and there are numerous "recipes" for remoulade.  Typically, it's served with fried shrimp and po' boy sandwiches.

I started with the coleslaw.

Rosie's Coleslaw

about 4 cups shredded cabbage
1 carrot, shredded
Dressing:
1/2 cup mayo
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
lots of ground pepper
pinch kosher salt
Mix together all dressing ingredients.  Pour over cabbage and carrot mixture and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate.  Let the flavors develop for at least an hour.  Taste test and adjust seasonings if needed.



 
Next, I started on my cornbread.  I'm always looking for new cornbread recipes because I just haven't found "the" recipe.  By "the" recipe, I mean cornbread like Mama Hawthorne used to make.  I used to ask her for the recipe, and she would tell me, but at the time (40 years ago), I didn't know what "until it looks right" meant.  Wish I'd paid more attention.  I do remember watching her make her cornbread.  She would melt a "plop" of Crisco in an 8 x 8-inch glass Pyrex baking dish in the oven.  She'd mix cornmeal, baking powder, and salt out of the blue canister with the picture of the little girl with the umbrella on it.  Then she'd stir in some milk.  When the Crisco was melted, she'd pour that into the cornbread mixture.  And the consistency would change drastically.  That part always intrigued me.  It went from batter-like and pourable to chunky-monkey and gloppy.  Then, she'd mix an egg into the whole thing and pour it into the hot Pyrex dish and bake it until perfectly golden and perfect.

So simple.  So very simple.

Yet, to this day, I cannot duplicate Mama Hawthorne's cornbread.

So, I go off on tangents and experiment.
One recipe I came across called for toasting the cornmeal first.  Sounded like a good idea and turned out it was.  Gave the cornbread more intense corn flavor.

I think I'll try this cornbread next summer during corn season and use some fresh kernels in the batter.  Maybe roast 'em first.   Sounds like a plan.

Anyhoos, this is good cornbread.
Try it and let me know how you like it.

Rosie's Not-My-Mama's Cornbread

1 10-inch cast iron skillet

2 1/4 cups cornmeal
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup Crisco
4 TB unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt

Place skillet in oven and heat to 450°.

Spread cornmeal evenly onto a baking sheet and toast about 10 minutes until fragrant and starting to color.  Pour cornmeal into a bowl and stir buttermilk into the hot cornmeal.  Set aside and let the meal soak up the milk and get happy.

Add the Crisco to the hot skillet, return to oven, and let melt for about 5 minutes.  Remove skillet from oven and add in butter, stirring to melt.  Pour Crisco/butter into the cornmeal mixture, leaving a bit in the pan to coat and grease the pan to get that nice brown crust.  Next, stir in eggs, baking soda and powder, and salt into the mix.

Pour into hot skillet and bake about 14 minutes or until golden brown, rotating pan halfway through baking time.  Cool cornbread in pan for 5-10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack.  And yes.  The cornbread round turns right out.  Perfectly.

This cornbread falls right out of the pan.

Very nice crumb and crust.
Good corn flavor.

 

I've got my coleslaw done.

I've got my cornbread done.

Now it's time to make my sauces - a regular ketchup/horseradish cocktail sauce and my latest version of remoulade sauce.

Rosie's Cocktail Sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
2 TB+ horseradish
2 tsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp lemon juice

For extra oomph, I like to press the liquid out of my horseradish.  More heat to the mix.
Combine all ingredients casually.  You don't need a homogeneous mixture.  I prefer pockets of flavor.  You dip into one section and get a few flavors here, then dip into another section and get more flavors there.  Add more horseradish if you like sinus-cleaning.  I do.

Rosie's Remoulade

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 TB Dijon mustard
1 TB horseradish (liquid pressed out)

1 small garlic clove, minced  -  about 1/4 tsp
1 TB finely chopped onion
1 1/2 tsp sweet pickle salad cubes
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce
big pinch cayenne pepper
Freshly cracked black pepper
Mix all together.

Sprinkle extra cayenne and pepper over top.

If you like, use a coarse grain mustard instead of the Dijon.
I would have, except I was out.
If you have some Creole seasoning, add in 1/2 tsp of that.
If you like capers, finely mince a teaspoon and stir it in.

EXPERIMENT!

Now, we all came here for the OYSTERS, so here they are!

Coating for oysters

1/3 cup rice flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup flour
1 TB Old Bay seasoning
1/3 cup Panko breadcrumbs
1 tsp paprika
Mix all together.

Toss oysters, a few at a time, in the coating mixture.  Place coated oysters in a sieve and shake off excess coating.  Fry in 350°-370° peanut oil until golden, about 1 minute.  Drain on wire rack.
  

Toss oysters in the coating mixture first.

Then place in sieve and shake to remove excess coating.

Turn out onto rack.

Enjoy!

I'm going back for seconds. 
And thirds...

Rosie Braises Short Ribs And Makes Corn Bread.

 

 Rosie is making beef short ribs and cornbread today.

You'll have to bear with me

as I don't really have a clear concept of what flavors I want,

so I'm making it all up on the fly.

That means no mise en place.

No coherent recipe.

I will be rambling,

so it should be fun since I don't really know where I'm going.

I knew from the git-go

that I wanted some smoky flavors in there

... so I consulted my inventory list

in my vast, spacious, enviable walk-in pantry  

tiny hall closet.

And truth be known, there's no physical inventory list;

however, I recently cleaned out said closet

to a state of near immaculateness

and I know everything that's in there.

It's all in the steel trap between my ears.

I grabbed bags of pasilla and guajillo dried chiles.

Dry roast a passila and guajillo on both sides

over medium low heat,

 pressing with a wooden spatula,

 until they become very aromatic.

Do not let the chiles burn, else they become bitter.

And I shot that picture before I stemmed and seeded the chiles.

So stem and seed your chiles.

They're going to be processed.

Pour in water to cover, bring to a boil,

then turn off and let the chiles steep for thirty minutes.

Pour chiles and steeping liquid into processor.

Process away!

Set aside.

I kosher-salted and freshly-ground-peppered my short ribs,

then heated a pan and a tablespoon or so of peanut oil

over medium heat and seared the ribs until nicely browned,

about 5 minutes each side.

Remember not to crowd your pan.

I seared in two batches, 4 ribs at a time.

Place seared ribs in Dutch oven.

Have your oven at 300°.

While the ribs were searing,

I prepared my aromatics:

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

1 carrot, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

2 TB tomato paste

1 TB oregano

1 tsp cumin seeds

Rosie Tip #987:

Don't be tempted to buy those

expensive squeeze tubes of tomato paste just for the convenience.

When you have a recipe that calls for small amounts of paste,

freeze the rest of the paste in the jar in ice trays,

then pop out into freezer bags.

That way you'll have individual 1 TB servings of tomato paste.

Add the aromatics to the ribs

and pour in the processed chiles.

Add water to cover.

Then I decided to be crazy and cut up the rind of one orange,

being sure to remove any pith (white part on the inside - it's bitter).

Add the peel and juice of one orange to the pot,

cover the pot, and place in a 300° oven.

This is going to cook until it's falling off the bone tender.

Mine went for 5 hours.

While this was filling the house with wonderful aromas,

I went outside to do a little yard work and met a new friend.

He has no collar.

He's the cutest, sweetest little fella.

With inclement weather approaching,

I was worried about him,

so I posted his picture on

 Colington Harbour Residents Facebook page.

He stayed for hours.

I named him Buddy.

We were all ready to go to Pet Smart

the next day for a bath, haircut, de-matting, trim,

shampoo, blow-dry, mani-pedi,

THE WORKS.

Mr. Hawthorne is NOT liking this turn of events.

To appease him,

I printed out a picture of my Buddy

with "Found" and my phone number on it

and was getting ready to take it up to TJ's and post it.

(Convenience store right outside the harbor.)

That's when I saw a man pushing a stroller and walking his dog.

Thinking he might recognize the dog and know who belongs to him,

I asked him about Buddy.

I described a little black and white Shih tzu.

Crap!

He's the owner and "Poo Ti"

or whatever the hell he named the poor dog

had gotten away and he was out looking for him.

Hell's bells.

So he came in and TOOK MY BUDDY AWAY!

I HATE it when that happens.

 

That all happened yesterday

and damn if I'm not tearing up today.

Bake to the braise.

 After 5+ hours of braising,

the meat is falling off the bone.

The meat was very fatty too,

so I want to get that grease out of the sauce.

I removed the meat from the Dutch oven

and poured the liquid into a shallow container

and refrigerated it.

The fat and the collagen from the bones

 will solidify/gel in a layer on top.

Simply scrape off that layer,

then reheat the rest of the liquid for serving.

Coagulated layer on top.

 Remove it.

 

 While the ribs were a-braising,

I started on my skillet cornbread

which Mr. Hawthorne likened to his Mama's.

High praise indeed.

 Rosie's Skillet Cornbread

2 TB Crisco

1 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

2 eggs, beaten

Heat oven to 375°.

I'm using a large toaster oven.

If I were cooking this in my big oven,

I'd crank it up to 400°.

Whisk together cornmeal, flour,

salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

Melt Crisco over medium high heat

in an 8-inch iron skillet.

Pour buttermilk into flour mixture

and stir until well-combined.

Stir in melted Crisco, then eggs.

Pour batter into iron skillet over medium heat

and cook about 3-4 minutes to get a nice crust.

Place in oven and cook 30 minutes

or until toothpick  in center comes out clean.

 

 Invert.

 

 Cool on rack.

 As I said, falling of the bone tender.

 

 

 

Rich, aromatic, just plain good.

A hearty meal - perfect for the weather we're having.