Corny Bread

Corn bread. Nothing goes better with a steamy hot bowl of chili con carne.

When your favorite cousin calls to say, "hey, c'mon over to my house for dinner and hangouts!", you say yes. If you're anything like me, you ask what's for dinner and what you can make.

Usually, she says, "bring nothing. Just bring you". Of course, that never flies with me. I never show up at a dinner party (no matter how casual) empty handed. I was raised better than that.

I always get a half hearted tongue lashing about "not listening" and "not doing as I am told". But so far, I have never gone home with less than an empty plate. Hint taken.

I'm a dessert master and I always bring something sweet and delectable.

But this time, I wanted to bring something to go with the main.

I don't eat much chili. I don't eat a lot of tomatoes (heartburn) and I spent a week racking my brain to come up with something to take to dinner and couldn't come up with a thing.

So, off to the Internet I went. I consulted friends in a cooking group, who all said, "cornbread!'. A Google search returned thousands of results; ninety nine percent of them "corn bread". It was as if the universe was trying to tell me something.

I know when to take the hint: corn bread it is. All the recipes (and everyone in the groups I cross-posted to) said that cornbread must be made in a cast iron skillet for best results.

Of course, I didn't have a cast iron skillet but I wasn't prepared to let that deter me from the best side dish for chili con carne, ever.

I went immediately, looking for a recipe to start with as a base, with the added requirement of no cast iron. I settled on Ina Garten's Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread.

I sought out the episode that shows Ina's demonstration of the cornbread. Because I had never made it before, I watched it a number of times (probably more than ten) and took copious notes. You can also watch the episode here, if you like:

I always make the recipe exactly as indicated the first time, taking notes on what worked, what didn't, how and what I would change the next time I make it and things that would make the process easier/faster.

The recipe (see link above) struck me as very bland.

In the base recipe, there is no spice component whatsoever, with the only flavor additives being salt, scallions and jalapeños.

When I made it again, I decided to play with spices, adding things I would normally add if I were making a pot of chili con carne.

I thought a lot about the fact that chili con carne is a campfire food...a meal a cowboy would eat; hearty and satisfying after a long day of being outdoors and being active. There's a flavor that only campfire cooking can add... which is smoke.

Keeping that in mind, I added:

• onion powder
• garlic powder
• chili powder (repeat and reinforce the smoky flavor)
• chipotlé powder (chipotlés are smoked jalapeños. I wanted to reinforce and repeat the smoky flavor and echo the jalapeños, again)
• cumin
• chili flakes
• smoked sea salt (repeat, reinforce)
• ground black pepper (black pepper hits different areas of the tongue; used for layering of flavor, not heat)
• smoked paprika (repeat, reinforce. Paprika also acts to color the cornbread that gives a beautiful "orange-y" color)

Here again, I will repeat my note on spices: spice and heat are not the same. Do not be afraid of spices. Spices mean flavor. Layered, reinforced flavors. This is what all those celebrity chef shows are talking about when they say things like, "depth of flavor"...."complexity of flavor".

Spices. Use them. Know them. Love them.

The batter is very easy to put together. It's a quick dish to make, with not many steps to follow. When I did it, I measured all of the dry ingredients into my mixing bowl and then made a well.

I mixed all of the wet ingredients together in a glass measuring cup. This means measuring once and dirtying only one dish.

Pour into the well you've made and mix thoroughly. You may find it helpful to lift up the bowl and check the bottom to make sure all of your flour is mixed in properly.

Notes on additives:

1. I used marble cheddar, because that's what I had on hand, when I made it. I also tried the recipe with the white cheddar as indicated. I preferred the taste of marble, overall.
   
2. Ina's recipe did not call for fresh garlic. I love garlic, so I added several cloves, finely chopped.
   
3. The original recipe called for the jalapeños to be seeded (the seeds and ribs have all of the heat). If you do not like spice, remove them and be careful not to touch your face, eyes or mouth when so doing. I like heat, so I left the seeds in and chopped them superfine in a miniature food processor. I used two whole jalapeños. I added them to the batter with the wet.
   
4. This batter can withstand the weight of additions without adding density. I used about a half cup of cooked, crumbled smoked (see what I did, there?) bacon. Interesting little bite, if you're into bacon.  

Notes on baking without Cast Iron:

You do not need a cast iron pan to make this recipe. It will still be good if you bake it in a standard 9x13" cake pan.  Cooking it in cast iron allows you to achieve that crispy, crunchy crust on the outside but keeping the soft, springy texture on the inside. This is because cast iron can take (and hold) a lot of fucking heat.

When I made this the first time, I used an oven safe stainless steel skillet (Lagostina, baby!) rated to 500⁰F. This is very important (obviously). Your skillet must be oven proofed.

Here's what I did:

• Heat the oven to the highest temperature rating your pan will allow (500⁰F, in my case) and heat it for approximately 30-45 minutes. Heat the pan DRY.
• Carefully take it out of the oven, and add a few tablespoons of oil. It will start to shimmer immediately, which means it's hot. 
• Add the batter. You will hear it sizzle, which is what you want. The sizzle is what gives you the crispy, crunchy crust.
• Turn the oven down to the indicated temperature and bake as usual.

I didn't like that the top of the bread was crusty and the bottom was not. So, when the cook time was done, I flipped it out onto a plate, inverted the bread back into the pan with the bottom up and allowed the bottom to crisp.

This is unnecessary; I'm a nitpicker and I wanted it to be perfect, because I like the "oohs" and "aahs" I get when I make something for people.

When I took the cake to my cousin's, she said it was "the best cornbread she'd ever had". I honest to God cried.

To me, this means so much more because she lived and worked in Louisiana for a long, long time. She knows her Southern Food.

Yes, Ma'am.

I must say though, Ina is remiss making the corn bread in a cake pan but we'll just pretend I didn't say that. The corn bread is 1,000 times better when made in cast iron.

I got a Cast Iron pan for Christmas, this year. What a game changer. My cornbread will never be the same.

Notes on cast iron cooking:

The heat is *no joke*. I wear two oven mitts on each hand and it is still screaming hot. Hot, hot hot!
If you accidentally touch it unprotected, even for just a second, you will know it.

I have a permanent scar. It took six weeks for that to properly heal. The skin broke twice and re-blistered. No matter: that cornbread will be worth it, every time.

Cast Iron is HEAVY, even when it is empty. If you are not confident in your upper body strength, get someone to help you. 

When it is done, it looks like this:

It's beautiful. I have made this at least a dozen times since, and have made some additional modifications. They are:

- adding one extra egg
- adding one half cup extra cornmeal. I use medium grind.
- increased baking temperature to 400⁰F and increasing the baking time to 40 minutes.

Allow to cool sufficiently before turning out and cutting, or your bread will crumble and break apart....if you can wait that long.

I usually can't.

Love.