REUBEN STYLE CORNBREAD?

 Ok, so I've been holding out on ya. I was just being careful. I hesitated to trot out a new recipe just because it worked excellent once. It was however, good enough that I felt  I should get some sort of award! This led to the founding of "The Order Of The Anaglyphic Pone King." We also dedicated a section @ The Flatware County General Store to cornbread related items. Admittedly  it's only two mugs now, but we're working on some other stuff.

 The first run of the Reuben Style recipe yielded great cornbread, but was short on notes and pictures. This time was better, with careful notes and even a baby picture. Considering the moisture content of the sauerkraut, I used only half of the 15 oz can of cream style corn. At the time my only available onion was already sliced up (making grating not an option). This was ok since grating onion is very juicy. The sauerkraut (even squeezed), and the cream style corn already had me a little concerned.

  Even with a cup of sauerkraut, the two tablespoons of onion minced (instead of about a hand-full grated and squeezed), and the  half a can of cream style corn, left my batter a little short. The consistency  was normal enough, but I ran out of batter when my next to last mini-loaf had only half enough. A little quick spoon shoveling settled this discrepancy. The next rub came when I got to the end of the corned beef two loaves short of 16. This time I liked the distribution of ingredients well enough to see what a couple of vegetarian mini-loaves were like (excellent, by the way).

 At 28 minutes they had begun to pull-away. The browning, apparent at edges, didn't seem like it had gone near as far as it could. I stayed and watched through the oven window to make sure they didn't get too dark and let them cook.

 



                                                                                     At 31 minutes the edges looked like they might go from brown to black soon, so I opened the oven to check, Woo-Hoo. Considering how big they got in process they didn't seem very tall.

 After cooling near the window for 5 minutes they all released perfectly. The crust was beautiful and the first one was gone before I had a chance to really appreciate just how well I liked it. The crumb to crust ratio was spot on. With a bowl of bean and bacon soup, the next three disappeared in short order. After they cooled (while the soup warmed) I layered the rest up in a cloth lined bowl. They were a hit with everyone who tried them. Fortunately two pieces lasted till dinner time the next day. They went great with butter beans and a tomato, okra, corn, dish, mmm.

ADD ADOBO DUDE!

----------------AS FIRST SEEN IN THE FLATWARE COUNTY GAZETTE---------------

You tell em Flintstien. Who needs complicated mnemonic devices to remember the pronunciations, chipotle and Adobo? They're only two of my favorite "Kentucky Cornbread" accessories so far.

Busted! Alright, you got me. I have been seein' another blog on the side again. I started a couple of months ago browsing cookbooks and the web, comparing cornbread recipes. After examining a dozen or so, I found the recipe I liked best and had my way with it. With only a few changes Betty Seals's "Kentucky Cornbread" recipe  became "Kentucky Cornbread 2.0."

  Starting from this Foundation Pone I have tried a number of variations, and made a point of taking notes and making lots of pictures. So many of the experimental cornbread recipes were worth making again that I began the "Cornbread Chronicle" blog to chart my progress and share the better recipes. Unfortunately the research has been running well ahead of the articles.

 If muffin tins or mini-loaf pans are used this recipe yields four types of cornbread, a few plain ones, a few with just cheese, some with a teaspoon of adobo sauce, a generous quantity of finely sliced chipotle peppers and cheddar, and finally a few with jalapeños and plenty of cheddar.

                                          

                                                              MIX NOTES

 The 3/4 cup of corn oil is all the oil used in this recipe. It is shared out to add 1teaspoon or slightly less to each cell of the loaf pans or muffin tins, before adding the remaining oil to the batter. I like to preheat the oiled tins before adding the batter, but set them aside for now while you get the batter and accessories ready.

  About half a medium sized onion is all you'll need. Gather it up and squeeze out the excess juice. Dispose of the juice and add the squeezed out onion to the other wet ingredients and mix well.   If you haven't yet, begin preheating the oven to 425°F. Mix notes continued after accessories prep.

                                                            ACCESSORIES

I use about 1/4 cup
 of nacho slices minus their centers  (4 to 6 slices per mini-loaf). Pour the chipotle peppers and the adobo sauce into a bowl, and select 3 or  4 peppers.

Split em, scrape em out, and slice em as fine as possible (mine approach 1/8 inch wide). Alright, got all your ingredients on little dishes? Good, if the oven has preheated, it's time to put those oiled pans in to preheat.

MIX NOTES CONTINUED
The pans don't take long to heat up but you should have time to stir in the cornmeal and mix well. I use a quarter cup measuring cup to parcel out the batter. It works great. This recipe makes about 4 cups.


                                             

The distribution of the jalapenos isn't too picky. Just get plenty in each one that gets them. The chipotle peppers are a little more sensitive. The picture shows more than enough for the five chipotle-loaves. Too many in one area can be a little too hot. Slightly less than a teaspoon of adobo is plenty per chipotle mini-loaf.  A little more than tablespoon  of cheese will probably use up most of the 3 or 4 oz of shredded and or cubed cheese. Below is a picture of the batter covered with chipotle, cheddar, and adobo, ready to be carefully submerged with a fork .

Bake at 425°F for 25-28 min and cool for 5 min.  I let mine cool and dry a little while on edge. To preserve their crunch, store them in a bowl or basket lined with a clean cloth, carefully separating and covering   them.    

    
 We did eat every crumb.                                                

CINNAMON PEACH CHEERIO CRISPY TREATS

I poured the cereal in the pans first to figure how much I needed. It took about a box and a half of Cinnamon Cheerios to fill my two 9x12in cake pans about 1 1/4 inches deep. This made eight bags of six squares, wrapped in pairs in wax-paper, plus a couple to snack on.

To begin with, Pam (though it didn't appear in the ingredients photo) was very handy in this process. Rice crispy treats are so familiar that a lot of you probably already know the recipe by heart, it's also on the marshmallow bag. Warning, sliver the peaches, measure the cereal, and prep your pans while the butter (I used margarine) is melting. To prep the pans, I sprayed some Pam in them, not a lot, since it's only to make the wax-paper stick. I sprayed a smaller amount onto the upper surface of the wax-paper and wiped it around, sticking the wax-paper down smoother and depositing a thin coat of oil to minimize sticking while not making the treats greasy.

                                 


Start by melting 1/2 stick of butter or margarine in a fairly big pot. Then add the marshmallows and melt them, on low heat. I added the slivered, dried peaches to the molten margarine/marshmallow mixture and stirred it till the marshmallows got hot again, then added the cereal. Since the dried peaches were already mixed into the marshmallow/margarine mix they spread through the cereal with it for a pretty uniform distribution. After stirring till I was pretty sure that all the peaches and marshmallow had been mixed in, I dumped half into each of my lined, lightly oiled pans.

 Herding the sticky mass around and mashing it into all the corners and maintaining a fairly even thickness was made much easier by a mixing spoon with a little Pam sprayed on lightly then wiped nearly off. When it looks good, cover with non-oiled wax-paper and allow to cool and firm up.

After they cooled, I flipped the pans (one at a time) onto a cutting board. The top wax-paper was now underneath. I peeled the oily wax-paper off and carefully trashed the oily mess. Now the Pam goes on the blade of a fairly big knife. Once again use a bit of paper towel or napkin and spread a thin coat over the blade.

  Even though there's more cereal in these than the recipe on the marshmallow bag called for, they're still sticky. The wax paper makes them easier to eat without getting sticky fingers, and makes them easier to get out of the bag whole.

Mmmm, peachy!

BACON-SAUERKRAUT CORNBREAD

I know they're not coming out in order, this is actually "Kentucky Cornbread 2.4," but this one couldn't wait. While this was not the most heart-smart cornbread so far. That one didn't get a number, yogurt instead of sour cream, extra virgin olive oil instead of corn oil, yuck, and it took as long as good cornbread dammit. A pound of bacon and its drippings helped to make this one of the most tasty in the "Kentucky Cornbread" series so far. Sauerkraut, banana peppers, and extra sharp cheddar rounded out what turned out to be one of our favorites. The crust was crispy and beautiful, and they all released from the mini-loaf pans perfectly. Like a number of the other first draft recipes I've done, this one had silly illustrations. Anyway, here's a picture of the set of ingredients (turned out I was out of jalapeños, but the bacon was cooked, so this picture will have to do for now) followed by Helmut's first draft:

                             Ok, you got the recipe, at least the list part, but when I gave a print-out to a friend I realized that there should be a little more to it. For one thing, the bacon drippings and corn oil should total 3/4cup, you should hold off adding the oil/drippings to the batter till you have used some of it. Add 1/2 to 3/4 of a teaspoon from it to each cell of your pans before preheating them. While the pans are heating up, stir the remaining oil/drippings into the batter. Half fill each cell of the hot, oiled pans with batter and add the bacon, peppers, and cheese.

What the hey, I took more pictures than I thought I'd need, and this was real good cornbread, so here's its baby pictures. The first shows add-in distribution. A pound is a lot of bacon, even counting the nibble factor, but I wanted each one to have a good bit. I went for breaking it up and adding it to each mini-loaf.

The peppers were amazing, and I'm glad I was out of jalapeños. The banana peppers were a little lighter, and the sauerkraut and bacon were doing things too good to mask. The ones without peppers were great for breakfast.                        

 Once I was satisfied with the distribution, I mashed everything under the surface as gently as I could with a fork. I tried to keep the cheese away from the edges, but I don't think it really mattered much.                         

The next picture is supposed to show how the edge is browned and has  pulled away, as the slightly shrunken loaves begin to release from the pan. The pull-away, the color, and a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf coming out dry, are all signs that the cornbread is done. The picture blurred but I was ready to eat and felt silly taking so many pictures of cornbread. (I'll replace it when I can.)

After cooling on racks for 5 min. (in this case, the cake pans they were turned out into next), the mini-loaves were set on edge to continue to cool and dry a little. All too often cornbread is wrapped in foil or placed in plastic bags. This allows the moisture migrating from the interior of the loaves to concentrate at the surface and ruin the crunch. To store them while preserving their crunchy crust, they can be placed in a basket (or bowl, works for me) lined with a clean dish cloth or hand towel and wrapped, separated, and covered with same. It sometimes takes more than one cloth. It works so well that a day or even two days later, cornbread loaves stored this way in the fridge, when placed on a wire rack in the toaster oven and warmed, have a good crunchy crust--almost like they just came out of the pan.

LACTOSE FREE KENTUCKY CORNBREAD

This is the cornerstone of all our present pone, since so far all my cornbread experiments have been variations on this recipe. I looked at about a dozen recipes and settled on a variation of Betty Seale's Kentucky Cornbread that uses buttermilk instead of sour cream. The recipe I started with came from the Houston, Texas Fair Oaks Baptist Church's 1996 "Favorite Recipes Cookbook." Betty's recipe, below, calls for 1 carton or cup of sour cream and minced onion. Apart from these changes and picking a temperature, we stayed pretty close to her recipe.

I found out that the same bacteria that make buttermilk`s twangy taste also eat up most of the milk sugar. Cool I really like that slight twang in cornbread anyway.