A recipe for corn bread, again

This started off with chili—Smitten Kitchen’s three-bean, to be precise—which tends to be the only thing that really prompts me to make corn bread (except if I have a lot of extra corn and need to make a different corn bread recipe from this cookbook). It resulted in me wandering the aisles of Hannaford pondering the difference between white and yellow cornmeal, when it’s very clearly in the name—white corn versus yellow corn. I had Indian Head Stone Ground (surprisingly still called this…) in the cabinet, but that is, as is also clear from the name, rather rough, and something about this recipe suggested to me that I should go for a slightly more refined grain.

What I ended up purchasing was not white cornmeal, but it was ground finer than what I had, and that seemed like it would do the trick. The larger issue then became that this recipe does not make any sense. Sure, the ingredients are clear and simple enough, but the recipe notes are much less so. The recipe says one skillet is needed, but then it says “divide remaining 1/4 cup of butter between them, then divide batter between pans,” which is pans plural. The amateur recipe archaeologist in me concluded that it’s likely two recipes were mangled together here, resulting in a confusing final set of instructions.

Whatever the origin, it gave me pause—were the proportions going to be severely off if I just put them in one skillet? From checking proportions of similar corn bread recipes, I concluded no, it would be okay. (My notes literally say “how hard can this be? Well, it might be hard to make it amazing.” I had a moment of pause where I worried I’d scramble the cold eggs in the hot butter, which happens when one is cutting corners as I tend to do, but it all worked out okay.

Yet again, however, the “recipe” reared its ugly head—there was no length of cooking time mentioned. I assumed it’d be around 15 or 20 minutes, and again after googling, set the timer for 15 and checked it then. I gave the corn bread five more, but it was very nicely cooked at that point, and though I was worried about the bottom being burned, it was well browned.

The chili was delicious, and one guest went back and had thirds of the corn bread, so I guess that worked out alright too.

KATE

Donations time: Since we took a holiday break last month, $277 went to The Food Bank of Iowa. This month, donations will go to Crop Trust, whose “mission is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide.” You can sign up to become a donor to this newsletter for $5 a month or $30 a year right here.