Read Online The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Crescent Dragonwagon
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came in. When you see it, you know how little it was. Of the one hundred two passengers on the Mayflower, only fifty-one survived. I am descended from two of them. So I give thanks to my ancestors, who struggled against all odds.”
—C AROLINE L EWIS K ARDELL,
HISTORIAN GENERAL OF THE G ENERAL S OCIETY OF M AYFLOWER D ESCENDANTS IN P LYMOUTH , M ASSACHUSSETTS
L AND OF M ILK AND H ONEY C USTARD -L AYERED C ORNBREAD
M AKES 12 SQUARES
This is a magical, surprising cornbread. An improbably thin, eggy, milky batter bakes into a tri-part cornbread, with a thin but distinct layer of voluptuous custard sandwiched between a cornbready bottom layer and a light topping of the risen bran and fresh corn kernels.
This is my crossbreeding of two similar recipes from two very different places. The first is from my well-worn, old (1970! And with age spots and drizzles to prove it!) Tassajara Bread Book , by Edward Espe Brown. The second is from an almost-as-old and also much-dripped-on handwritten recipe card bearing the recipe I begged from a stranger at a Thanksgiving potluck in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 cup stone-ground yellow or white cornmeal
½ cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup unbleached white flour
2¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar, preferably unrefined (see Pantry, page 356 )
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup honey
3 tablespoons butter
3¼ cups milk
2 eggs
Kernels cut from 2 to 3 ears of fresh corn, 1 to 1½ cups (see Shuck and Jive )
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9-by-11-inch baking pan with oil.
2. Stir together the cornmeal, flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a small bowl to blend well. Set aside.
3. Gently warm the honey and butter in a medium-size saucepan over medium-low heat until the honey thins slightly and the butter melts. Whisk in the milk, and then the eggs.
4. Combine the wet and dry mixtures, whisking a few times. Gaze suspiciously at the batter, which will look too thin. Stir in the fresh corn kernels.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the top of the cornbread is golden brown and springs back when lightly touched, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool for at least 30 minutes to give the custard a chance to fully set up before cutting into the cornbread, but do serve it warm.
S HUCK AND J IVE : F RESH C ORN OFF THE C OB
Fresh corn, cut from the cob, is needed for many cornbreads, muffins, most corn fritters, and things like corn chowder, kernel-sparkled salads, or truly incredible from-scratch creamed corn or succotash. Removing the corn is not difficult, but is certainly more time-consuming than dumping out frozen kernels.
Since most kernel-corn–containing recipes taste good with frozen corn, why go to this trouble? Because fresh-kernel corn takes “good” to a whole other galaxy. It ramps up the corn flavor itself, a pronounced taste of corn-ness that frozen just can’t achieve. And then there’s the texture: tiny explosions of sweet milky corn juice as you crunch down on fresh kernels … summer in your mouth.
To make corn shucking and cutting slightly less messy (remember: each cob yields about ½ cup off-the-cob kernels):
1. Shuck the corn, removing as much silk as you can. Working one cob at a time, hold the cob upright in a wide, shallow bowl or glass pie pan, stem end of the cob down. Take a sharp chef’s knife and slide the blade down the cob, fairly close to the cob. You’ll get about 2 or 3 rows of kernels with each slice. Rotate the cob and proceed down again, continuing to rotate until most kernels are removed. Then lift the cob over the shallow bowl and, using quick, short knife-strokes, cut off the remaining kernels at the ends of the cob, where there’s a slight inward curve.
2. Save de-kerneled cobs to make corn stock, or toss them into the compost.
·M·E·N·U·
C ICADA S ONATA S UMMER S UPPER
Salad of Baby Arugula, Diced Yellow Tomato, Minced Scallion, and a Sprinkling of Crumbled Raw-Milk Gouda
—C AROLINE L EWIS K ARDELL,
HISTORIAN GENERAL OF THE G ENERAL S OCIETY OF M AYFLOWER D ESCENDANTS IN P LYMOUTH , M ASSACHUSSETTS
L AND OF M ILK AND H ONEY C USTARD -L AYERED C ORNBREAD
M AKES 12 SQUARES
This is a magical, surprising cornbread. An improbably thin, eggy, milky batter bakes into a tri-part cornbread, with a thin but distinct layer of voluptuous custard sandwiched between a cornbready bottom layer and a light topping of the risen bran and fresh corn kernels.
This is my crossbreeding of two similar recipes from two very different places. The first is from my well-worn, old (1970! And with age spots and drizzles to prove it!) Tassajara Bread Book , by Edward Espe Brown. The second is from an almost-as-old and also much-dripped-on handwritten recipe card bearing the recipe I begged from a stranger at a Thanksgiving potluck in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 cup stone-ground yellow or white cornmeal
½ cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup unbleached white flour
2¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar, preferably unrefined (see Pantry, page 356 )
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup honey
3 tablespoons butter
3¼ cups milk
2 eggs
Kernels cut from 2 to 3 ears of fresh corn, 1 to 1½ cups (see Shuck and Jive )
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9-by-11-inch baking pan with oil.
2. Stir together the cornmeal, flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a small bowl to blend well. Set aside.
3. Gently warm the honey and butter in a medium-size saucepan over medium-low heat until the honey thins slightly and the butter melts. Whisk in the milk, and then the eggs.
4. Combine the wet and dry mixtures, whisking a few times. Gaze suspiciously at the batter, which will look too thin. Stir in the fresh corn kernels.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the top of the cornbread is golden brown and springs back when lightly touched, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool for at least 30 minutes to give the custard a chance to fully set up before cutting into the cornbread, but do serve it warm.
S HUCK AND J IVE : F RESH C ORN OFF THE C OB
Fresh corn, cut from the cob, is needed for many cornbreads, muffins, most corn fritters, and things like corn chowder, kernel-sparkled salads, or truly incredible from-scratch creamed corn or succotash. Removing the corn is not difficult, but is certainly more time-consuming than dumping out frozen kernels.
Since most kernel-corn–containing recipes taste good with frozen corn, why go to this trouble? Because fresh-kernel corn takes “good” to a whole other galaxy. It ramps up the corn flavor itself, a pronounced taste of corn-ness that frozen just can’t achieve. And then there’s the texture: tiny explosions of sweet milky corn juice as you crunch down on fresh kernels … summer in your mouth.
To make corn shucking and cutting slightly less messy (remember: each cob yields about ½ cup off-the-cob kernels):
1. Shuck the corn, removing as much silk as you can. Working one cob at a time, hold the cob upright in a wide, shallow bowl or glass pie pan, stem end of the cob down. Take a sharp chef’s knife and slide the blade down the cob, fairly close to the cob. You’ll get about 2 or 3 rows of kernels with each slice. Rotate the cob and proceed down again, continuing to rotate until most kernels are removed. Then lift the cob over the shallow bowl and, using quick, short knife-strokes, cut off the remaining kernels at the ends of the cob, where there’s a slight inward curve.
2. Save de-kerneled cobs to make corn stock, or toss them into the compost.
·M·E·N·U·
C ICADA S ONATA S UMMER S UPPER
Salad of Baby Arugula, Diced Yellow Tomato, Minced Scallion, and a Sprinkling of Crumbled Raw-Milk Gouda
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