I would like to preface this entry with a note that this cornbread success story is 1 part in a Brisket Cookoff between Chilerown and I over this last weekend. It was quite an adventure, a cool one too, and just couldn’t wait to tell you about the cornbread. I’ll get the Beef Brisket Fun written and up soon, I promise.
Over the last few years I’ve been chasing Meathead’s Southern Cornbread and there’s good reason. It’s one of the finest things I’ve ever put in my mouth. However, the recipe is elusive because over nearly 3 or 4 generations, there’s no written recipe! He wrote me up another one with a different oven temperature and I decided it was time to give it one more shot.
While the brisket was braising, I rendered the fat from nearly 2 pounds of bacon, oh yeah. You don’t need that much bacon for 1/4 cup of fat though, less than a pound should do FINE.
I find a nice old dutch oven makes a great place to do loads of bacon. The flying fat don’t get plastered from here to there.
Here’s the recipe:
Buttermilk – 2 cuppa
Eggs – 1 Egg
Bacon Fat – 1/4 cuppa
Mayonaise – an optional dollup
Corn Meal – 2 cuppa
Baking Soda – 3/4 teaspoonful
Salt (Kosher) – Pinch it!
Combine dry with dry and wet with wet. No wait, preheat your oven to 450 first, I lowered rack to bottom. Then combine dry with dry and wet with wet and make sure you sift the B. Soda.
I let my buttermilk & egg lose it’s chill.
Rub your 10″ or 12″ cast iron skillet with liberal amounts of bacon fat.
If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, you cannot reproduce this cornbread. Stop now and either give up or find one, ask Mommy or Gramma.
Mix your batter together and pour into room temperature skillet. I decided since the batter looked like a blank canvas, that I should lay a slice of crisped bacon in the center with two sprigs of fresh thyme, love the thyme. Meathead won’t allow extrees, but I like the idea, so topped my batter.
Install to the oven for about 25 minutes or so, until done.
Let rest a while and SLICE. Serve with a pat of butter over top with honey slooping down and allowing to puddle on the plate.
Life has never been this good.
Biggles
Mmmmm… That recipe justifys the purchase of another cast iron skillet. Good stuff – now you need some chili with that
this recipe sounds perfect for my Weight Gain program! Except that I have an aversion to using mayonnaise as a baking ingredient…
Hey— what is the best way to acquire FC product if one can not make it to the FM? That bacon is so goddamned good I ate it every day until it was finished!!! And now I miss it… :{
You should try his Hummus! It’s the best I ever had in all of Detroit! garlic and lemon goodness!Ya’ know HE was a vegaterian……hertic!
Well congrats on nailing it. (Or getting within spitting range.)
I was going to send you my favorite skillet cornbread recipe, but that was before I linked to your previous post on cornbread. Everybody had a recipe for you, and you were having NONE of it!
Mine’s custardy, anyway. Mama would hate that.
BUT: recommendation for world’s best buttermilk, just in case you don’t know, and it’s local (for you). Berkeley Farms Bulgarian-style buttermilk.
PS: Cranky thanks you for the cool refreshing beverage!
Hey Shuna,
Yeah, I dunno abou the mayo. I had a slice of cornbread that had it in it and it was just fine, really rich though. But the bacon renderings do a wonderful job.
As far as getting FC stuff, you need to either move over to this side of the bay so I can pick it up for you, heh. Or get a friend to stash it. OR, if you have a restaurant that you know orders Taylor’s stuff, have them stash some for you and pick it up from them. I would, at some point, visit the Ferry Plaza market and talk to Taylor or Toponia and ask them about it. Never hurts to ask, eh!
Biggles
Hey Glenn,
Yeah, but not the vegetarian most of us have in mind. He ate cheese doodles, chips and other manufactured foods. That only partially counts as vegetarian in my book.
Biggles
Hey Cookie,
Dangit, I can’t remember the name of the buttermilk I used. I bought that and the corn meal and some other goodies from our local hippy store. It was organic, this I know. Not too expensive either. For whatever reason El Cerrito natural has excellent prices on dairy, that’s about it though.
Biggles
I’ll have to give this a shot, I’m jonesing for cornbread.
Funny, though, I wasn’t until I saw that pic. Hmmmmm……
Cookie’s right. I don’t like no custardy cornbread (ain’t that spoonbread btw)? I like sweet and cakey cornbread the best and rich and bacony as a runner up. I like cheese and bacon and black pepper in my grits. I know this has nothing to do with cornbread…
Nice job, Biggles. Looks beyond tasty. I’m glad you finally got it!
Glenn shared with me my last meaty lunch before my stint as a veggie. A big box o’ breastesses. At the end of 7 years, I decided that Ted Nugent’s Biltong Jerky was too good looking to pass up. I’m glad I indulged too. The biltong dissappeared a year after I went back to meat eating. Returning was inevitable, because by the end I found myself peeling the salami off of slices of party store pizza. Greeezzey fat juice sliding around gooey cheesey curd may as well have been meat. I shaved my head, bought a steak and got myself a pack of condoms. The world was my oyster.
Oh yeah! Nice job on the cornbread, Biggles.
I’m still curious to see how it fairs in the ol’ Bermuda Wedgewood.
I know this post is old, but I wanted to say thanks. I was looking for cornbread recipes and couldn’t find any that didn’t have sugar or flour in them. That ain’t cornbread, as far as I’m concerned. This is exactly what I needed. Thanks!
Hey RM,
You’re welcome! It’s still being made regularly, easy. MMMMmMmmm.
Biggles
I tried this recipe. I was disappointed. It was flavorless.
Hey Marty,
Well, that sucks. It’s probably 1 of 3 things. You could very well not be a fan of cornbread that doesn’t have sugar in it, or the corn meal you used was old. This is very possible and has happened to me more than a few times. Flour/meal has a shelf life and it isn’t very long, if that box or bin sits for too long, it goes stale. I bought a bag of cornmeal fresh from a mill earlier this year and it was hands down the most fragrant, pungent meal I’ve ever had.
Or jack the salt a bit and/or use 1/3 cup bacon fat.
Don’t give up!
Biggles