Food & Music 1: cornbread & Delius

Nearly 10pm. I´m listening to the music of Frederick Delius  and Elgar.

 I´ve been craving fresh made bread, or Southern buttermilk biscuits, or.... Well looking in the larder, at what I did and didn´t have, namely flour, I remembered:

Sour Cream cornbread!

And that´s what I decided to make. Am heating the oven up now...as I write down the recipe for you:

Pg 92 of The Heritage of Southern Cooking by Camille Glenn. I´ve taken a few liberties with the original recipe, as I know how to make cornbread (so know what I could get away with), only had a about a TBS of flour, and am hungry now. I didn´t want to wait even a half hour!,)

 

Preheat oven to 218C (I heat it higher, turn it down to 218C after opening the oven and putting in the pan, so the temperature is at 218C).

Into one bowl, add everything in order:

1 c polenta (yellow corn meal)
1 c sour cream (I used thick plain Greek yogurt as that is what I had)
dash salt
1 TBS sugar (as I like my cornbread sweet)
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix all this up.

Add 2 whole eggs, 4 TBS oil (as I didn´t want to spend the time melting the same amount of butter the recipe calls for), and 2 TBS whole milk.

Mix all this up til smooth.

Pour into a shallow rectangular cornbread pan that has been oiled. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or til done. Done is when the top is golden, not burnt, and a toothpick comes out clean. The original recipe calls for a square pan, and about half an hour of cooking. You can do that too. My pan also has gold on the outside of the metal, so that helps things cook more evenly and shorter time. My cornbread was done so quickly, I barely had time to write and post this, then rush to the kitchen! Just in time to get it out of the oven. Perfect. Light, airy, fluffy, hot. Exactly what I wanted.

                          btw that´s shaved dark chocolate bits inside a cup of hot chocolate mmm

Enjoy!

Tomorrow I´m making another Southern dish: black-eyed peas with ham hocks. Tonight I´m soaking the dried beans, to cook tomorrow.


PHOTO