Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen: The First Recipes

As I promised, I’m cooking from my brand-new Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen over the next month and sharing the results here. At the end of the month, I’ll post a full-fledged review, but until then, you’ll just have to ogle the pictures. Try not to drool!

Last night, our theme was a warm-weather barbecue. From the cookbook, I made this gorgeous and delicious Salt and Pepper Skillet Cornbread. Honestly, this is going to be my main cornbread recipe from now on, it’s that good.

To accompany, my husband grilled chicken slathered with West Tennessee Thick and Sticky BBQ Sauce. This sauce was so easy to make, and it tasted delicious. We had simply grilled eggplant slices to accompany.

I also made Sara Foster’s Pimiento Cheese. Pimiento cheese is not my favorite thing, but it tastes miles better when it’s homemade, as opposed that florescent orange stuff they sell in the grocery store. No photo, but the recipe is online, and you can serve it on toasts made from the cornbread, which here’s my little one very much enjoyed.

Thanks to my husband for doing the grilling and taking the photos!

The Secret Ingredient Is Corn

Image via Wikipedia

If last night’s dinner was on Iron Chef, the secret ingredient would have been corn. For the main course, I served a warming corn and potato chowder, perfect for a snowy day. It was accompanied by a hearty cornbread. Why so much corn? I was mainly trying to use up the bag of frozen corn I opened (I didn’t quite succeed), plus the two dishes seemed to complement each other.

Since I started the soup early in the afternoon, I finished the corn and potato chowder in the slow cooker, but it would have worked just as well on the stovetop. My only issue was that I got hungry and turned off the slow cooker a little too early, so the potatoes were not as tender I would have liked (they were still edible, though).

This recipe is a little different than the previous one I used. I added bacon and thickened the soup with flour. Most chowders call for cream, but I omitted it, opting instead to stir in a spoonful of sour cream just before serving. The updated recipe is below.

To go with it, I made cornbread in a skillet (which is the best way, in my opinion). I wanted something hearty, so I added more corn and grated cheddar. It was delicious, and leftovers will be tasty as a snack or breakfast.

Corn & Potato Chowder

Serves: 4
Time to make: ~30 minutes

• 4 slices bacon, diced
• ½ medium onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp. bouquet garni or dried thyme
• ¼ cup flour
• 3 cups chicken stock or water
• 2 potatoes, diced
• 2 cups corn, thawed if frozen
• a few drops of Tabasco or 1 4-oz. can roasted chiles
• salt to taste
• shredded Monterey Jack and/or sour cream for garnish

Crisp the bacon over medium. Add the onion and garlic, and saute until translucent. Add the herbs and flour, and cook 3 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil, whisking. Add the remainder of the ingredients. Reduce to a simmer; let simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Alternatively, transfer the soup to the slow cooker and cook for 3 hours on high or 6 hours on low. Season to taste. Garnish as you like.

Skillet Cornbread: A Better Way to Make Cornbread

Making cornbread in a cast iron skillet.

I am a big fan of cornbread. This is a bread that’s hard for even anti-bakers like me to mess up. It comes together quickly, it can usually be made with whatever’s on hand (as long as you have cornmeal, and why don’t you?), and it’s appropriate for any meal or even a snack.

I usually make cornbread in a cake pan with equal parts cornmeal and flour. This makes a crumbly, lighter, bread-like cornbread that takes well to add-ins like chiles or cheese. But sometimes you want something different.

For Thanksgiving this year, I tried making cornbread the true Southern way, in a cast iron skillet. My trusty Le Creuset cast iron skillet was up to the task (one of the best investments I have made in pans). I also wanted a richer flavor befitting a special meal, so I greased the pan with bacon grease rather than oil, and I used a higher proportion of cornmeal to flour. The result was a dense, rich-tasting, cake-like cornbread that was among the best I have ever tasted. Cut into wedges fresh out of the oven, it was so moist it didn’t even need butter. I froze the leftovers and toasted them for breakfast this morning with a small pat of butter. Delicious.

Almost any way you make cornbread is a good way, I’ve found. But try out this method if you have some leftover bacon grease on hand. One thing I know for sure: I will only make cornbread in a cast iron skillet from now on.

Skillet Cornbread

Time to make: ~45 minutes plus time to cool
Yields: 8 servings

What you need:

• bacon fat
• ½ cup flour
• 1½ cups cornmeal
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. salt
• 2 lg. eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 tbsp. butter, melted and cooled
• cast-iron skillet

1. Coat the inside of the skillet with the bacon fat (or substitute a neutral oil).
2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees with the skillet inside.
3. Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and gently stir in the eggs and buttermilk.
5. Add the butter.
6. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry untl barely moistened.
7. Remove the skillet from the oven and pour in the batter.
8. Bake 25-35 minutes, until golden-brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
9. Let rest a few minutes (up to 1 hour) before serving.

Southern-style Cornbread & Sausage Stuffing

Thanksgiving is upon us. It just snuck up on me this year. I guess I have been preoccupied with other things and haven’t really given a lot of thought to the holidays.

One thing that hasn’t escaped my attention is the rampant consumerism going on all around me. Every year, I get depressed about this, but this year it seems worse than ever. The Christmas buying season now has to start immediately after Halloween, and the pressure to buy, buy, buy is relentless. I was trying to make up my Christmas list, and I could barely think of anything I really wanted. Of course, there are plenty of things we need, with the impending arrival of our first child, but why not wait until after Christmas and take advantage of the sales?

But what do I want? Living in a very limited maternity wardrobe has taught me that I don’t need much in the way of clothes. My kitchen is pretty much fully outfitted, I’m overflowing with books acquired free from BookMooch, and I don’t really need anything else. Maybe a new cookbook, a food mill for making baby food, but most of all what I want is a break.

I need a break from the full-tilt life of work and shopping and busyness that is our modern culture. One reason why I’m looking forward so much to our child’s birth is that I really feel it will force me to slow down and just be there more, just as the pregnancy has forced me to slow down and realize there’s a limit to what I can do in one day.

In conclusion to this ramble, I want to remind everyone that this Friday is Buy Nothing Day, so why not celebrate by taking a little time for yourself?

In the meantime, here’s a Thanksgiving dish that’s tasty, traditional and doesn’t require hours of advance preparation.

Cornbread & Sausage Stuffing

Time to make: ~45 minutes (not counting time to make the cornbread)
Yields: 8-10 servings

What you need:

• 1 loaf cornbread, homemade or store-bought (can be made a day or two ahead–stale cornbread works fine in this recipe)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 links Italian-style sausage (chicken sausage works great)
• 1 med. onion, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• salt, pepper and fresh or dried herbs to taste (sage and parsley are traditional)
• 9X13 baking pan, sprayed with nonstick cooking spray

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Bring the chicken stock to a simmer.
3. Remove the casings from the sausage, crumble and brown in a small amount of oil over medium.
4. Add the onion and celery, cover and cook 10 more minutes; set aside.
5. Cut the cornbread into small cubes.
6. Combine the cornbread and sausage mixture in a large bowl, and season with salt, pepper and herbs to taste.
7. Pour the chicken stock over the stuffing mixture.
8. Spoon the stuffing into the baking pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Notes: If you have time, I recommend making the stuffing ahead, which gives the cornbread plenty of time to absorb the chicken stock and the flavors. Prepare through step 7 and refrigerate overnight. Bake it the next day but extend the baking time by 10 minutes.

Adapted from a recipe in Eating Well.

How to Make Cornbread

I think every Southern cook must have their own recipe for cornbread. I recently acquired a book of recipes by writers, and one of my favorite Southern writers, Fred Chappell (who lives just up the road in Greensboro), contributed a cornbread recipe. It goes like this:

Meanwhile, be making your batter — some buttermilk, about a full drinking glass of it, four handfuls white cornmeal, salt, plenty of red or black pepper, baking powder, about a spoonful, maybe less. Put all this into a quart Mason jar. Add an egg if you like but be careful breaking. Bits of shell add texture but alarm females. Screw the top on the jar and shimmy like a Ford truck with a shot wheel bushing.

And it continues like that, which illustrates the beauty of cornbread: You can make it a dozen different ways, using the ingredients you’ve got on hand, and it’s pretty hard to mess it up. Make it for breakfast or dinner — it’s an egalitarian bread.

Here’s the way I make cornbread (feel free to adapt as suits you):

Cornbread

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Spray a 9-inch-square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Melt 2 tbsp. butter and let cool.
4. Combine 1 cup flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 4 tsp. sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. baking soda, ½ tsp. salt and ½ tsp. cayenne.
5. Make a well and gently stir in 2 large eggs.
6. Add 1 cup buttermilk (substitute milk or plain yogurt if you don’t have any buttermilk on hand).
7. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry until barely combined.
8. Add the butter.
9. Continue folding until the mixture is barely moistened.
10. Pour into the baking dish and bake until golden-brown, 25-35 minutes.

Notes: Cornbread is very accepting of add-ins. Stir any of these in with the butter:

• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 cup grated cheddar or other cheese
• ¾ cup corn kernels
• 1 chopped jalapeno
• ½ cup sauteed onions
• 2 tbsp. fresh herbs