Intro
Crisp organic kernels of rich blue corn burst into mild, creamy, smooth cornbread melting in the mouth in bubbling delight, as if some wonderful honey-tasting elixir or divine nectar were about to be released. When Mexican cornbread becomes a cherished part of the meal, it can be a unique flavor experience in which many folks delight. Mexican cornbread both mirrors the struggle and heroics of ancient Mesoamerican civilizations and reflects the bountiful gifts of New World Flora and Madre Tierra. It is ancient corn, artful cooking, modern nutrition, and multicultural fusion at its best. It is a history lesson in a delicious little package.
Around the world, cornbread is made in many shapes and forms, alone or studded with good things. Commonly, cornbread is made with a combination of sweetcorn, or yellow corn, or white corn, wheaten flour, buttermilk, cornmeal, cornstarch, eggs, buttermilk and often salt, baking soda, sugar, and baking powder. However, traditional Mexican cornbread has no wheaten flour in it. The Mexican version of home-style cornbread is seasoned with select ingredients such as wood-burned, pungent, toasty dried hot chiles; sweet or tangy and spicy tomatillos; roasted hot green chiles, chopped green onion, cilantro, shredded cheese; and crisp-cooked, crumbled, highly seasoned chorizo or cooked pinto or even black beans, or steamed fresh corn kernels! These are the hallmark ingredients we have found in Mexican cornbread.
1.1. Background and Significance of Mexican Cornbread
Although cornbread has existed since the North American Indian, the southern cornbread has not, says Crescent Dragonwagon, author of The Cornbread Gospels. True southern cornbread, she maintains, is fry bread, made from shockingly few ingredients: self-rising cornmeal, water, and some sort of fat. Steve Sando of the California-based gourmet bean company Rancho Gordo speculates that thrifty southern housewives added buttermilk when their sour-milk batter soured too thoroughly. Escoffier, who never heard of southern cornbread, preferred adding the buttermilk directly. Dragonwagon, who says she learned southern cornbread from her Arkansas family and godmother, is the daughter of feminist artist Elsie Bower, who took cooking lessons from her Flemish immigrant housekeeper Luzelle and wrote about her recipes. However, inheriting an egg allergy, Dragonwagon avoided incorporating them into southern cornbread. Her godmother assured her mother that cell foam was unnecessary, as long as the baking powder was fresh. Since cornbread did rise in the extreme heat of Dutch ovens suspended over a leaping wood fire, her godmother must have been right.
Internet journalists claim that Juan Gonzales is the inventor of Mexican cornbread. Born in 1908 in Gastro-Salinas, Texas, this descendant of the old aristocracy in San Marcos, where the story unfolds, first baked Mexican cornbread in a 1971 Betty Crocker contest. Juan frequently demonstrates his Mexican cornbread recipe over a wood fire in cast iron. Juan’s version, which costs a fourth of a dollar a serving, is creamier and has fewer insect parts than other varieties, his bread theory goes, because unlike others, he does not cook the flour. Juan’s Mexican cornbread batter is made of eggs, milk, frying oil (not butter, which will have soured over four years), flour, cornmeal, and cheese. Dropping eight dabs of chipotle before dropping sinkers made Juan the monarch of most Dutch ovens. Whether nourishing pioneers with butter, bacon, or ham; registering chuckwagon crews at a thousand; warming roving lukewarmers on a little hillside; or masquerading as lovelorn lovers in a TV tearjerker, relief food beware: dinner moms do tantalize testosterone tyrants. Juan Gonzales’ other version marries a third of a cup of broth, a third of a cup of olive oil, and a box each of Jiffy cornbread and Jiffy yellow cake mix. … Linda Carman resurrected Juan’s long-forgotten Katrina cornbread.
Mexican Cornbread (Best I Ever Had!)
-1 cup self-rising yellow cornmeal
-1/2 cup oil
-1 cup milk *
-3 eggs
-1 cup shredded cheddar
-1 cup chopped onion
-1/2 tsp ground red pepper
-1 – 8oz can southwest corn or Fiesta or Mexicorn
-1# ground chuck
*Brown and drain meat*
Spoon 1tbs or so of Crisco in a 12″ cast iron skillet and place in oven. (Maybe wait til oven is at 300 before putting skillet in to preheat.)
Preheat oven to 425
Wait til oven is almost ready before mixing all ingredients in a bowl or cornmeal will dry out.
Once oven is preheated, CAREFULLY remove skillet with melted Crisco from oven.
While grease is still hot, CAREFULLY pour mixture into skillet. (It will sizzle and might splash) *If you made a little too much, don’t overfill skillet.*
Bake at 425 for 30 min or until brown and passes toothpick test.
*I am thinking about trying this recipe with ground medium or hot sausage instead of ground beef.
If you try it, let me know how it turns out.
