At around this time of the year, cornbread recipes in every imaginable variation start inundating the web. Understandable, really, considering that cornbread is a traditional Thanksgiving side dish.
I have read that in its earliest form, cornbread was a simple mixture of ground corn (cornmeal) and water. The kind eaten today — softer and more flavorful with the inclusion of wheat flour, sugar, eggs, milk and, sometimes, even bacon fat — was not born until the 20th century.
I’m not American and I did not grow up on cornbread. My introduction to this batter-type bread was in the form of a muffin that I enjoyed tremendously at a christening party held at Kenny Rogers Roasters over three decades ago. That was before the restaurant chain was sold to the Malaysia-based Berjaya corporation.
After we moved to the suburb where Kenny Rogers Roasters was unheared of, I missed the cornbread muffins so much but had no way of buying a box without driving down to the city. Imagine my joy when I came across a copycat recipe which, to this day, I still treasure.
The most difficult part of baking cornbread muffins at home proved to be sourcing cornmeal. When I discovered where we could get it (Unimart!), I decided that the cornbread muffin recipe could be treated as a base — a canvas, really — to which almost anything could be added. No need to change the recipe — just add things to it.
Things like what?
A thick slice of sausage, for example. Make the batter, pour into a muffin pan, then press a fat piece of sausage at the center. As the batter cooks, it rises and enfolds the sausage. The highly spiced meat, meanwhile, renders fat in the heat and the rendered fat moistens and flavors the batter. Definitely a mutually-satisfactory coupling.
Cheese, or a combination of cheeses, is another lovely addition to basic cornbread. In the photo above, the cornbread muffins were baked with sharp cheddar, feta and mozzarella.
Tip: If adding cheese to cornbread batter, cut the cheese (or cheeses) into small cubes (ideally, no larger than a quarter inch) or coarsely shred it, toss in a little flour then fold into the batter (tossing the cheese in flour helps prevent them from sinking to the bottom during baking).
But I think that my best cornbread muffins, so far, are the ones baked with browned Spanish chorizo and finely sliced scallions. The casing of the chorizo is discarded, the sausagemeat broken into small pieces and cooked in an oil-free pan until browned. The scallions are stirred in and cooked with the sausagemeat until limp. The mixture is cooled then folded into the cornbread batter along with the shredded corn.
More non-traditional “things” you can add to the basic cornbread muffin recipe:
- Crumbled cooked bacon (you may want to replace half of the butter with rendered bacon fat);
- Chopped ham (salty works best)
- Finely sliced chilies (I recommend chilies with mild heat)
- Chopped roasted and skinned bell peppers
Mix and match as you please.
