We haven’t had one in a while and I thought, what the heck, I’ve been cooking up a few cool things the last few weeks, I should share. This is the time of the year when I’m completely bored with the winter standards, craving fresh garden foods. I fall back on soups full of veggies, and quick meals that I don’t have to give much thought or effort toward. Not every meal has to be a masterpiece. And sometimes I just want Popeye’s spicy fish sandwich (Lent is almost here, after all).
Right now I’m eating Jicama Slaw (recipe below), one of my favorite go-tos when I need a reminder that spring and summer are not far off.
Here are a few other recipes I put together this month:
Spicy Potato soup – recipe here
A Spinach Ravioli Lasagna – recipe here
And because I had workmen at the house and it was snowing like crazy, I made some jumbo cookies for them:
Jumbo Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies – Recipe here
Here’s tonight’s featured recipe, I made a few adaptations – when I made it tonight and last week, I just used my box grater. The texture is a bit different, but I wasn’t in the mood to break out the mandoline and clean it after. And I forgot to buy plain yogurt, so I substituted mayo. Not gonna lie, it was still yummy.
Jicama Slaw
I used my mandoline slicer to julienne the jicama and the cucumber. You can use the large blade on a box shredder if you don’t have a mandoline.
Dressing:
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 3 tbsp lime juice
- 2 tbsp cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Salad:
- 3 cups shredded or julienned jicama (peeled before shredding)
- 1 English cucumber*, washed and julienned
- 1 sweet bell pepper, thinly sliced (red, orange or yellow)
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 tbsp chopped Italian parsley
Combine the yogurt, lime juice, cider vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper and whisk to combine. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to allow flavors to develop.
Combine the jicama, cucumber, sweet pepper and raisins in a large bowl and add the dressing. Toss gently but thoroughly to combine. Season with additional salt and pepper, if necessary. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Just before serving toss with walnuts and parsley.
*I like the flavor of English cucumbers and they are unwaxed so I don’t peel them and they don’t need to be seeded. Peel waxed cucumbers if substituted.
That’s it for tonight. What gets you through the last days of winter in your kitchen? What’s on your plate for the weekend? Also, anyone have a good rye bread recipe, I’m craving rye bread and can’t find my old recipe.
Have at it…
Gretchen
Spicy potato soup link takes one to jicama slaw
TaMara
@Gretchen: Well, of course it does. 🤦🏻♀️Thanks! Fix’d
Old School
Looks delicious. I’m hoping to make a lasagna as well this weekend. It’s been quite a while since I’ve made one and I’ve been craving it for a while.
I also want to have stew again before winter is over.
Narya
Chocolate cake/brownie with a layer of strawberry cream cheese filling in the middle
that’s dessert to go w the homemade pizza tomorrow
pizza toppings include provolone mozzarella ricotta prosciutto roasted garlic roasted broccoli and sauce
not all on the same pizza
sab
Spicy potato soup sounds delicious. ( Why do I think of what I read as somethimg I heard?)
CarolPW
This Sunday it is a FTFNYT recipe for Salisbury steak, because I hate meatloaf, the ex loves it, and I think this is something close enough to meatloaf for him and far enough away for me that both of us might be content eating it (very much not your TV dinner version).
sab
That spinach ravioli lasagna is a shortcut recipe that I will never tell my husband is a shortcut. It might become a house favorite.
Steeplejack
Some music to cook by: Stanley Turrentine, “Walk on By.” Still in the Bacharach afterglow.
NotMax
Cold gray wet day today. Gonna indulge later this evening with crab and corn chowder found sale priced at Costco.
Just minutes ago pulled a ruby port, bleu cheese and nut loaf from the super duper bread machine. Gee, my here smells terrific.
*Pistachios ground up in the mini food processor this time.
.
Scout211
I love soup in the winter. The potato soup looks really yummy.
I made this Spicy Bean Soup recipe exactly as written (minus the extra salt) and it was good. I made it again last week with a few modifications and it’s now a keeper. I added extra veggies, substituted kidney beans for the lentils and added parmesan chicken sausage.
TaMara
Okay, dishes in the dishwasher, everyone is fed and I’m going to watch bad tv until it’s time to put the ducks to bed.
Steeplejack
Dave Brubeck remixed, “Golden Brown.”
King Curtis, “Memphis Soul Stew.”
NotMax
@Old School
Ever try using the no-boil lasagna noodles? Not a bad little time saver; close enough to the regular kind for my palate. Follow the package directions though, dish comes out best when they do not overlap by more than a smidge.
Chasm
Here’s a can’t miss, spicy-sweet-savory Dutch-Indo chicken dish passed down from my Oma via her family’s colonialist timeline:
Boemboe Bali Chicken
1 small chicken, butchered – or 6 or so bone-in skin-on thighs (what I do).
2″ fresh ginger, minced – ~ 1 Tbl
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbl (raw or brown) sugar
1 Tbl Sambal Oelek – I grew up on Conimex, but the Sriracha Rooster people make a certifiably good version. Use it. Love it.
3 Tbl Katjap Manis – Same history with the Conimex. This product is now sold in US specialty markets as “ABC Sweet Soy Sauce” by Heinz bottled in Indonesia. This thick, sweet sauce is not at all like what is labeled Chinese “Sweet Soy” sauce. Best to make your own:
–Katjap Manis: 1c. (Japanese) soy sauce, 1 1/4 c. palm or coconut sugar, 1 Tbl Molasses, 3 garlic cloves halved, 2″ fresh ginger peeled and quartered, 2 whole star anise, 2 whole cloves, 1 tsp black peppercorns. Simmer in saucepan 12-15 mins until it begins to thicken – it will thicken more when cool. Let cool, strain into airtight jar. Makes 1 cup, keeps 3 weeks in fridge.–
1.Salt Chicken. 2. I use mortar & pestle on the ginger, garlic and sambal, but if you want you can do a fine chop and combine them. 3. Brown chicken on both sides in skillet over med-hi in oil or EVOO/butter combo. 4. Add spice paste, katjap manis and “a bit of water” (like 1-2 Tbl). 5. Sauté at med-high until chicken is 165 – about 15 mins probably. You can add a bit more water if it starts to dry out.
Serve over rice of your choosing and a vinegary salad.
satby
I was in a mood for something vegan and different, so I made coconut-lime rice to go with the Moroccan seasoned beluga lentils I had made earlier. No recipe for the lentils, I just cooked them in plain water in the instant pot because I wanted them for two different recipes, then I added Moroccan seasoning to half. The rest are going into a salad.
satby
@Steeplejack: jazzy, nice!
zhena gogolia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m347jUKl8yU
(Reposting) Isto, I Ain’t Got Nobody
satby
@Chasm: sounds great, and I have all of that thanks to a previous exchange student from Indonesia.
satby
I scored a close to sell-by date 1/2 gallon of buttermilk for 35¢ today. Now what to do with it all. Ranch dressing, bread, pancakes on Sunday… Then what?*
Well, yeah, soap too.
Narya
@satby: I keep buttermilk months past sell-by date. Unless it molds, I will use it.
sab
@Narya: Pasteurized stuff keeps for months past its sell buy date.
jonas
Mmmm..mm! That jicama slaw is begging to go with some Jamaican jerk oxtails or similar preparation. Scored some great oxtails from a local CSA recently and served them up with rice, black beans, and maduros. Dusted the oxtails liberally with Newman’s Own jerk seasoning, browned them in the Instantpot, and then sauteed some onions, garlic and a scotch bonnet chili, deglazed with about 1 cup of beef stock, returned the oxtails, and cooked on high pressure for about 45-minutes. Damn.
Steeplejack
@satby:
Cornbread.
sab
@TaMara: I am envisioning you and the ducks watching bad tv together. That can’t be right.
sab
@Steeplejack: Buttermilk cornbread? Never heard of that before. Southern?
chrisanthemama
@Narya: Yeah, how *can* you tell when buttermilk goes bad? The sour-test doesn’t work. Green mold: that’s the tell-tale.
Narya
@chrisanthemama: zackly!
satby
@Narya: @sab: I do for making soap, but I won’t stress about using it all this week for food, so thanks!
satby
@Steeplejack: ah, of course! With chilis!
Oh, look what I found fellow buttermilk lovers.
jonas
@Narya:
That’s my experience as well. Buttermilk will keep at least a month or so past the due date if it’s in a well-chilled section of the fridge. Your nose won’t lie — if it smells buttermilk-y, it’s ok. If it smells nasty, toss it.
chrisanthemama
@satby: Here’s a recipe for something called “buttered pan biscuits” aka butter-swim biscuits, that requires buttermilk. Think I first saw this on the “What’s4DinnerSolutions” website. Very good and very easy, a lot less work than rolling out and cutting biscuits. And then there’s always Irish soda bread (also requires buttermilk). And mashed potatoes with buttermilk? Yep, and then you don’t have to use so much salt. Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten) has a potato salad recipe that uses buttermilk. Bon apetit! https://www.callmepmc.com/buttered-pan-biscuits/
Chasm
@jonas: Intrigued. I’d never cooked w oxtails until Xmas when I made an oxtail jus to server over roast beef. I kept the cooked meat to serve as snack/hors orderve over bread with salt and found it to be very meaty intense flavour (I was actually a bit surprised at how expensive oxtail is). I can sense how jerk seasoning and sweet onions could tame this beast.
NotMax
@sab
“I find that a duck’s opinion of me is very much influenced over whether or not I have bread.”
– anonymous
.
Also too, let’s hear it for Monsieur Vaucanson (from a book published in 1811).
Narya
@jonas: I also keep sour milk for weeks—I bake with it.
satby
@chrisanthemama: Thanks! Soda bread was my intro to buttermilk, though I imagine my grandmother used it all the time and I just never realized it. Now I have so many options a half gallon might not last long 😆
satby
Market tomorrow, good night all 😴
mrmoshpotato
That’s so nice! 😋🍪👍
Why are the smaller cookies baked at a higher temperature?
Are you going for crispy (what word am I looking for?) small cookies and chewy larger cookies?
jonas
@Chasm:
Growing up my mom made a dish of curried oxtails that was one of my favorite dishes — and I was a pretty finicky eater as a kid. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was because oxtails were essentially throw-away parts, or soup bones at best, and you could buy them at the supermarket for next to nothing. So she would dust them in curry powder, brown them in a frying pan, and them slow cook them for hours in a crockpot with onions, garlic, ginger, and potatoes. Now, as you noted, oxtails are premium cuts — I only buy them when they’re on sale. Crazy. Same with chicken wings, skirt steak, brisket, and other “cheap” cuts ethnic cooks and barbecuers have made popular over the years.
Steeplejack
@sab:
I guess it’s Southern. It’s how my mom, a Tennessee farm girl, used to make it. Not as sweet and cake-y as what passes for cornbread in the North. Here’s a pretty good recipe from Southern Living. (My mom liked Martha White cornbread mix.) Always cooked in a hot cast-iron skillet. She also used a thing like this, which we kids thought was cool—cornbread that looked like corn! 😹
laura
I was this Fall old when I learned of this spendy, bougie, amazing bean source. This past Christmas everybody got a bag of beans. The bean juice is off the hook! Red beans, Pinks, Pintos- just so very good. We’re on our third group order since December and the bean fever has yet to abate. Rancho Gordo 👏 https://www.ranchogordo.com/
mrmoshpotato
@sab: LOL!
Anoniminous
Found a recipe that uses grated frozen butter to make puff pastry. Going to take ‘er for a spin tomorrow and see how it works.
Craig
Slightly OT. I’ve got a marathon of Guy Fieri DDD on while I futz around the kitchen. It’s an old episode with the BBQ joint my friends used to own. Kind of surreal watching them cook on TV in the past. They lost that place in pandemic time. Now they run a small kitchen restaurant in a great bar. I do miss their BBQ.
Josie
@Steeplejack: I still have my mother’s cast iron cornbread pan that looks just like this, only old. Makes the best cornbread–crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.
ETA: She used very little flour or sugar, mostly corn meal and baking soda plus buttermilk, egg, and oil.
Narya
@laura: I am a Bean Club member!!
RG is awesome; I eat their beans 4-5 days/week. I love my membership too—you never know what you’ll get.
mrmoshpotato
@Narya:
Do you mean regular milk that gone bad?
Steeplejack
@Craig:
I soured on Guy Fieri DDD after a friend and I went to a BBQ place in Baltimore that he had featured and it was awful. I think his standards were lax because he needed so many places to fill content for the show.
Narya
@mrmoshpotato: yes.
mrmoshpotato
@Narya:
Nom-in-ated.
Anoniminous
@Steeplejack:
Anything with Joe Morello on drums is golden.
Gin & Tonic
Since there were some musical references, here’s one for you aspiring guitarists.
NotMax
@Craig
Scratched him off the list some time ago upon learning what a virulent, hateful homophobe he is.
prostratedragon
I’m having mine with seared salmon: “Brown rice,” Don Cherry.
Kristine
I made my favorite salmon loaf today, except I didn’t have any roasted red peppers so I substituted some chopped olives and a roasted jalapeño. And I use the broth the salmon is packed in instead of milk because imho it’s essentially fish stock so why throw it away. Had it with mashed potatoes and cole slaw with tahini-miso-ginger dressing.
I need to make that mocha cake.
Anoniminous
And one for aspiring drummers.
jonas
@laura: Rancho Gordo rocks. My mom (seriously awesome cook, see above) signed me up for their bean club a few years ago and gifted me their veggie/bean cookbook series, too. Amazing quality, especially for chili pinto beans.
Steeplejack
@Josie:
My mom made cornbread from scratch growing up, but she adopted the Martha White mix and swore by it in her “convenience” days.
Now I want to make some cornbread. I’ve got the skillet my mom gave me, which she said her mother gave her in the early ’50s and which dates from the ’20s or ’30s. I have identified it as a Birmingham Stove & Range Red Mountain skillet. A cherished heirloom.
mrmoshpotato
@Kristine:
YUMM-O!
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Shall pass. Tahini makes my tongue itchy.
ChasM
@jonas: Looking forward, I am indeed dreading the the day when chicken feet, so crucial to good broth, is $12/lb.
prostratedragon
@chrisanthemama: Same with plain yogurt. And it almost never happens. However, if you’re looking for live cultures, they’re dead past the time.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: I see. 😆
Kristine
@mrmoshpotato: Here’s the recipe. It’s really good.
jonas
@NotMax:
It was an accusation made by one disgruntled producer on his show many years ago and, as far as I know, not corroborated by anyone else who worked with Fieri for any length of time. His Times Square restaurant was famously slammed by Pete Wells in an epic NYT review, but most of the other stuff I’ve read about Fieri — aside from his culinary tastes and greasy-spoon schtick — is that he’s a genuinely nice guy. Here he is officiating at a mass gay wedding.
Craig
@NotMax: I spent a few minutes looking around the internet, and every story about that is about DDDs ex producer saying one quote while he was in a lawsuit with Food Network. The only corroboration comes from a woman who works for that producer. For what it’s worth his sister was gay and he speaks affectionately about her on the show, and officiated 101 gay weddings after her death as a way a celebrating her memory. I also see him with lots of gay chefs guesting on his show. You never know TV people until you know them, so who knows.
ETA, or what Jonas said.
TaMara
@mrmoshpotato: If you try to bake the jumbo cookies at 375, the edges will burn before the centers cook completely. The slower time gives the entire cookie time to bake. They can take anywhere from 12 to 17 minutes to bake completely.
Smaller cookies don’t need the slower cooking time, so standard baking temp and time are 375 for 10-12 minutes.
TaMara
Liking the music choices tonight…
mrmoshpotato
@TaMara: Ah! I see!
NotMax
@Craig
He’s a licensed clergyman? Strike two.
Not my cuppa. YMMV.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Heh. I’m not a Fieri fan either. I went through a serious Chopped addiction for a few months. I even had preferred judges, and at least once said out loud “You don’t have time to make risotto!” Then I just stopped watching it.
Ohio Mom
@Steeplejack: Guy Fieri featured our neighborhood diner once — they are very proud of this and have a sign announcing it.
I like the place because it’s *my* neighborhood diner. It’s open late, the menu has something for everyone, the waitresses have our drink orders memorized (coffee with cream for me, ice tea no sugar for Ohio Dad, diet cola for Ohio Son). It’s comforting to sit down and have my coffee arrive with the menu.
But the food is completely uninspired, there is nothing special about it. The breakfast potatoes are those shredded rectangular cakes you get in the frozen foods aisle, the green beans that come with the meatloaf are straight out of a can. They are generous with the meats in the sandwiches but that hardly takes any culinary skill.
prostratedragon
@ChasM: They’re already over $4/lb at a couple places here in Chicago. Since I make a couple of quarts at a time I’ve been using the cheaper split pig feet. Very low in fat.
Craig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: totally to each his own. I can’t stand Chopped. The only reason I like the Fieri show is that it’s not a competition, with mean judges, and goofy challenges. I like the celebration of the small restaurants he visits.
Ohio Mom
@Craig:I only saw the Guy Fieri show a couple of times. I agree, he comes off as warm and friendly and so enthusiastic. He appears to make the restaurant owners and cooks feel appreciated. But he’s no food connoisseur.
Likewise, have only seen a few episode of those cooking competition shows. Horrid, just weirdly sadistic.
sab
@Ohio Mom: Lol. Another legendary Ohio diner.
Ours is pretty good except the hashbrowns are not.
Steeplejack
@Ohio Mom:
I’m sure there are good places featured on DDD, but there seems to be a bad signal-to-noise ratio, so to speak.
I don’t consider myself a finicky diner, and barbecue is somewhat forgiving, but this place was just bad. Maybe we caught them on an off day.
Steeplejack
@Craig:
I don’t like the cooking competition shows, nor do I like the recent trend for home-renovation competitions on HGTV.
Fieri’s show is not awful. I just decided that for identifying places in the D.C.-Baltimore-Philadelphia corridor that I might want to try it’s an unreliable crap shoot. I do much better going by the ratings via Google Maps.
Craig
@Ohio Mom: yeah, sadistic is a good word. Those shows really seem to revel in taking people down.
Craig
@Steeplejack: sure. I’ve had the same experience. I went to a place that had been on his show and turns out it was years after the show aired and the place had changed hands twice but still claimed ‘as seen on DDD’. I mainly have it on in background, and just watch for the interesting people and how they approach food. I’d look for current reviews for a place to go IRL.
Carlo Graziani
Here’s a good midweek meal, if your grocery store sells thin-cut beef—especially cheap cuts, which are transformed in tenderness if sliced thin.
“Straccetti” (pronounced “strach-ay-ttee”) meaning small or thin rags.
A pound or so thin-sliced chuck, or round, or whatever the hell beef cut you can find that won’t break the bank.
Frozen artichokes, like Trader Joe’s.
Parsley, leaves from a few stalks, chopped
Garlic, two cloves , chopped
Olive oil, a glug.
White wine (I buy a box for cooking and keep it in the vicinity of the stove), 1/2 cup.
Chicken Stock, 1/2—3/4 cup, the boxed kind is fine
Salt
Pepper
Slice the meat into strips, about 1″ by 1/4″. In a skillet, warm a couple of teaspoons of oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, then when it begins to become fragrant (< 60 sec) add the parsley and artichokes, then the wine. Stir, add a few shakes salt and pepper, and partly cover the pan, cooking over medium heat, occasionally stirring.
In a separate pan, heat 3-4 Tbsp oil over medium heat. Drag the beef strips in flour, and shake them out in a mesh strainer, and add tem to the pan. Turn the heat to medium -high (to make brown crust—“fond” on the pan). Stir them continuously until they are separated and browned. If you have more beef than fits in a layer in the pan at one time, do them in batches, adding oil if needed. By the end there should be a hardy brown crust stuck to the pan.
Add the 1/2 cup of stock, and scrape the pan vigorously with a wood spoon to loosen the fond and create a thickened sauce. If you’re having trouble, add more broth. When the pan bottom is mostly clean, salt and pepper the lot and stir.
When the artichokes are heated through and tender, add them to the beef, and stir.
Serve warm.
My wife and a friend observed this process and pronounced it “Italian stir fry”. Which isn’t wrong.
Reverse tool order
Here is how I make biscuits from scratch, with buttermilk & some whole wheat flour. They rise pretty well and so are not heavy and dense. Taste : effort ratio is well worthwhile to me. (I see WordPress? messed up the line spacing.)
Biscuits
2 1/2 c. unbleached white or W. W. pastry flour
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
2 tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda (only with buttermilk)
1/2 + tsp. salt (less if not kosher)
1/2 c. shortening
1 1/2 ± c. buttermilk
Preheat oven to 450°. Mix dry ingredients in bowl with pastry cutter. Cut in shortening thoroughly with pastry cutter, until appearance is of uniform, coarse meal.
Start mixing in of buttermilk with butterknife and finish by kneading until all mixed, have to chase the last little loose bits around a bit. This is a fairly dry dough that doesn’t stick to sides of bowl, a little more flour or milk may be needed.
Pat out to 3/4″ on floured board, I don’t bother with a roller. Cut 2″ biscuits out, knead together remainder and repeat. Dredge bottoms in flour if sticky.
Bake nearly touching on ungreased pan 14-17 min. until golden brown. Serve with honey + soft butter blend, roughly equal volumes. Biscuits also work as dumplings.
Mike in NC
We have the freshest shrimp available down here, so tomorrow will be shrimp tacos.
sab
@Steeplejack: Off day? Cooking is cooking at any level below the finest. Bad recipes tried once. Okay, we all make mistakes. Bad food at a diner that cooks the same basics every day? That’s not off. That’s just wrong and bad.
Steeplejack
@sab:
Well, I was being charitable, but you’re right. Bad place was bad.
Chasm
@Carlo Graziani: This sounds like a solid yum with layers, Adding to my book. Thanks.
CaseyL
Great recipes, everyone! I’ve saved and bookmarked a bunch – thanks so much!
JAFD
A couple of diners I’ve tried recently that had good food, reasonable prices, clean and friendly, would eat there again:
Three Cousins Diner, 80 East High Street, Pottstown, Pa, 19464, and the
Arlington Diner, 1 River Road, North Arlington, NJ, 07031
HumboldtBlue
@JAFD:
I miss a diner.
Hell, I miss a deli.
A diner and a deli.
That could be a song.
Reverse tool order
Buttermilk brands are not all equal. Of those I like, another great use for a quart at the end of a work day in three easy steps: Open. Slam it all. Enjoy the taste and the attending outrage.
In the event I now need to be informed of a differing food preference, please include the reasoning behind that need to know. Not to be trolling or anything.
Major Major Major Major
@Ohio Mom: I always assumed Fieri went for vibes as much as anything.
Steeplejack
@Reverse tool order:
What buttermilk brands do you like?
Thor Heyerdahl
Does anyone have a favorite recipe for spot prawns?
I have some frozen in my freezer.
Reverse tool order
@Steeplejack: In Sonoma county, north SF bay area. Knudsen for buttermilk and sour cream. Sunnyside Farms, especially their Bulgarian style whole buttermilk. The regular reduced fat buttermilk is also good. Buttermilk from our otherwise outstanding regional, Clover, is a little behind those first three. I personally don’t care for Producers, which I think is also sold as Trader Joe’s.
I don’t go for big-chain house brand dairy products in general. Locally, some of the big chain stores also carry Clover dairy due to demand.
Lastly, a plug for Brown Cow brand yogurt while I’m at it. Great tasting, especially where plain is needed. Whole milk with the cream on top.
Manyakitty
@satby: oh yum! Replenishing my buttermilk supply today!
sab
@satby: Wow. I had no idea so much could be done with buttermilk. Buttermilk ramps!?
sab
satby is one of the jackals that keep bringing me back to BJ. Always new stuff to learn. The all service blog.
Betsy
@satby: cornbread in iron skillet.
take a 2/3 cup or so of buttermilk and beat egg or two into it. Pour in a bit of vegetable oil maybe 2 Tbsp. Add enough self-rising cornmeal mix (such as Martha white) to make a batter a little thicker than for pancakes.
Preheat an oven or toaster oven.
heat a *generous* amount of oil covering the bottom of an iron skillet until it is wavy.
Pour the batter into the skillet and lower the heat so as not to burn the bottom of the cornbread
and when the batter is bubbling almost throughout, put the whole skillet into a 350 oven for several minutes. When it’s set up enough to flip, take the skillet out and dip the cornbread. Pat it back down into the skillet . Return to oven until baked.
this is authentic Tennessee cornbread from my great-grandmother (born 1870s) Probably also her mother’s.
it’s best of course when crisp and hot.
But you can eat it cold and stale if you crumble it into a glass of buttermilk. That is called a Tennessee milkshake.
Betsy
@Narya: same. Buttermilk is already soured and most has live active buttermilk cultures, so it can’t go bad.
The acidity alone also deters microbial action.
Not bad until the mold moves in on it.
Betsy
@Steeplejack: 100% to all this.
my granny used Martha white too.
Steeplejack
@Betsy:
👍
Betsy
@sab: You pretty much have to have buttermilk, or soured milk, to make real cornbread.
Not counting the kind that is essentially a slightly sweet cake with a bit of cornmeal in it, baked in a square cake pan. That’s in the quick-bread category and is a recent (20th century) invention.
Carlo Graziani
@satby: Mashed potatoes. Just replace some of the dairy with buttermilk, to taste
FWIW: ditch the pot and heat up the potatoes in the microwave—no waterlogging, and much faster than a regular oven. Then put the potatoes (baking potatoes like Idahos, for the high starch content), cut into chunks but unpeeled, through a potato ricer. The ricer peels them for you, which is nice, because peeling hot potatoes is a literal pain.
Now whip the potatoes with dairy. A lot of dairy-I put a stick (1/4 lb) of butter, cut up, plus at least a cup of milk. Here is where you can substitute buttermilk to good effect, producing a pleasant tang. Also add salt, 1/4 tsp at a time, to taste. If you have a standing mixer, the flat blade at high speed (increase gradually, or use a plash guard) works great.
Carlo Graziani
Ack, lost the edit…
I meant to add, proportions here are for 4 large potatoes.
Taste as you go, adjusting dairy and salt. When they are whipped to a fluffy consistency (the high starch content at work) and the taste is satisfactory, transfer them to a baking dish, smooth the surface, dot with butter, cover with foil, and heat in the ovem at 300F for at least 15 minutes. They can actually sit in the oven longer, if you need to prep anything else in the meantime. Or, refrigerate the baking dish and reheat at the last moment. Serve them in the baking dish (a hot pad or trivet on the table, warn guests that the dish is hot). A very flexible and forgiving dish
BruceJ
@NotMax: Honestly I just put regular, uncooked lasagna noodles into the lasagna and bake it, they come out perfect, just past al dente, a trick taught to me by a neighbor many years ago.
Our “lasagna” is a layer of sauce+noodles, a layer of lightly breaded and fried eggplant, mozzerella, sauce, another layer of noodles, a layer of ricotta, parm, shredded mozzerella, an egg, and most of a bag of baby spinach leaves chopped and all mixed up, topped with another layer of noodels, sauce and mozereela+parmesan cheese on top, sort of Epplantparmlasagna.
It is VERY good.