Back in my school days, some friends and I would get together and eat a big meal the weekend before thanksgiving. Everyone would cook some of their favorite dishes from their family's traditional thanksgiving menu, Ben would cook as many free turkeys as our collective Giant Eagle cards gave us, and we'd eat until we couldn't move. It was always a good time. One of my favorite dishes, though, was some corn spoon bread someone made one year. It was like cornbread, which is already pretty tasty, but more extravagent. I've never found quite the same recipe, but every once in a while I think about it.
A few weeks ago when a very nice person I know that I had told this story to memorized (!) a spoon bread recipe for me! I was of course very excited to try it. It was a Cheddar and Chive Spoon Bread, which sounded quite tasty, although not the same as the dish I remembered. But you can't go wrong with cheese!
So here goes:
Step One: Get someone to memorize the recipe for you, and scrawl it down on something you can take to the kitchen.
Step Two: Preheat the oven to 350F. You'll have to do the conversion to C yourself, my vast international readership.
Step Three: Grease an appropriate sized dish to cook the spoonbread in. I don't have a real 1.5 quart souffle dish, so I am using a loaf pan. Maybe it will seem more bread like this way!
Step Four: Gather your ingredients. Try not to think about how much dairy you will be consuming when eating this. Also note, I got real Wisconsin Cheddar for this. If you are going to put the effort in to this, at least do the cheese right! Also note I got way too much cornmeal; don't be intimidated by the size of that bag.
Step Five: Combine milk, water, butter, salt, and pepper in a pan and heat it up. You may not want to put it on completely high heat unless you are stirring a lot, since that milk will burn on the bottom of the pan quickly. (Not speaking from my own experience, of course!) But you should bring it to a boil.
Step Six: Take the cornmeal (which you should probably measure with real dry measuring cups, but I seem to have been dispossessed of mine, so this is good enough)...
...and add it in, bring it back to a boil, then turn the heat down. Be careful with this! I think this is where I messed up. Add it in slowly, because it will clump together easily. Make sure to stir it a lot, so it is more evenly spread throughout.
Step Seven: Let it cook until it thickens - about 3 minutes. Remove it from the heat and stir in the sour cream. You'll note it seems a little lumpy in my pictures - oops!
Step Eight: Take 4 eggs...
... and beat them.
Step Nine: Add 1/4 of the cornmeal mix to the eggs and mix together. Then fold in the rest of the cornmeal mix. I don't think I did this part well, so you are on your own really for how that should work.
Step Ten: Take the cheese and chives...
...and mix it all together.
Step Eleven: Pour into your baking dish.
Step Twelve: Bake 35 minutes. You can do a toothpick test, or just watch until the center looks firm and the edges are a bit brown. I probably cooked mine a little longer than necessary.
Step Thirteen: Eat! Whoohoo. If you are feeling particularly responsible, you may wish to let it cool a bit first.
Step Twelve: Wish you had someone around to do the dishes for you!
The ingredients:
- 2 cups milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 2/3 cup sour cream
- 1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar (get the good stuff!)
- 1/3 cup chives
- 4 eggs
Nutritional Information:
I have no idea, but this can't be very healthy for you. So make sure to share it with friends, and not eat it all yourself! It probably feeds a whole bunch of people, especially as a side dish. I'll have leftovers all week from this!
Special Thanks:
- People who memorize recipes for me. Sorry you couldn't taste any!
- Dan Sanderson for the Dinner and a Weblog inspiration
- Whole Foods for being a good grocery store to shop at, even if they always trick me into buying extra cheese.
