The Cornbread Gospels (45 page)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 to 3 tablespoons minced green chiles (canned, or fresh fire-roasted poblano, peeled and seeded)

4 ounces Neufchâtel or cream cheese, at room temperature

1½ cups (6 ounces) shredded sharp Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, or a combination of the two

8 large eggs

2 cups milk (or a combination of milk and heavy cream or half-and-half)

Dash of hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco

Dash of Pickapeppa or Worcestershire sauce

1.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray eight to ten 1- to 1½-cup ramekins or a single 14-by-11-inch shallow baking dish with oil. If using ramekins, place them on a cookie sheet.

2.
Scatter the cornbread crumbs over the baking dish, or divide among the ramekins. Salt and pepper the crumbs to taste, scatter the green chiles to taste on top, then place a teaspoon or so of Neufchâtel or cream cheese in the center of each ramekin or dab here and there throughout the baking dish. Last, divide the Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese over all, pressing it down lightly.

3.
Whisk together the eggs, milk, hot sauce, and Pickapeppa or Worcestershire in a large bowl, then pour this over the mixture in the prepared ramekins or dish. You can do everything up to this point ahead of time, (except preheat the oven), even the night before (do keep the ramekins or dish tightly covered and refrigerated, however, if you do that).

4.
Bake until the eggs are set and slightly puffed (enjoy this showy puff, but know that it will sink), with a golden brown top and a scrumptious aroma, 20 minutes for individual ramekins, about 30 for the larger baking dish, a little more if you’ve prepped and refrigerated everything the night before. Don’t overbake.

S
ERVES
8

Though too rich by far for every day, these are an enormous hit at Sunday brunch. A poached egg sits astride a crisply toasted wedge of the previous night’s cornbread, with a slice of garden tomato beneath it, along with strips of either traditional bacon or tempeh bacon. Over the whole, a drizzle of sharp, flavorful Mornay sauce, made with a good organic Cheddar that has some real bite to it. You really can’t go wrong.

1 batch Dairy Hollow House Skillet-Sizzled Cornbread (
page 12
), cut into 8 wedges

8 small pats of butter

8 slices crisp-cooked bacon or smoked tempeh strips

8 thick slices of summer tomatoes

8 poached eggs

3 cups Mornay Sauce (
recipe follows
), heated

1.
Split the cornbread wedges in half horizontally, as you would an English muffin. Lightly toast the cut sides under the broiler, keeping the matching sets of upper and lower pieces adjacent. Place a small pat of butter on each of the lower pieces.

2.
Place these buttered, toasted wedges on warmed plates. Top the bottom half of each buttered cornbread wedge with a slice of bacon or tempeh bacon, a slice of tomato, and a poached egg.

3.
Ladle on the good hot Mornay sauce, then place the top half of each cornbread wedge on its side, next to the egg-topped piece. (This allows diners to top the bottom wedge with the second piece, or eat it as bread, or crumble it into the sauce … all good options.) Serve very hot, as soon as possible.

M
AKES ABOUT
2¼
CUPS

A good cheese sauce—which is what Mornay is—is a basic that belongs in every good cook’s repertoire. It’s an essential component of Eggs Eureka, but that’s just one of the countless ways you’ll find use for it. Toss it with steamed cauliflower, and you’ve got cauliflower au gratin. Toss it with cooked macaroni, run it under the broiler, and you’ve got a macaroni and cheese that will make the kids (and their adults) quite happy. Thin it with vegetable stock and stir in cooked potatoes and broccoli: voilà, potato and broccoli cheese soup.

Some people use white pepper in this so as not to mar the Mornay’s pristine pale creaminess with little black flecks, but frankly, I’m not that persnickety. I am, however, particular about seasoning my cheese sauce: It just wouldn’t taste right to me without a bit of nutmeg, a little dried mustard, and a small drizzle of Pickapeppa. Sometimes I also add a dash of cayenne and a teaspoon of nutritional yeast (which, oddly, heightens the cheese flavor beautifully).

2½ tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups hot milk

½ to ¾ cup (2 to 3 ounces) grated extra-sharp aged Cheddar, such as a Vermont or Canadian Black Diamond

A few gratings of nutmeg

¼ teaspoon mustard powder

½ teaspoon Pickapeppa or Worcestershire sauce

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Dash of cayenne pepper (optional)

1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional)

1.
Melt the butter in a medium-size saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is a pale parchment yellow, 1 to 1½ minutes. This thickening paste is your roux and, in this recipe, you do
not
want it to cook until brown.

2.
Slowly whisk the hot milk into the roux. Keep on whisking until the sauce thickens and comes to a boil, 2 to 3 minutes. Lower the heat to a simmer and stir in the cheese. Whisk again and simmer for 1 to 2 minutes more.

3.
Then whisk in the nutmeg, mustard powder, Pickapeppa or Worcestershire, salt and pepper to taste (go easy on the salt at first; the cheese is salty), and the cayenne and nutritional yeast, if using. If you want to make it ahead, do so: Refrigerate it, then reheat it gently in the top of a double boiler when ready to serve.

Of course you can substitute just about any cheese, or combination of cheeses, you like. Try it with ½ cup grated Gruyère or Jarlsberg cheese instead of the Cheddar, along with a tablespoon of finely grated Parmesan. Lose the dry mustard and Pickapeppa with this variation, but keep the nutmeg.

S
ERVES
6,
GENEROUSLY

Inspired by a hot spell that had me making cold soup almost nightly, I one night set out to make a not-atypical gazpacho: a tomato-cucumber number, though I wanted to give it some heft by adding a little stale bread in with the vegetables. And I thought … why not cornbread? Why not … yellow tomatoes? And yellow peppers? Suddenly: not typical at all.

Make this the next time summer rolls around—preferably after a visit to the farmers’ market. Since one element is cooked, make it in the afternoon so it will be icy by dinnertime. To me this is at least twenty times more interesting and refreshing than standard-issue gazpacho. It’s amazing how many good, golden, fresh things there are, and how well they merge and blend.

Vegetable oil cooking spray

1 tablespoon mild vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 cups mild vegetable stock

3 medium-size yellow summer crookneck squash (about 1 pound), stem ends removed, cut into large chunks

4 cups diced, perfectly ripe, sweet yellow summer tomatoes (about 2 pounds)

About 3 cups corn kernels, cut from about 6 ears fresh corn (see Shuck and Jive,
page 49
)

1 cup carrot juice (optional; if hard to find or if you don’t like the sweetness this will add, substitute buttermilk or stock)

1½ cups buttermilk

1 to 2 large yellow bell peppers, roasted, peeled, cored, and seeded (or ⅓ cup chopped commercial roasted yellow peppers)

1 large wedge of stale cornbread (any kind will do)

Salt

Reduced-fat sour cream or plain yogurt, for garnish (optional)

Finely diced red bell pepper, for garnish (optional)

1.
Spray a large skillet, one that has a lid, with oil, then add the tablespoon of oil. Place over medium-high heat and add the onions. Sauté, stirring often, until the onions are translucent and start to color, about 4 minutes. Turn the heat to medium and continue cooking until they are golden, but not overly brown, around the edges, another 10 minutes or so.

2.
Add the 2 cups vegetable stock to the skillet, along with the squash. Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer, cover, and let cook until the squash are quite soft, 12 to 15 minutes.

3.
Meanwhile, place half of the diced tomatoes
and half of the corn in a large bowl with the carrot juice (or liquid equivalent) and about a third of the buttermilk. Place the remaining tomatoes and corn in a food processor along with the roasted bell peppers. Purée the mixture and transfer it to the bowl with the unprocessed ingredients, stirring well. Don’t clean the processor just yet.

4.
At this point the squash should be just about done. Add the stale cornbread to it, breaking it into the hot liquid to soften a bit. It doesn’t matter if the cornbread actually cooks in the liquid for a few minutes, or just sits in it. In either case, let the skillet sit for a few moments to cool down somewhat. Then, transfer the cool or lukewarm contents of the skillet to the processor with the remaining buttermilk and buzz it to as close to smoothness as you can. Stir this, too, into the bowl. Taste the mixture and add salt to taste—this soup really requires salt to bring out all the vegetable nuances.

5.
Cover and refrigerate the soup. Chill deeply and serve, very cold, in chilled cups, with or without the garnishes: a rounded teaspoon of the sour cream plus a scatter of red bell pepper atop each chilled cup or bowl.

If you like a more textured soup, a little more similar to conventional gazpacho (not a copycat, however, by any means), omit the roasted peppers and instead stir in ⅓ cup finely minced raw red and yellow peppers and one cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced, into the finished soup (do not purée them).