The Cornbread Gospels (48 page)

This is a dish that has “take me to a potluck” written all over it. Serve it with a pot of black or refried beans, a favorite slaw, some watermelon and/or maybe ice cream or frozen yogurt and some homemade oatmeal cookies for dessert, and you
have a down-home not-quite-but-almost Tex-Mex meal that is, oh, so satisfying.

Vegetable oil cooking spray

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 ounces traditional pork chorizo or vegetarian chorizo soysage, such as Soyrizo

3½ to 4 cups crumbled stale Southwestern–style cornbread

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 teaspoon ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground red chile powder (powdered chiles, not the blended chili powder spices)

1 cup peeled, diced raw butternut squash

¾ cup vegetable stock, plus extra as needed

2 eggs

2 large or 3 small to medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped (you can peel and seed them, but truthfully, I never bother)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a deep casserole, 9 inches square or thereabouts, with oil, and set aside.

2.
Spray a large skillet with oil and place it over medium-high heat. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in it. Add the pork or vegetarian chorizo. If using the pork chorizo, sauté until firm and cooked through, then drain off the excess fat; if using the vegetarian chorizo, just brown it slightly. Place the cooked chorizo in a large bowl and add 3½ cups of the crumbled cornbread. Set aside.

3.
Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the hot skillet (don’t bother to wash it) along with the onion. Sauté, stirring, until the onion has started to soften and is fragrant, about 4 minutes. Lower the heat slightly and add the garlic, cumin, coriander, and chile powder. Continue sautéing for another 4 minutes, then add the squash and ¼ cup of the stock. Cover, and let the squash and spices steam together or until the squash has softened, about 4 minutes more. Remove from the heat and let cool for a few minutes.

4.
Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs with the remaining ½ cup stock in a small bowl. Add the egg mixture to the cornbread mixture, and toss well. Add the tomatoes and the sautéed vegetables and toss again. You want to achieve the consistency of a moist stuffing; add a little more cornbread or stock if you need it to get there. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

5.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and cover tightly with foil. Bake until heated through and slightly set (due to the egg), 25 to 30 minutes. Uncover and bake just long enough to dry the top out slightly, not make it really crusty, an additional 5 to 10 minutes. Serve warm or hot.

The addition of black beans makes this dish even heartier. Add, along with the tomatoes, 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, drained very well and rinsed. Bake as directed, but when you uncover the casserole, top it with 1 to 1½ cups (4 to 6 ounces) grated sharp Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, or a combination of the two, and raise the heat (or run the dish under a broiler) until the cheese is browned and bubbly. Serve generous scoops of the casserole hot from the oven, dolloped with reduced-fat sour cream and a generous shower of chopped fresh cilantro.

S
ERVES
6
TO
8
AS AN ENTRÉE

This is my vegetarian and cornbread-based update of a New England–style corn pudding, a favorite of community cookbooks in the Northeast. It can happily and deliciously serve as a vegetarian entrée, either in itself or side by side with another vegetable (I like it as part of a component dinner, alongside a tomato stuffed with spinach and Parmesan). Start with a fresh green salad with a vinaigrette so sharp and bright and mustardy it talks back to you; conclude with a slice of ripe cantaloupe, a ball of lemon sorbet resting in its curve and a smattering of fresh raspberries: a flat-out wonderful late-summer meal.

The original calls for conventional bacon, but smoked tempeh is every bit as delicious. Although I like using fresh raw corn cut off the cob, you can also use kernels cut off leftover cooked corn (in the unlikely event that you have some) or, if need be, thawed frozen kernel corn. Also, although you can use dairy milk, the creaminess of soy milk is a plus here; original New England recipes typically used half heavy cream, half light cream (which, of course, you can use if you like). Soy comes closer, but more healthfully, to that texture than does low-fat dairy milk.

Any type of cornbread will do here, but the sweetened Yankee cornbreads are particularly good (see
chapter 2
).

Vegetable oil cooking spray

2 tablespoons mild vegetable oil

1 package smoked tempeh strips, such as Lightlife brand

1 medium onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely diced

2 eggs

Kernels cut from 4 ears of fresh corn, about 2 cups (see Shuck and Jive,
page 49
)

½ cup soft, very well crumbled cornbread

2 cups plain soy milk or 1 cup each heavy (whipping) cream and half-and-half

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup fine crisp bread crumbs, preferably whole wheat

1 to 2 teaspoons butter

1.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a deep
1½-quart baking dish with oil and set aside. Also spray a large, heavy skillet with oil.

2.
Place the skillet, with 1 tablespoon of the oil, over medium heat. When it’s good and hot, add the tempeh strips and cook them until nicely browned, about 3 minutes per side. Remove the strips and place them on a cutting board.

3.
Add the remaining oil to the hot skillet (don’t bother to wash it). Add the onions, and sauté until the onions are softening slightly and growing translucent, about 4 minutes. Then add the bell pepper and continue sautéing for another 3 minutes. Remove from the heat, and let cool slightly.

4.
Between stirs of the sauté, coarsely chop the tempeh strips into large chunks.

5.
Break the eggs into a large bowl and whisk them. Then stir in the corn, crumbled cornbread, soy milk or heavy cream–half-and-half combination, and salt. Add the chopped tempeh strips and sautéed onions and bell pepper. Stir well again, and transfer to the baking dish.

6.
Sprinkle the top of the pudding with the bread crumbs and dot with the butter to taste. Bake, uncovered, until the edges have firmed up nicely and the center is a bit wobbly, but not wet, 1 hour (40 minutes if your casserole dish is on the shallow side). Serve hot or warm or at room temperature.

• • • • • • • • • •

In Deuteronomy we’re told that man (presumably woman, too) cannot live by bread alone. Cornbread-eaters the world over agree: You cannot live on bread,
even cornbread
, alone.

You need something to go with it.

Leaving aside that Something that is spiritual sustenance, this chapter offers some of my favorite ways to turn cornbread into a full repast. Of course, these aren’t just
my
favorite ways. People of all places and times have responded to the question “What goes with cornbread?” with remarkably similar answers: universal in the basics, infinitely varied in the particulars.

Most cornbread-eating human beings have relied on the same three partners for the culinary sleight-of-hand that turns maize bread into the not-so-slight of dinner. Two of these partners are ingredients: greens and beans. The third is a type of dish, thick soups or stews. These soulful mélanges, in addition to meat and/or vegetables and seasonings, often
contain
one or both of the two ingredient partners, beans and greens.