I come from a culinary arts background, but have since left that industry. I am now working on my writing, and enjoying cooking for family and friends.
This week's recipe was a simple, yet very tasty, cornbread muffin. Wednesday, June 19th was Juneteenth, and I wanted to celebrate the holiday. Traditional foods for this holiday are picnic-style foods, as well as something red to drink. In addition to the muffins, I also whipped up a batch of my potato salad recipe. I was going to make a boxed variety of cornbread muffin but I was lucky enough to find the perfect recipe to try in my grandmother's recipe tin, so I made that instead. Everything turned out great!
This recipe is a clip-out recipe card from the Family Circle magazine, from June of 1966. It's a quick recipe, I whipped it up after work in the evening and I don't think it took much longer to make than a boxed variety would have taken to make.
Here's all the ingredients, minus the shortening that was melting on the stove. I always like these line-up shots!
First things first, all the dry ingredients are mixed in a bowl. I sifted the flour before measuring it, and then sifted it again with all the other dry ingredients before adding the cornmeal and whisking well.
Here it is after you mix in the egg and buttermilk.
And here is the final product after you stir in the melted shortening. The difference is subtle, but you can see that it is a bit smoother than without it.
Here we go into the muffin tin! The bottom and sides did want to stick to the paper liners a bit, so you might consider spraying the liners with cooking spray just to help combat that.
And out of the oven, exactly the 20 minutes it calls for seemed to do the trick.
Here was my final dinner plate. I made the potato salad the night before, and bought the chicken from the deli that night. The red drink next to it is a store-bought frozen juice concentrate I got to help with my plantar fasciitis. What?-You're probably asking me right now. Yep. It turns out that rolling a frozen can of juice concentrate helps stretch and ice the muscles in your foot. And then you get to drink the juice afterwards. (My feet were clean and I had a towel over the can, don't worry!)
I ate the muffins with butter, and a glug of sorghum syrup to dip them in. The sorghum syrup was really tasty with it! I highly recommend this. The only thing to keep in mind with this recipe is that it doesn't not hold out over time. I tried them the next night and they were too dry to be edible. If you make this recipe, I recommend sharing it with others and eating it all the same day you make them.
So, there you have it! A really basic, simple cornbread muffin recipe that is a great starting place if you're not familiar with making them from scratch. It has just enough sugar to be slightly sweet, but not overly sweet like a lot of boxed varieties can be. This is a fast recipe, so don't worry about waiting till after work to make it. And for the most part, it's all ingredients people tend to have on-hand. All I had to buy was the buttermilk, which I never keep on-hand.
I encourage everybody to study up on Juneteenth, and try out this recipe next year to join in with the celebration! Happy eating and celebrating!
Last week, Chadwick Boseman hosted Saturday Night Live. While on it, he did a skit as his character, T'Challa, from the movie Black Panther. If you have not seen Black Panther yet, do yourself a favor and go see it while it's still in the theatre. It's worth seeing it on the big screen. In the skit, as you can watch for yourself in the above video link, he references potato salad in conjunction with the stereotype that white people generally under-season their food. "Aw hell naw, Karen!" has become the new viral catchphrase on social media platforms.
While I generally try to steer clear of stereotypes as much as possible, I have to admit to being a Karen at times. I have definitely been guilty of under-seasoning my food. And I went to culinary school! So, in order to not be a Karen, I decided to create my own potato salad recipe that would hopefully not be "bland-ass". And definitely wouldn't have any raisins...! And apologies in advance because this isn't a measuring type of recipe. You just go by what you have and what seems right. So I present to you, my recipe for:
Aw Hell Yah Potato Salad Salad:
Russet potatoes, scrubbed, poked with a fork like you would do for baked potatoes (I used 3 good-sized potatoes for this)
Eggs (I used three. Two for in the salad and one for the garnish)
Bacon (I used the very thick-cut regular bacon from the butcher's counter at my grocery store. Three slices. Two for in the salad and one for the garnish)
Dill pickles, chopped
Dill pickle juice (I used 3-4 Tbsp.)
Black olives, sliced
Green onions, sliced (I used the white and light green parts for in the salad, and the dark green for the garnish) Dressing:
Mayonnaise (about 3/4 cup)
Sour Cream (about 1/3 cup)
Yellow Mustard (about 1-2 Tablespoons)
Hot Sauce of choice (to taste. I was going to use Tabasco but my bottle was really old so I used a bottle of habanero pepper sauce I had on hand instead. I used about a half teaspoon but it could have used a little more.)
Dried dill (to taste)
Black pepper (to taste)
Cayenne pepper (to taste)
Paprika for garnish (this is not optional)
Place the scrubbed, poked potatoes and eggs in a large pan of salted water, over high heat. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat a little to avoid boiling over onto the burner. My potatoes took about a half hour to cook, but remove the eggs after about ten minutes of boiling to avoid overcooking. Just use a spoon to remove them and place them in cold water and set in the fridge to cool down completely.
At the same time, cook the bacon. I usually do the thick-cut bacon like this in the oven. From the above picture, you can see that I put it on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper. I cooked it at 325 degrees for about a half hour, turning it over halfway through and draining off the oil before putting it back in the oven.
When the bacon is cooked, remove it from the pan and let it drain on paper towels. Place in the fridge to cool down.
When the potatoes are cooked through, turn off the stove and remove the potatoes to a large plate. Let them sit a few minutes to cool off a bit before placing in the fridge to cool even more. Don't cool them completely, just get them to the point where you can handle them with your hands without burning them. At that time, use a knife to peel the skin off and cut the potatoes into chunks. Place in a bowl that will be large enough to fit all the ingredients and be able to be stirred without dripping, as well. While the potatoes are still warm, pour the pickle juice over them and mix well, trying not to break up the potatoes too much. (I got the pickle juice idea from a coworker who likes to add pickle juice to her devilled eggs. I thought this might be a good way to season the potatoes themselves and really let flavor absorb into them.) Place the potatoes in the fridge and allow them to cool completely.
For the dressing, mix the mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, dill, hot sauce, cayenne, and black pepper together in a smaller bowl. When the bacon is cool enough, chop up two of the slices and add them to the dressing. Mix well and refrigerate until ready to use. Note: In spite of T'Challa's disgust that Karen's potato salad was only
seasoned with a little bit of salt, do not put salt in the dressing.
Trust me on this one. There's enough salty elements in this salad that
it's not needed.
When everything is chilled, you can assemble the salad. Peel the eggs, chop two of them and add to the potatoes. Add the chopped pickles, green onions, and sliced black olives. Mix well. Pour the dressing over and mix well. Adjust the dressing ingredients to make sure the potatoes are well-dressed. I ended up adding a little more mayonnaise and hot sauce. Mix just enough to blend everything, but not enough to break the potatoes down.
Slice the last egg, chop the last slice of bacon, and top the potato salad with them. Sprinkle with paprika. Top with the green onions. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours to allow the flavors to blend together properly.
This is what I ate with my dinner tonight and it was fantastic! I think the pickle juice on the potatoes really helps season the potatoes. You can dress potatoes with highly-seasoned dressing, and most of the time you can still taste the blandness of the potatoes underneath it. This helps combat that. Mixing the bacon into the dressing allowed the flavor to really permeate it. It would be less flavorful just to mix the bacon with the potatoes. I highly recommend doing it this way. And the sour cream adds a depth to the dressing that would otherwise be lacking if I'd just used mayonnaise. This is how I make devilled eggs, so I had a feeling it would work well in potato salad as well. I'm definitely sold on that.
I was really happy with this potato salad! I'm going to give some to my parents tomorrow and I'll probably share some with coworkers on Monday. Beside that, I'm going to eat it all myself!
I would like to think that T'Challa himself would enjoy this potato salad, but unless he comes to visit, or I get a chance to go to Wakanda, I'll just have to speculate! But you can try this out and let me know what you think. And if you come up with even better ideas, let me know!
