The Cornbread Gospels (60 page)

These ingredients may sound (okay,
are
) a little esoteric, but I can buy them all at my local natural foods co-op. If you can’t, order them from
www.bobsredmill.com
or
www.kingarthurflour.com
. You can omit the xanthan; you can use all tapioca starch or all potato starch if you wish (though I think the combo of all three is best). It still comes out far tastier than all the other egg substitutes, including the commercial ones (she said immodestly). But do use the liquid lecithin in reconstituting: No substitutions there. This dry mix is sufficient to substitute for about 21 eggs, but the dry mix keeps indefinitely, so you just reconstitute it as you need it.

E
GGSCELLENCE
D
RY
M
IX
M
AKES ABOUT
2
CUPS

1 cup potato starch

¾ cup tapioca flour

¼ cup full-fat soy flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 tablespoons xanthan gum (optional)

Combine all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring or whisking thoroughly to combine. Store in a tightly-covered, labeled jar or zip-top bag in a cool place, or in the freezer.

T
O RECONSTITUTE
E
GGSCELLENCE

For each egg called for in a recipe, combine the following in a small bowl: 1½ tablespoons Eggscellence mix, 1½ tablespoons water, and 1 teaspoon liquid lecithin. Combine the dry mix with the wet very well, whipping with a fork or mini whisk. Add reconstituted Eggscellence to a recipe when the eggs are called for.

Flour, corn:
Corn flour (often seen in British cookbooks) and cornstarch (the American equivalent) are one and the same—a fine white powder, nearly all starch, ground from the endosperm of the corn plant. It is most often mixed with a liquid and used as a thickening agent in sauces and puddings, although it’s used in the occasional cookie recipe for the extreme tenderness it can add, and as a way to fabricate
cake flour
(see entry). It is a refined, not whole-grain, product.

Gluten:
The protein component of wheat, which gives yeast-risen breads their distinct texture and which is “developed,” or strengthened, through kneading. Some grains besides wheat have a little gluten (rye, barley); others are wholly gluten-free (corn, rice, quinoa). It is because corn lacks gluten that yeast-risen cornbreads always contain either wheat flour or a few tablespoons of straight wheat gluten, often sold as “vital wheat gluten.” The latter is a fine, slightly granular powder, sold at most natural foods stores and through King Arthur Flour’s mail-order catalogue (
www.kingarthurflour.com
). It compensates for the lack of gluten in cornmeal and makes it possible to get a nice rise out of cornmeal-centric yeast breads.

“Green” corn:
The old-fashioned name for corn eaten as a fresh vegetable, as opposed to in its dry ground form, cornmeal or masa. In other words, “green” corn is corn on the cob—yellow, white, or bicolor … not green in color (except for its husks) at all.

Hominy:
This is whole “alkaline” corn (also known as posole). Whole corn kernels are soaked in a mild lye solution (see
nixtamalization
) until the outer skins soften enough to release the kernels from within. Although it’s possible to buy dried hominy and cook it yourself, it is more readily available already cooked and in the can, typically in the international or Latino foods section of the supermarket. Lest you think that something out of a can is bound to have lost out in the translation, let me assure you that this is not the case. Canned hominy is simply cooked hominy, much as canned beans are simply cooked beans—it’s not a case where, as with canned green beans or spinach, the whole character of the food is lost in the canning process. Occasionally you’ll find hominy/posole canned in various sauces or
stews. Avoid those. You want the plain kind, white or yellow (I prefer white).

Honey:
Any mild, liquid honey can be used in the occasional cornbread in which honey is called for. Mild honeys include clover, wildflower, and orange blossom. However, for eating
with
hot cornbread (and butter), good, strong, dark buckwheat honey has its loyal Yankee partisans.

If your honey is crystallized, warm it to re-liquefy, either in a small saucepan or by running the bottle under hot water.

“Indian” corn:
The contemporary common name for the bright, lovely, multihued ears of corn, dried on the stalk and gathered together with their still-attached husks, used strictly for decoration in the fall. The name is a misnomer: Columbus was wholly mistaken about the world he had arrived at, which most decidedly was
not
India, as he thought. Moreover, since all types of maize are native to the Americas and cultivated by its original residents,
all
types of corn are “Indian.”

Nonetheless, go to any American farmstand in September or October, ask for “Indian corn,” and these decorative ears are what you’ll get.

“Indian” meal:
The early American name for cornmeal. This was sometimes just shortened to “Indian” (old cookbooks will say, “add a cup of indian,” lowercase i) and sometimes spelled just “injun” as in New England Rye’n’Injun bread (
page 162
).

Maize:
Another of corn’s many names, derived from its original, Native American name
mahiz.
When friendly Arawak Indians rowed out from what’s now the island of Hispaniola to greet Columbus and company, they bore gifts of welcome, including mahiz. In Taino, the Arawak language, mahiz means “life-giver.” The Spanish adapted this to
maíz
and the English speakers to
maize.

Masa harina:
Quite different from regular cornmeal, masa harina is ground from cooked, wet nixtamalized (see
nixtamalization
) corn, which is then dried to flour. It’s used in making corn tortillas and tamales, and sometimes to thicken sauces (some chilies are traditionally masa-thickened). Masa has a distinctive, easily recognizable taste, grain-like, not sweet. Its texture, however, is powdery or floury, not grainy. Masa harina keeps better than stone-ground sweet cornmeal.

Just to make things extra confusing,
masa harina
also sometimes refers to the wet basic dough mixed up from dry masa harina. If you live in or near a Latino neighborhood, you may be able to buy fresh masa harina, which has a consistency almost like that of Play-Doh.

Maple syrup:
Occasionally, maple syrup is called for in a particular cornbread. According to USDA regulations, maple syrups are classified by “grade.” Each grade has its own characteristic flavor, color, and ideal usages, but, unlike marks in school, an A is not better than a B, just different.

There are four grades of maple syrup.

Grade A Light Amber, sometimes called Fancy Grade (and, in Canada, No. 1 Extra
Light), is very light in color, almost the shade of apple juice. Mild and delicate, it’s usually the first made in sugaring season and is excellent on pancakes, especially buckwheat.

Grade A Medium Amber is a little darker and has a more intense maple flavor. This is the most widely available grade of syrup, the one you’re likely to find in most supermarkets. Made a little later in sugaring time, it, too, is great used on waffles, French toast, and pancakes, and it is okay for cooking.

Grade A Dark Amber is still darker. Its more pronounced maple flavor emerges later in sugaring season, giving you more bang for the buck. Although it is great as a table syrup, its special qualities make it worthwhile to use in cooking: The maple-ness, not just the sweetness, comes through loud and clear.

Grade B, the darkest, strongest, and thickest, is sometimes called cooking syrup and is a late-season product. Some do like it as table syrup, but it is truly the premium cooking syrup; its essence-of-maple taste shines recognizably and beautifully in pies, cakes, muffins, mousses, bread puddings, and even in sweet-savory glazes and barbecue sauces.

Mesquite meal/flour:
A texture-y flour ground from the seedpods of the mesquite tree, it’s almost too good to believe: rich, with haunting undernotes of flavor—a bit nutty, yet reminiscent of chocolate and cinnamon. Buff-brown in color, slightly granular, and very sweet (though low on the glycemic index and high in protein) it has become one of my favorite unusual ingredients to play with: I’ll use ¼ to ⅓ part mesquite meal to replace the equivalent amount of wheat flour in many cake or cookie recipes, and I find I can then cut back considerably on the sugar. Order it from www.cocinadevega.com.

Molasses:
The thick syrup that is produced by boiling the sweet juices extracted from sugarcane, it is available in three varieties: light (very sweet, less flavorful); dark (some sweetness, richer flavor); and blackstrap (bitter, with a darker, deeper flavor; the most nutritious of the three). I usually use “dark”; if I prefer a particular one in a recipe, I’ll note it.

Nixtamalization:
The process by which corn is alkalinized to make
masa harina
and
hominy
or posole, usually through the addition of lime (the mineral, not the citrus fruit) or culinary ash, which is made from burning particular trees or woody plants until only ash remains. This process was developed by Native Americans, and the types of trees and bushes that have been used vary by region and tribe (traditionally, for instance, Navajos used mostly juniper, while Hopis preferred chamisa bush). Nixtamalization confers a great many nutritional and culinary benefits, although it’s uncertain for which of these benefits, if any, it was originally developed. What we do know is that alkalinizing achieves several purposes: It loosens the hulls from the corn; swells the corn kernels to easily two or three times their previous size; makes the corn much easier to grind; adds infinitely more variation in flavor, form,
and culinary properties; intensifies the color of the corn; and, most important, makes it easier to digest and far more nutritious.

This last piece is crucial if corn is your staple food, the main source of calories you take in (as is true throughout much of Mexico, Central America, and Africa, and used to be true in the southern United States and northern Italy). If it
is
your staple food and it has not been nixtamalized, you are at major risk for the terrible and deadly disease pellagra, caused by a niacin deficiency. So while we don’t know how or why the nixtamalizing process was first developed, we continue to reap its lifesaving benefits while also enjoying the haunting mineral flavor it imparts.

For more about this amazing Native American technology, please visit this book’s website, www.cornbreadgospels.com.

Oils:
Most cornbread recipes contain some fat, sometimes of a couple of different varieties. While many old-time cornbreads were originally made with bacon drippings, person after person has told me, “Yeah, I grew up with it that way, but I’ve switched to oil now; even my granny has.” My preference for vegetable oil is any fresh, mild-tasting oil, my three favorites being corn, canola, and peanut (not roasted peanut). Most often I use
Better,
see entry, either on or in the cornbread, too.

Posole:
see
Hominy.

Quick breads:
If a bread is leavened, or raised, with baking powder and/or baking soda, it is called a quick bread (because it does not need the long rise time of
yeast
-leavened breads). Most cornbreads are quick breads, as are muffins, biscuits, scones, and most pancakes.

Rapadura:
see
Sugar.

Raw or unrefined sugar;
see
Sugar.

Sorghum:
A sweet, sticky, dark syrup much loved in the South. Though sometimes called “sorghum molasses,” it’s not molasses, and has a distinctive, mellower flavor, with none of the slightly bitter aftertaste of unrefined molasses. Sorghum is made from pressed sorghum cane; molasses (see entry) from sugar cane. If you can’t find sorghum, use molasses instead. Sorghum is, however, available in the gift shops of Cracker Barrel restaurants, as well as at
www.smokiesstore.org
.

Soy milk:
A creamy milk made from soybeans, it is available plain or flavored and is an excellent substitute for dairy milk. For recipes, use the same amount of soy milk as dairy, and use plain (unflavored; not, say, vanilla). If the recipe calls for the dairy milk to be heated, do the same with the soy.

Succanat:
see
Sugar.

Sugar (unrefined and less refined):
Nutritionally speaking, sugar is pretty much sugar. However, like anything else, it can be organic or not, refined to a greater or lesser degree, and processed so that it ends up in different forms. Thus, you get slightly different results depending on which sugar you choose. Note “slightly”—just use white or conventional
brown sugar if you don’t have any of these on your kitchen shelf.

Rapadura/succanat:
With brown, small grains (not exactly crystals), it is made from evaporated sugarcane juice (it is also sometimes sold under this name). It deepens the color of baked products, adds a little texture, and has a flavor like conventional brown sugar with a little more personality. It is the least-refined, closest-to-its-natural-state sugar.

Turbinado or raw sugar:
A pleasant off-white instead of pure snow white, turbinado is slightly less refined than white sugar and comes in crystals a bit larger than conventional white sugar. It dissolves into a batter seamlessly (like white sugar) but is far superior when you want to create something with sparkle: Just sprinkle a bit on top of the batter before it goes into the oven. I like it a lot in streusel toppings for sweet muffins in particular.

See also
Corn syrup, Honey, Maple syrup,
and
Molasses.

“Sweet milk”:
An archaic term which, these days, only turns up in some cornbread recipes. It means, simply, regular, fresh milk, as opposed to cultured buttermilk, yogurt, or sour milk.

Turbinado:
see
Sugar.