I use to carry a secret as I walked the halls here at Southern Living. I don't really like cornbread, I know absolutely shocking! A member of the THE test kitchen that doesn't like cornbread?!?!?! It took a culinary epiphany to realize why, I have been doing it all wrong. I felt like Micheal Keaton in the movie Mr. Mom. He's in the car pool line for the first time and there's a knock at the window by an angry patrol mom........"SIR, SIR YOUR DOING IT WRONG hello sirrrrrrrrr your doing it wrong," as she bangs recklessly on the woody station wagon window (he is entering the car pool line clearly going in the wrong direction) O-M-G! I was totally him, behind the wheel of some pitiful quick bread.
My problem: I have always followed the package directions on the cornmeal mix bag (yes, I know, I went to culinary school and all.) The result: "ok" corn bread when it was hot but after 15 minutes, forget it! Totally not worth the calories, save it for dessert was always my thought.
Enter Mary Allen Perry and our September story, 6 New Ways With Cornbread. The rule of thumb I picked up from reading her recipes: it's generally a 1 to 1 ratio of cornmeal mix to buttermilk. Culinary school was great at driving home these basics: rice 2 to 1, vinaigrette 3 to 1, baked potato at 400 1 hour. Simply memorized they can take you very far with out having to fumble with a written recipe. Now I know there are other tricks at tasty cornbread like sour cream, cheese, or canned creamed corn but I don't always have that on hand. Plus when it's 6:30 on a tuesday night, I know I can have a pan in the oven in no time if I follow that one rule. I've been making this regularly now and have one more trick, i call it the 1-2-3, it's 1 cup of each if it's just me and my husband, 2 cups if we are having company, or 3 cups if it's a crowd. A little melted butter, an egg and we are ready to role. Tasty moist cornbread just in time for dinner. If you have a "rule" or a useful ratio you use in the kitchen to save time, I'd love to hear it.
