Even on the best days, cooking feels like magic. Or, at the very least, as alchemy. You take a bunch of things that are more or less inedible chemicals on their own, mix them together in a precise proportion, apply heat and a certain number of strokes of the spatula, say an incantation or to on the level of, "Work, damn you!" and, if you've done it right, magic happens. Or you produce poison.
Then you can apply that results to the person or people of your choice and make them like you a little more. Or a little less.
Sunday night, for some friends I made chili. As far as alchemy goes, chili is pretty straightforward. You mix your ingredients, put in some combination of chili powder, beans, tomatoes, beef, chipotles in adobo, make it hot, and let it sit and mingle for awhile until a little bit of it tastes like all the rest of it. Stuff dissolving and infusing each other, it all mingling together, this is really straightforward science.
The longer you let it sit and simmer, the more everything winds up tasting like everything. This is intuitive. Sure, you have to get the order right to brown the meat and to soften the onions and to maximize the straightforward science going on in your pot, but the ultimate goal of mingling everything together makes sense and can easily be done.
Baking, on the other hand, is some cruel complicated dark art. Things happen in a particular order for no particular reason that the baker can determine. While you can make chili by tossing more or less the right ingredients somewhere near the pot, baking cornbread requires precise measurements.
It's confusing, and I don't understand it, and so I just follow the explicit instructions of the recipe and hope that the person putting it together knew what was going on. Some day, I'll do my homework and figure out why it works. This recipe involves mixing together the dry ingredients, mixing together the wet ingredients, then mixing together a hot mash of other ingredients, then mixing the hot mash in with the wet ingredients, and then mixing the hot mash/wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients, and then melting some butter on top of it, mixing it in, but do not overmix, and then cooking for 20 or so minutes. The only steps I really understand are the mixing it all up and the cooking it for awhile. Everything else feels very weird and arcane. Especially the "do not overmix" warning that I see in almost all baked goods.
It turned out quite good, though. Could have been a little sweeter, but that's what honey butter is for, I guess.
Classic Buttermilk Cornbread
Fine Cooking (October/November 2010)
INGREDIENTS
9 oz. (1-3/4 cups) medium-grind stone-ground yellow cornmeal, such as Bob’s Red Mill
2-1/4 oz. (1/2 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 Tbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. table salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 oz. (3 Tbs.) unsalted butter, cut into a few pieces
DIRECTIONS
Position a rack in the center of the oven and put a 9- to 10-inch cast-iron skillet or a 9-inch heavy-duty square or round metal baking pan (not nonstick) on the rack. Heat the oven to 425°F.
In a small saucepan, bring 1/2 cup water to a boil over high heat. In a large bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the cornmeal and the boiling water. Stir to blend—the mixture should become a thick mush.
In a medium bowl, whisk the remaining 1-1/4 cups cornmeal with the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda to blend.
Add the buttermilk, sour cream, and eggs to the cornmeal mush and whisk to blend.
When the oven and pan are fully heated (after about 20 minutes), add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until just blended. Do not overmix.
Remove the hot pan from the oven and add the butter pieces, tilting the pan to swirl the butter around until it’s melted and the pan is well coated. (The butter may brown; that’s fine.) Immediately pour the melted butter over the mixed batter and stir to combine—a half-dozen strokes with a wooden spoon should be plenty. Scrape into the hot pan.
Bake until the cornbread pulls away from the sides of the pan and is golden on top, 18 to 20 minutes. Immediately turn the bread out onto a rack. Cool for 5 minutes. Serve hot.
