Month: December 2016

Corn Shucka Invented

Dicussion this morning with my daughters this morning about making shakshouka for dinner this evening. The question was “red or green’. We’re in Colorado, but the discussion sounded like we were in Santa Fe.
It was an interesting morning for food discussion. We were invited to a pot luck supper last night. Mande made two kinds of cornbread, one recipe plain, one recipe with green chile. There was a debate about sugar in the cornbread. The girls have some Yankee notions about sugar in cornbread and white bread stuffing, thanks the “other” side of the family.
I decided to do a Play With Your Food demo for breakfast with distinctly Southern and Tex-Mex overtones.
It started with left over cornbread of both types and toasted thin slices of a baguette, a little chopped onion and celery, sweated in butter, some vegetable broth and chopped long green chile left over from yesterday’s cornbread prep.
I mixed it all together in a bowl and transferred it to a baking dish. I sunk six wells into the batter and popped it into the oven for about 20 minutes. The wells were inspired by thoughts of shakshouka which a vegetable stove top casserole in which eggs are cooked.
After 20 minutes my green chile cornbread stuffing was set and hot. I broke an egg into the wells and returned the dish to the oven with the goal of setting the egg whites while leaving the yolks soft and runny. I will admit I let the yolks overcook and they were not runny.
We each had two helpings of eggs in the green chile cornbread stuffing and pronounced it good. Daughter Emily came up with calling this Corn Shucka based on the eggs nestled in the corn bread.
Cooking without a recipe and Playing With Your Food produces good results.

Breakfast is always a challenge.  It seems to be a conflict between healthy and sweet or savory not so healthy. Who has time to plan as far ahead as the next day’s breakfast anyway? So, here it is Sunday morning.  An inventory of the kitchen: one medium potato, a couple of onions, eggs, left-over grated cheese from earlier in the week and a little bit of smoked pork belly that really should be used soon. There were a few slices of 21-grain bread and, hiding in the refrigerator, a jar with about two tablespoons of Seville Orange Marmalade.

Seeing the marmalade made me imagine flamenco guitar music. And then the magic words Spanish tortilla popped into my head. A Spanish tortilla works  for breakfast and as one of a table of tapas or small plates at happy hour. The good thing is the tortilla is basically eggs and potatoes with some imagination tossed in. Since I didn’t have Spanish chorizo, a hard sausage, I decided to use my pork belly. I diced the pork belly into cubes about 1/4 inch square, then I used my hand-held mandoline to slice the potato and paper thin rings of onion. An an afterthought, I grated some extra sharp cheddar, in case there wasn’t enough fat going into the tortilla from the pork belly!

I warmed the pork belly in a wide shallow sauté pan, spread it evenly and added a layer of onion slices separated into rings over the pork.  Next was a layer of potato slices.  I let the onions and potatoes soften for a few moments, then poured two beaten eggs and a splash of boxed egg product over everything. A few shakes and swirls got the egg mix down around the potato and onion slices.  After the eggs began to set around the edges, I put the pan in a 375º oven for about 10 minutes.  I check that the eggs were set throughout, then place a plate over the pan and flipped the tortilla out onto the plate.  I slipped it back into the pan, bottom side up, sprinkled it with a little cheddar cheese and popped it back into the oven to  melt. I turned the oven off while this happened and made toast.

My Spanish tortilla inspired breakfast was a  hit.  My good neighbors gave us a wonderful homemade salsa that added a good kick to the tortilla. And, FYI, I polished off the marmalade on my toast!

This is one of those play with your food and cook without a recipe meals that I’d like to make another time.  Let’s hope memory and this posting kick in and make it as good a second time.