Yes, I made corn bread. With bacon fat. And it was goooood. Go ahead, judge me…I would if I were you.
Normally, I wouldn’t dream of saving leftover bacon fat and then adding it to a dish. But an article I wrote about earlier this week got me all jazzed up about cooking like our ancestors (i.e. with animal fat instead of refined fat), and well, this is the result.
1.5 tablespoons bacon fat (or vegetable oil if you don’t have any animal fat laying around)
1 1/2 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 jalepeno, finely diced
1 1/2 cup low- or non-fat buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
Serves 6 to 8. Adapted from The Oregonian.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add bacon fat to a 10″ cast iron skillet or fry pan. Place skillet in oven and heat fat.
In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients (corn meal through jalepeno). In a separate small bowl, mix buttermilk and egg. Create a well in the dry ingredients, pour in buttermilk mixture and stir to combine.
Carefully remove hot skillet from oven and pour in corn bread mix. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes and serve warm by itself or with chili.
(Note: This isn’t like sweet, cakey corn bread you find at the supermarket. It is dense and savory, and therefore delicious crumbled up in chili.)
{ 3 comments }
I will not judge thee for using the golden elixer that is bacon fat! YUM!!
I actually made a fully loaded baked potato for dinner last night. I fried up two strips of bacon to crumble on top of it and made a game time decision to use some of the bacon fat as a substitute for buttering the spud. It was fantastic, no shame.
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