Cornbread

Tip-top BBQ accompaniment. You could cook it to one side of the embers, although early June rain forced us indoors. No sugar, but some sweetness from slowly cooked onions. A much tweaked recipe, which bears some resemblance to Pitt Cue’s Jalapeño & Soured Cream Cornbread. A version of a Linda McCartney recipe, featuring grated courgettes, was in the running for a while – but my dad would be glad it fell at the final fence. Serves 6

• An onion, diced finely
• 130ml vegetable oil
• 50g butter
• 1 teaspoon salt

• 220g coarse polenta (the same as cornmeal)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder.

• 400g tinned corn – the kernels from 3 fresh cobs would be even nicer, but don’t be tempted by the sorry shucked ones picked a week ago and shipped thousands of miles in plastic – they’re not nearly as tasty as tinned.
• 2 eggs
• 230ml buttermilk – they’d use buttermilk in Texas, I think, but yogurt, soured cream or crème fraiche make fine substitutes .
• 2 chillies, finely sliced – again, go with what’s to-hand. I used pickled jalapeños, but red chillies would be prettier, chilli flakes OK too.
• 100g Double Gloucester, grated – I like the garish orange, Cheddar, Monterey Jack would be perfect stand-ins.

Heat the oven to 170°C, presuming you don’t have a coolish spot near glowing charcoal.

In a 23cm or so diameter oven proof frying pan (or dust off that cast iron skillet), melt the butter in the oil and gently cook the diced onion. Normally recipes refer to sweating onions, but in this case drowning would be more accurate. When the onions are translucent, let them cool a little in the buttery oil. The copious fat will moisten and flavour the cornbread, as it does in a carrot cake; so if the quantity seems OTT, don’t skimp, just have a smaller slice once baked.

Stir the polenta and baking powder together in a bowl.

Whizz 3/4 of the corn in a blender or spice grinder. If you can find creamed corn, you could always buy some and save the hassle, but I’ve never seen it, other than in US recipes. Mix the creamed corn in another bowl with the remaining corn kernels (for texture); the eggs; buttermilk; sliced chillies; and 3/4 of the grated cheese – reserving the rest to one side. Stir in the oil, butter and onions from the pan, but don’t wipe it out, as you now have a non-stick coating to bake the cornbread in. Quickly mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones, not worrying about any stray lumps in the batter.

Pour the batter into the oily pan and sprinkle the reserved cheese over the top. Bake for around 45 minutes till the top seems firm, adjusting the time if your oven/BBQ is cool or hot (mine was hot, as I was baking chicken wings too). Let cool for a few minutes until the cornbread starts to come away from the sides and serve directly from the pan; or turn out onto a plate if the pan has a non-stick surface that you fear scraping.

The texture is more crumbly cake than bread, but that’s perfect for soaking up BBQ sauce.