Fried Cornbread

Fried Cornbread - made July 30, 2017 from The Southern Lady Cooks

After my hoecake experiment, I went a little more boldly into “southern cooking” with this recipe for fried cornbread. Actually, maybe not so boldly because I did modify the recipe slightly. I don’t have good luck with southern recipes. That’s not just my assessment but I’ve been told flat out from people from the South that I don’t really know true Southern cooking or baking. Harsh (and sometimes delivered rudely) but fair enough since I’m not from the South and wasn’t raised there but still I try. And I’m always willing to learn.

This recipe is from a blog called The Southern Lady Cooks so I’m trusting in the name and the recipe. The part I didn’t go bold on is I couldn’t bring myself to use all that oil as called for in the recipe. It essentially calls for deep frying the cornbread. I still wanted to use my griddle rather than a high-sided frying pan so I didn’t use all that oil but did generously grease the griddle with oil. Okay, I know, it’s not the same thing but that was a lot of oil.

Straying from the directions and not going all-in probably disqualifies me from true Southern cooking once and for all. The fried cornbread actually did taste like cornbread but I think I fried it too long and it seemed dry. And heavy. The batter was really thick. It also didn’t have as much flavor as I had hoped but it seemed really salty. Maybe my non-Southern taste buds veer more towards my sweet tooth than people from the South. Or I’m just not a cornbread person, fried or baked. Oh well, I tried.

1 1/2 cup self-rising cornmeal

2/3 cups buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup oil for cooking

1. Mix together cornmeal, buttermilk, egg and salt. Drop by spoonfuls into hot oil. Brown on one side then turn and fry until golden brown on both sides. Serve warm with butter.