So, a while back kleinbl00 made some spaghetti sauce according to some pretty loose directions I laid out in another thread. He was kind enough to pass on the following recipes. Now, the only KKK I'm a fan of is the Katipunan but I am a sucker for cornbread and beans.
- Kleinbl00 Klan Kornbread
Preheat oven to 400F
1 C cornmeal (the real stuff, chunky and grainy)
1/2 C flour (any)
1 t. salt
1 t. sugar
3 t. baking powder (also known as 1T but why dirty more than 1 measuring spoon)
1C milk
1 egg
~3T bacon fat
Heat cast-iron skillet over stove. Melt bacon grease in it.
Combine dry ingredients.
Coat bottom and sides of skillet with bacon grease. Dump excess into dry ingredients.
Add milk & egg, mix with a fork. Don't worry about small lumps.
Pour batter into skillet, 3/4" or so deep, 3/4" or so freeboard.
Bake 12-15min.
Klan Kleinbl00 blacK bean(K)s
1 bag black beans
5-8 c chicken or turkey stock (one of those frozen ziploc bags from the last time you rendered a carcass)
shit tons of cumen
shit tons of paprika
a bay leaf
marjoram
good handful of salt
shit tons of ground pepper
Less of that red chile powder you got from the Homeland than you think because holy fuck is it hot
Other spices that seem like a good idea
OPTIONAL BUT PREFERRED: 1 ham hock, smoked vertebra, random salt pork chunk, leftover chicken wing, some bacon, whatever
Throw in pressure cooker. Heat until it locks. Let it rock for like 30-40 minutes. Eat crunchier than that shit you get in a can.
VARIATION: Kleinbl00 Klan KPinto KBeans
Substitute shit tons of oregano for the paprika.
I followed the directions pretty closely, but as I was working with beans and cornmeal, there's not a whole lot to see. I didn't use a pressure cooker, since I don't know where it is at the moment and didn't want to clean it up before using it, so instead I just used a regular old pot.
Also, I didn't have any stock on hand so I used the store bought stuff. The thing is, I forgot to check if it was the low sodium kind (which I think you should always try to use and then season as necessary). As a result, my beans were saltier than I would have liked, but I was able to fix that with lemon juice and a little bit of maple syrup. Good beans!
The cornbread turned out really good too and I'll definitely be making more of this. However, it should be noted that this cornbread is not the overly sweet and moist (not that this is at all dry) and corny kind of cornbread that most people seem to be after. No, this is real cornbread. If you did want it a bit sweeter, you could probably add a little molasses to it and it would add a bit more complexity to the flavor and help it brown a bit.
That is propa cornbread. And damn. Way to pimp those beans out. Those look fuckin' delicious. If I'm not pressure cooking the beans, I'll slow cook 'em. With the beans I've gotten out of slow cooking because I like being able to whip out the beans in a little under an hour. If you want your cornbread sweeter, put some honey on it. Or jam. Or green chile jelly. My wife considers beans to be a vehicle for pico de gallo. She eats it at about a 2:1 ratio: - 4 tomatoes - 1 white onion - 1 serrano chile - 1 bunch cilantro - juice of half a lemon Chop onion and tomatoes into dice. cut the top off the serrano, cut in half and de-seed. mince. Chop cilantro down to the stalks. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper. WASH YOUR HANDS THOROUGHLY. Use soap. Then use Fast Orange. Then use soap again. Otherwise you'll rub your eyes an hour from now and be in goddamn agony. Even worse if you forget to wash your hands and go pee.
This is something I learned the hard way several years ago. I've never heard of Fast Orange, but I just looked it up and it looks like something I should have anyway. Lots of pine sap where I'm living now. I remember the first time I got the chili burn really bad, I tried washing my hands in milk, salty water and Cointreau (because I didn't have any rubbing alcohol in the house) and nothing worked. It lasted for hours. The remedy my girlfriend at the time recommended was to rub my hands through my hair which seemed weird, but I've since read that hair is excellent for absorbing oils so I guess there's something to it. Still, it would have been difficult to run my lesser self through my own hair, had the burn spread. These days, I like to do my chilies with a very sharp pair of poultry shears if it's only one or two. It takes longer, but this way I don't have to risk the burn. I love pico de gallo but I need to pick up more tomatoes. I love me some beans, but a little textural variety as imparted by the pico de gallo is a great complement to beans. Thanks again for the recipes!WASH YOUR HANDS THOROUGHLY. Use soap. Then use Fast Orange. Then use soap again. Otherwise you'll rub your eyes an hour from now and be in goddamn agony. Even worse if you forget to wash your hands and go pee.
Nice. I wonder why that is? My aunt is on a big essential oils kick but she never mentioned that to me. Ah pine trees, the bane of my existence. If it's not sap that's getting me, it's the needles, falling branches or the pollen. There's still plenty of snow and it's pretty cold, but soon everything is going to look like this (image from The Boston Globe):
Grew up in Northern NM. I feel your pain. Used to be able to go to the pool during pollen season and run your finger along the edge to come up with pancake batter amounts of gloop that you could then throw at your friends. Ponderosa - the only wood in the world that, when burned in a campfire, makes your clothes smell like Bacos.
Damn, you're making me hungry. My wife, being a vegetarian, eats beans all-the-time. It will be nice to have a new preparation for them. Also, I love corn bread. When you say it's not "sweet," it throws me off though. Most of the cornbread I've enjoyed most has a sweet component that is a direct result of the corn being itself sweet. edit: Just read the beans recipe and there aint no way I can serve that to a vegetarian :) Looks great though. You gonna be around tonight for the #hubskidrinkclub?
There's "cracker cornbread" which is what the white folx south of the Maxon Dixon but east of the Mississippi eat, and then there's "plains cornbread" which is what Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and non-bastardized parts of the west eat. "Plains cornbread" is dying out thanks to the propagation of godless infidels like Chili's and other heinous tex-mex offenders (you know, the assholes that put kidney beans in chili). It's a shame. Most people's idea of "cornbread" is "muffin with chunks of usually-canned corn in it" which, to be frank, I'd rather eat a madeline. They're about as sweet. REAL cornbread doesn't have any corn in it. It has corn MEAL because the whole point was it was something made from dry goods year round. Cracker cornbread is something Woman's Day magazine thinks you should make to return to your roots or some shit.
There's plenty of cracker-cornbread where I'm at these days. The type you are talking about sounds a lot like the "baked polenta" we used to sell for an arm and a leg at the Northern Italian place I once worked at.
You could use veg stock and other stuff instead of bacon or a joint of meat or whatever. That's just for extra flavor and a bit of extra fat. This cornbread has that sweetness of cornmeal, but there's no corn kernels in it. It's not like a corn muffin is what I mean. I don't have any gin, but I'll try to drop in with a glass of what's available. I can't wait for this GD GRE to be over with, man . . .
You can replace any meat flavoring with another umami source. Some good ones are: garlic, onion, nooch, mushrooms (esp. shiitake), soy sauce. Half my meals are traditional meat recipes that I've replaced with various umami sources. I find nooch works well for chicken, shiitake for beef.You could use veg stock
thenewgreen Seconded. Especially if you make it yourself, which isn't hard.
Thanks, I'm aware that I have vegetarian options, I use them all the time though that nooch link was new to me. Thanks. That said, it is no longer this recipe at that point, right? If you are a vegetarian, then I highly suggest trying these out. Thanks for the tips rob05c!
I took a walk a little earlier and I was thinking: maybe instead of the bacon or chicken wing or whatever, a dried mushroom or two, or maybe a few sun dried tomatoes could work to add flavor as the beans cook. Have you tried cooking beans with either of those by any chance? Interesting tip on the nooch. I'd never heard of it before, but I had heard vegan friends mention using yeasts to add flavor. I'll give that a try sometime.
Sun-dried tomatoes sound good too. Tomatoes are supposed to have umami. I can't really tell; or maybe their own taste overpowers it. Personally, I feel like nooch, onion, and garlic sub well for chicken. Beef and pork are harder. Shiitake is the best thing I've found. Nooch is awesome. It's great for chicken/egg/cheese flavoring. I'm a particular fan of this unchicken seasoning recipe.Have you tried cooking beans with either of those by any chance?
I have. I like shiitake or baby portobello, with a little soy sauce, with beans or bean soup. Emphasis on little; it's very easy to add too much, and then it tastes like soy sauce, which is awful. White mushrooms also work. They don't have as much umami, but they're cheaper. If it's just beans, not soup, the mushrooms will be much better pan-fried in butter first. Really draws out the flavor. Especially white mushrooms.maybe instead of the bacon or chicken wing or whatever, a dried mushroom or two
If I were making that particular recipe, I'd probably sub chopped shiitake for the meats. Or ground. If you figure out how to grind them, let me know, heh.
Thanks for the encouragement. I don't usually create my own recipes. I usually use existing ones, or directly modify meat → umami-vegetable. Or throw random stuff into a stir fry, you know. But if I come up with something that seems original enough, sure, definitely. If you like, Thug Kitchen is one of my favorite vegan recipe sites. They're usually really good, don't require exotic ingredients, and his presentation is pretty great.
Don't discount those little tweaks that come when cooking! I've so often found a pretty solid recipe that needs a bit of tweaking and then before I know it, it's much more personalized than when I started. That site looks pretty fun, thanks for the link.But if I come up with something that seems original enough, sure, definitely.