Leslie Karst here, tickled to welcome to the Kitchen Wendall Thomas, author of the hilarious Cyd Redondo mystery series, the most recent of which is Fogged Off. Be sure to read to the end, as Wendall is giving away a copy of the second book in the series, Drowned Under, to one lucky commenter. Take it away, Wendall!
Although my character, Cyd Redondo, is from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, I’m a North Carolina girl. I grew up with grandmothers and great-aunts who were astonishing cooks. They made the best biscuits, string beans with ham hock, smothered pork chops, crab cakes, and pound cake I’ve ever had. And of course, the best cornbread, made with coarse cornmeal and buttermilk and cooked in a cast iron skillet. For them the stuff that passes for cornbread in other parts of the country—cakey and sweet—would have been blasphemy.
I was a purist, too, until the first time I visited New Mexico and tasted blue corn flour. Since then, I have made a southwestern version of my Great-Aunt Ruth’s recipe almost every Sunday morning. It’s a quick, simple, and is not only sugar free, it’s also gluten free. For extra Southwest flavor, I add roasted green chiles and jack cheese, but it is delicious plain as well.
Real Southern No-Flour Cornbread, via Santa Fe
Ingredients/Tools
A 10-inch cast iron skillet
Vegetable oil
2 cups blue corn flour (you can also use the traditional yellow corn meal instead)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk (I use reduced fat as it’s easier to find, but whole is delicious)
1/4 cup melted butter
And if you’re using:
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack or Sharp Cheddar
1/4 to 1/3 cup roasted green chiles, chopped – depending on how spicy you’d like it to be. I use Santa Fe Ole Extra Roasted Green Chiles, but you can always roast them yourself.
Directions
Preheat oven to 425°
Mix dry ingredients together, then mix the eggs and buttermilk in a separate bowl.
Melt the butter.
Put a very thin layer of vegetable oil in the cast iron skillet—I use a paper towel to spread the oil all the way up the sides and to sop up any extra oil if I’ve overdone it!
Turn heat on high under the skillet.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients and add the cheese and chiles, if you’re using. Fold in the melted butter.
By then the skillet should be hot and the oil just starting to smoke.
Pour the batter into the skillet (it should sizzle).
Being careful with the hot skillet, put it on the middle rack of your pre-heated oven. It cooks more quickly than you’d think, so start checking it after 12 minutes- it’s usually only a minute or two between the middle being liquid and being done. When the middle of the cornbread just barely starts to bounce back, remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes.
Serve with butter, honey, or pepper jelly, if you have it.
*** I’ve found the best deals on both my Santa Fe Ole extra roasted green chiles and my blue corn flour from this site.
Amazon often has blue corn flour and you can also get the green chiles and blue corn flour from The Santa Fe School of Cooking’s online market.
About Wendall:
Wendall Thomas writes the Anthony, Macavity, and Lefty nominated Cyd Redondo Mysteries, teaches in the Graduate Film School at UCLA, lectures internationally on screenwriting, and has worked as an entertainment reporter, development executive, script consultant, and film and television writer. Her short fiction appears in the crime anthologies Ladies Night (2015), Last Resort (2017), and the Anthony nominated Murder-A-Go-Go’s (2019).
About Fogged Off:
When travel agent Cyd Redondo's client and Jack the Ripper expert Shep Helnikov is found dead in London, she navigates the cutthroat worlds of research librarians, unemployed actors, rodent smugglers and more to find his killer and bring his body back home.
BUY Fogged Off HERE
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NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY! To be eligible to win a copy of Drowned Under, comment below answering this question: What family recipe do you still make most often?
