Jalapeño Cornbread

This traditional cornbread recipe was adapted from "Guardian Service Tested Recipes" to suit the Californio theme of our Gold Rush Stuffing in last year's Thanksgiving post on roast turkey. It cooks to golden-brown perfection in the 10" Guardian Service Breakfast Fryer.

Jalapeño Cornbread

1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 jalapeño peppers, seeded, finely chopped
1 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 T. sugar
2 cups cornmeal
2 eggs
2 cups milk or buttermilk
4 T. melted butter, plus more for sautéing onion and peppers

1. Melt butter in 10" Guardian Service breakfast fryer and reserve 4 T for batter. In remaining butter, sauté onion and peppers until tender.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add cornmeal.
3. Beat egg, add milk.
4. Mix quickly with dry ingredients and pour batter over the onion and pepper mixture.
5. Pour melted butter over top and cut through batter with a spatula.
6. Bake in oven at 400℉ (or in a layer pan on high in Guardian Service Kettle Canner) for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean.

Guardian Service Backyard: Buffalo Ribs, Corn on the Cob and Brownies

As the dog days of August continue, we fixed another meal over coals last night, juggling items on the portable grill in a similar method to the "tandoori" dinner in our last post. Here's another attempt at cooking a complete meal out–of–doors with our Guardian Service cookware.

Last night's menu featured:

  - Grilled Barbecued buffalo ribs and peaches

  - Corn on the cob (steamed with Anaheim pepper and Brussels sprouts)

  - Fruit and nut brownies (almost, see below)

...all prepared over 12-15 briquettes on a portable grill, using the Guardian Service Tureen and Duplex Utility Pans.

Timing and preparation are crucial: Start with the corn (and/or other vegetables) in the Guardian Service Tureen, set to one side of the grill. Once the pot is warm to the touch, stack the marinated ribs (and peaches) on the remaining grill space. When the corn is tender (roughly 30 minutes) remove the Tureen and set nearby to keep warm. Glaze the ribs with remaining barbecue sauce and finish cooking. Remove ribs and cook the brownies in the Duplex Utility pan for half an hour, flipping the pan after 15 minutes.

Corn on the Cob: Smoky, slow cooked peppers are traditional to Southwestern cooking; to get the same flavor with our Guardian Service Tureen, we added Anaheim pepper to our corn on the cob before cooking over the coals. Lined with corn husks and layered with Brussels sprouts (employing the "basket" technique, which I blogged about in our last post), the Guardian Service "waterless cooking" technique marries and infuses flavors with spectacular results: garden–fresh corn tinged with sweet, spicy pepper and caramelized sprouts.

Ribs: We marinated the buffalo ribs (grass-fed and organic from Handy Market in Burbank) in garlic, bacon drippings, salt, pepper and 1/4 cup homemade barbecue sauce, grilled them, then re-glazed them with plenty of sauce, finishing on the grill for another 20 minutes. Alongside the ribs, we grilled barely-ripe, locally-grown peaches, halved and marinated in the same barbecue sauce, as a compliment to the ribs. NOTE: You'll want a damp rag handy as the Tureen is bound to get messy during this process, and clean up is a snap, when it's warm.

Brownies on the Barbie?: Not really. Since the coals were still hot, we whipped up some Trader Joe's packaged brownie mix and threw it on the grill in a buttered Duplex Utility Pan. This turned out not to be the best method for brownies, which need moisture to escape to form a chewy crust—the opposite of what the Guardian Service pans are built to do. Warm from the coals and topped with ice cream, the gooey chocolate lava flow was yummy, just not an ideal brownie.


For our next post, I'll try using the Duplex Utility Pan to make a classic "Knickerbocker Nut Bread" from the recipe in the original accompanying leaflet—will the result be a doorstop or delectable?