Practicing for the "Hot & Spicy"

Thought I'd try to cook cornbread on the little Brinkman. I used a couple of pieces of oak for smoke. With the temperature issues and wide open airflow of the little cooker, I figured it was a no brainer.

I have never in my life made cornbread with white corn meal, but I wanted "Hot Rize" and all they had was white buttermilk. I'm glad my beloved grandmother was not around to find out about this, it would break her heart. It was her skillet after all. I'm taking a chance that she doesn't have high speed cable in whichever nirvana she's blissfully spending her time now. I wouldn't want her to read me describing how good this was.

It was pretty awesome, even with the white cornmeal. I was breaking the rules tonight. I even finished a tenderloin off to temp, wrapped in foil with apple juice. I had to, I threw it on before the coals got low enough. I had raised the grate but the difference was not enough. I had been running that thing at over 400* F. for an hour. The pork was getting way too dry over the fire and the water bowl was dirty so I foiled it at 155* to get to 210*. It was mighty fine as well. Sorry, no action shots of the tenderloin.

The remains.





Here's an open bag pic of the pulled pork.



Here's a shot of the Cornbread.

The Cook Phase 1

Get the grill up to temp.
Get the pan up to temp in the oven with a light glaze of Crisco.
Get the onions chopped and into the pan with a little more Crisco.
Get it on the grill. :-D

The Cook Phase 2

Remove onions when they start to wilt and add a half pound of Neese's Hot Breakfast Sausage.
Brown sausage and return onions to pan.

The Cook Phase 3

Mix Cornbread batter and add slowly to the skillet.
Cover grill and wait 15 minutes before opening lid.
Open lid and add cheese.
Close grill.
Check again after 10 minutes.

The Cook Phase 4

Remove from grill and let cool at least 30 minutes before turning cornbread out of skillet.
Flip cornbread right side up and sprinkle with thyme and cilantro.
Slice.
Consume with pulled pork and enjoy immensely.

Recipe

This was supposed to be a "Mexican" cornbread rip off. But I found my chorizo was a week out of date, and I had one jalapeno and zero rare fanciful death peppers like the rest of you guys. Don't know how that happened without it getting frozen. Anyway here's what I did. Help me find a name for it.

Crisco
1/2 pound hot breakfast sausage
1/2 onion, chopped
3 green chili peppers, chopped, with seeds
3 red chili peppers, chopped, with seeds
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped, with seeds
1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground red pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp fresh ground, (in my new coffee grinder), home dried "little chilis"
1/2 Tbsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 cups self rising corn meal, preferably yellow
1 egg beaten into 1 and 1/3 cups milk
1/2 - 1 cup cheese, (I used fiesta blend tonight, usually use cheddar or pepper jack)

Brown the sausage. Saute the onion. Beat the egg into the milk. Add remaining ingredients except cheese to the batter. Pour batter into skillet with sausage and onions. Cook at 400* - 450* for 20 - 30 minutes. Watch the edges for a hint about the bottom and smell very carefully. If you smell the bottom scorching you will know it. If you know how to cook cornbread in the oven this is not very different. Must have a well seasoned pan for this one I believe. It was hot and spicy as hell but I wish I would have had a couple of more green and red jalapenos as well. Just for looks. And yeah, sorry, I wanted bacon in and on it too, but somehow didn't notice we were out before I went to the grocer's.

Next time I would use a whole pound of sausage. Add a 1/4 cup of milk, 2 Tbsp self rising flour, and more peppers. It was plenty hot, I would like more peppers instead of dry ingredients though.

Oh yeah, and bacon!

Big George's BBQ said:

Nice Pics except for the shot of the ashtray and ashes on the table
Corn bread looks great

Click to expand...

That shot wasn't staged. My buddy was getting ready to go home and I went inside to get his doggy bag. I realized we hadn't taken a single pic of the pork so he just threw it up on the desk in the garage and I took a shot. Pretty good stuff.

Thanks for the comments.