How a dinner of rabbit and polenta and the local grain movement evolved into a dinner of chili and cornbread.
I promised some friends a dinner of rabbit cooked in the Lombardy style and the polenta to go with it. Browsing the aisles at Surfas in Culver City I noticed that they have a small inventory of flours from Anson Mills in their refrigerator, among which is their Slow Roasted Polenta (artisanal), a product which is only available wholesale. The rustic corny grain made truly wonderful polenta. But I still have some left and even though it can hang out in the freezer I really want to use it up quickly before any hint of rancidity sneaks in. Enter cornbread. Now if you really want to fall down a cornbread rabbit hole Anson Mills will definitely be your major enabler. I count 5 different types of cornmeal and 3 different polenta “flours” on the retail part of their site. But I also happen to have some Roan Mills locally grown and milled Sonoran wheat. I was curious to see what a whole grain cornbread made from these crazy excellent products would taste like and maybe even more curious to check out the texture of such a “bread”. But woman doesn’t live from cornbread alone so I decided to make chili too.
About This Cornbread:
True black skillet cornbread is made from a coarser grain than I used and doesn’t include any other flour or sugar. All the flavor and texture comes from the corn itself. However, in this recipe I wanted to experiment with both whole grain cornmeal and fresh local whole grain flour. I was skeptical, thinking the texture would be sludgy and heavy. It was not. I loved the crumbly texture. I felt like this was the first cornbread I made that was like the kind I read about in novels or old cookbooks, the kind you would crumble into milk. I noticed that it was much easier to slice and held together better the second day so I decided to saute it in butter to accompany my day old chili.
About My Chili:
My Aunt Ruth’s chili is famous in our family. Every New Year’s Day she made a big pot for her yearly open house. She always used ground meat. I usually do too, but this time I had some Rancho San Julian stew meat (from the farmers’ market) in the house and decided to go ahead and cut it smaller and go in a more meaty direction. When I make chili I love to play with combining different chili powders. Every time you see a bottle of chile powder that’s a different color it’s an indication that a different variety of chile was ground up for that brand. My favorite combo turns out to be about a 2 to 1 ratio of traditional dark red-brown chili powder (yes with the onion and/or garlic powder) with the redder New Mexico chile powder. But you should experiment. It might seem strange but since I make much more Indian food than bowls of Texas red I think of the chile as a masala, so customizing it comes naturally.