Cornbread Dressing Recipe

Basic Cornbread

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup cornmeal (yellow)
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (Which I don't keep on hand so I sub 1/2tsp of white vinegar to every 1/2cup of milk)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.  Pam spray heavy black skillet ... middle shelf when it goes in.  My Gran pre-heated her skillet as the oven heated: I do that also.

In a large bowl, mix together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, buttermilk, and butter. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the cornmeal mixture and fold together until there are no dry spots (the batter will still be lumpy). Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.

Bake until the top is golden brown and tester inserted into the middle of the corn bread comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the cornbread from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes before serving.

If you like it's easy to add "special" ingredients.  I frequently add sharp cheddar cheese (grated) and jalapenos.  You might want to sub a bit of bacon grease for some of the butter ... or add already cooked bacon bits.  Cream cheese can be added to replace butter ... freshly grated parmesan ... rosemary, basil ... dill ... garlic.  Open to variation!

Just plain ole is what I use in our cornbread dressing.  For dressing I add sautéed onion, shallots, celery, water chestnuts (I like pecans too, but I think I'm the only one who does so I omit them) ... I've seen corn kernels, red pepper, jalapenos ... oysters ... mushrooms ... Daddy was in charge of the dressing as I grew up and he added all kinds of stuff, sometimes placing several different bowls of dressing on the buffet with little sign cards ... super sage, oyster deluxe, spicy especial.  I add chopped up boiled eggs too, and the pan drippings from the turkey ... plus toasted bread crumbs, some raw eggs (omitted this year and I didn't miss them at all ... still an excellent texture, not sure why they're part of the recipe, but I'm probably cutting them from mine), and chicken stock ... season with poultry seasoning and sage, salt and pepper ... bake.  I don't know how long or how hot.  I usually put it in with whatever else is cooking (in a smaller roasting pan - covered) and I just check on it until it looks done.  Basically to "cook" the raw eggs.  It should begin to pull away from the side of the baking dish and "dry out" to the right consistency (like mashed potatoes).  It goes in with the turkey as soon as I can pour pan dripping off of the turkey for the dressing and the giblet gravy ... may cook about an hour(?) or less.  My dad mixed the ingredients with his hands and just keep on pouring chicken stock in to it until it was "well saturated" ... speaking of which, I believe I have seen bourbon infused (delicately) dressing too.  Have fun with it ... that's the main recipe!

picture before everything was all stirred together and popped in to the hot oven ... I put this in when I took the cover from the turkey ... last thirty minutes.