I have four cast iron skillets, ranging in size from the smallest, six inches across, to the whopper, at 12½ inches. The two smaller ones are lighter weight than the larger ones. I use them for cooking eggs, making pain perdu (lost bread), buttermilk biscuits and grilled cheese sandwiches, or for pan-frying chops and small steaks.
The whopper is so heavy I have to use both hands to lift it. It’s reserved for larger roasts, such as the turkey for Thanksgiving or the ham at Christmas, or when I do an entire pork fish (whole loin). It holds enough for a crowd, of whatever I’m cooking at the time.
My favorite of the four, however, is the 10½ inch skillet. I use it for just about anything, from my (damned-good-if-I-do-say-so-myself) Southern fried chicken, to rice pilaf, to dry roasted vegetables, to French-fries and smothered cottage fries; from hamburgers and chili to pineapple-upside-down cake and apple tarte tatin. It is my work-horse, the one we all refer to as the cornbread skillet, for that is the only one of the four that makes decent cornbread.
The cornbread skillet is of the perfect depth and the exact weight, and has sides of the scientifically precise angle, for making cornbread as it should be made: slightly higher in the center, with crispy sides and bottom, and with small wells around the rim where the olive oil flowed up over the batter as it spread across the sizzling hot pan. It can’t be beat!
10 comments:
I may have to make cornbread tomorrow.
Good! I'm planning homemade ham and bean soup and a pan of cornbread. I love to eat leftover cornbread crumbled into cold milk, comfort food from childhood.
A little masterpiece to which I'll return after my secular duties at Tesco.
Didn't go to Tesco (the nearest), decided to go to Sainsbury (the next one up classwise) but as I left the driveway Mrs BB asked "How much is there in the tank?" and I could see her point: the car will be traded a week today and we still have more than three-quarters of a tank of gas (diesel actually). And so we drove 25 miles down the pike to Waitrose, the classiest of all the supermarkets where we bought, among other things, a haggis and a Teisin Lap.
On reflection my suggestion about writing was Works Well-ish and contained a teensy bit of self-interest. What you came up with is part-biography but arrived at indirectly, throwing up things in a different way from if you'd been asked to write about yourself. As we drove towards Waitrose (relishing the indulgence) I asked Mrs BB if she was surprised about an American routinely cooking chicken pilaf ("spelt with an f") and she said she was. Our experiences of suburban US are now nearly forty years out of date and this small detail proves it. "And why would pork loin be called pork fish?" I asked. "Because it's fish-shaped?" Mrs BB hazarded.
Do you get the idea? As a result of your post (unguarded in the way you wrote it and perhaps profiting from the word limit) we found ourselves feasting on the warp and woof of your life. Me, I went off at a tangent, wondering whether you'd measured the skillets or simply knew the diameters off by heart. What's more, by concentrating on detail, you sort of proved the cornbread skillet was your favourite.
But what has all this got to do with my reasons for suggesting you take these detours in your writing? Well first you wrote about things close to your heart (Yes, really!) and you connected. I theorise that if I suffered from depression I'd probably want to connect. You entertained us. And, perhaps most important, you drew back a curtain to reveal the normalcy that is is in conflict with the depression.
I didn't suggest this as a substitute for writing about your struggles; they're too important to leave out. But varying the tone may help. There's a lightness to this stuff that suggests you may have enjoyed writing it (although never be seduced by mere enjoyment; enjoyment proceeds from doing the job well, which you did).
Oh, one more thing: pain perdu and tarte tatin in italics. Way to go, Crow, way to go.
My mouth is watering. When I visited the states about 15 years ago I fell in love with cornbread big time.
I have never eat corn bread, though I have heard of it, as in "I don't want no corn bread an' molasses". But I know I would like it, preferably without molasses, but instead with some of your dry roasted vegetables.
Is pain perdu the same as what I call French toast - slices of bread, dipped in beaten egg, fried and tossed in sugar? If so that something else your post has evoked in my memory.
Delicious writing, in every sense. I bought polenta the other day, not quite sure why but now I recall that it can serve for cornbread, which I haven't made for years but was one reason I bought 'The Joy of Cooking', in days long before the internet.
I don't have such a fine skillet as you, but can doubtless find something...
Crow, you have a genius for writing about the intimate, inanimate objects of our lives.
Can you post the cornbread recipe you use?
My mother used to make hers with bacon drippings, and she called it Johnny cake. (She was from Missouri.)
Inspired by you, last night I made banana nut cornbread in my cast-iron skillet. (Just added 2 overripe bananas and a handful of walnuts to the regular recipe.)
I'm so glad to see you're back writing and posting again. Now I'm wishing I hadn't moved so often that my cast iron skillets had to be given away long ago. There's nothing else like them even though they take a long time to season. A bit like us, eh?
Hello, everyone. Thank you for your comments.
BB, I know about haggis. In this area (south-central Pennsylvania), the locals eat hog maw, which is stuffed pig stomach, cooked pretty much the same as haggis. I suppose, before I die, I really must try hog maw...likely just before I die, I'm thinking. Please tell Mrs. BB she is on the money about why the whole pork loin is called pork fish. The 'tail' is usually tucked under at the thinner end and tied, so that the loin will cook evenly.
Steve and Fresca, I'll post the recipe I use for cornbread. Most people add sugar to the batter, but I like it plain.
Plutarch, pain perdu is, essentially, french toast, except in New Orleans they use stale ("lost") french bread, a very light, crusty bread allowed to dry out then soak in a rich egg, vanilla-laced, milky batter, before being fried to golden brown in LOTS of butter. This also makes some of the finest bread pudding I've ever eaten. Can't get New Orleans-style french bread up here, so I make do with sandwich bread or cinnamon-raisin bread.
Lucy, I used polenta once, and it made a denser, moister cornbread than the cornmeal I usually buy. The polenta cornbread was right tasty, too.
Susan, I re-season my pans at least once a year, and always after I cook acidy foods in them. They are treasures, to be sure. I'm sorry you had to leave yours behind.
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