It’s time to face the fact that even though winter is not quite knocking on our door, it’s definitely around the corner.

To celebrate the month of May, I’ve decided to cook the colours of autumn – yellow, red, orange… For many (me included), it’s their favourite season, so let’s find joy in the things we can!  Since it’s also Grain SA’s Nampo Harvest Festival this week, I’ve decided to use something that is so much part of that area and which I personally love – corn.

DIE GROOT BOEREKOSBOEK – CORNBREAD

If you’re South African, you have eaten cornbread.  I think some version of this recipe exists in every South African household.  I love cornbread, especially warm from the oven, smeared with a thick layer of butter. 

I’ve recently indexed all the recipes in all the recipe books I own.  I also arranged it according to cuisine – heritage food, boerekos, Mediterranean, North Africa, Asian, etc.  But this is a story for another day.  I just need to mention that in my boerekos file, I have three different recipes for corn bread. This is the first one I chose to make and comes from Dine van Zyl’s wonderful book Die Groot Boerekosboek.  It’s probably one of the simplest bread recipes you’ll ever make and it’s delicious.

500 g self-raising flour

5 ml salt

500 (2 cups) ml buttermilk

5 ml (1 teaspoon) red chilli, deseeded and chopped

250 ml (1 cup) cheddar cheese

410 g (1 can) of whole corn, drained

Sift the self-raising flour and salt into a bowl.  Stir in the buttermilk and chilli.  Add the cheese and corn and mix well.  Spoon into a prepared bread tin and bake at 180?C for 50 minutes.

Once it’s done, knock on the bottom.  If it sounds hollow, the bread is cooked through.

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ooOoo