Friday Kosher Food Pron

I saw a recipe for Crackling Corn Bread in the New York Times that called out to me, so I decided to adapt it to my quaint cultural ways (kosher). 

To save some of you city folk the trouble of googling it, cracklings are simply the crisp, fatty skin of roast pork.

If your religious background or sheltered urban upbringing has denied you the pleasure of enjoying cracking, cornbread or both, trust me that there is a solution.

The recipe below has undergone a process of Judaisation (to borrow a word from the Pali lexicon), so kosher cooks can proceed without worry (although vegetarians can keep moving... nothing to see here):

Kosher Crackilng Cornbread Recipe

INGREDIENTS
6 tablespoons shmaltz
2 cups stone-ground cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 ¾ cups fake buttermilk (use 1 ¾ cups soy mil and 1 ¾ cups tablespoons lemon juice)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons kosher cracking (gribenes bits and chopped servalat fried in shmaltz) dried on paper towel)

 

PREPARATION
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the shmaltz in an 8- or 9-inch cast-iron skillet and set over a medium-low flame. Heat until the bubbling subsides.

Meanwhile, combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and gradually stir in the fake buttermilk. Add the eggs and cracklings. Stir in the shmaltz and pour the batter into the hot skillet.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool 15 minutes, then invert over a plate or cooling rack. Serve warm. The cracklings respond especially well if the corn bread is toasted the next day.