Recipe Tuesday: Corn Pone (or what to do with leftover chilli)

Sunday, we had beef chilli for dinner.  When I cooked it, I followed the chilli variant of my recipe post from May 2007,  Minced Beef & Other Possibilities, adding grated carrots and a quarter cup of split red lentils to ensure we had leftovers.  There was enough chilli for dinner for two, two lunch boxes and to form the basis of dinner tonight.  

The idea behind this recipe comes from The Tightwad Gazette, where Amy Dacycyn talks about adding a tin of baked beans and a cornbread top to leftover chilli, in order to make Corn Pone.  Sadly, Amy doesn’t give more details. Maybe Americans are taught to make cornbread at school.  I certainly wasn’t.  The top is a Cornmeal Spoon Bread.  I haven’t priced up the leftover chilli but the additions come to 62p.

Corn Pone - Serves 4

Ingredients

2-4 portions of beef chilli

1x 420g can baked beans (22p)

150g/1 cup fine cornmeal (15p)

1 teaspoon baking powder (5p)

1 clove garlic, crushed (optional) (5p)

1 teaspoon lazy chilli (optional) (5p)

1 egg, beaten (10p)

250ml/1 cup water

Pinch of salt

5 grounds black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220C.
2. Combine the chilli and the baked beans and pour into a deep ovenproof dish.  Smooth over the top.
3. In a bowl, combine the other ingredients and beat until smooth.  (This is the spoon bread top.)
4. Pour the spoon bread over the over the chilli, carefully covering the top of the chilli.  (It will be runny and won’t pour out smoothly.)
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, or until browned and crisp on top.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get it to look pretty on the plate, but it was yummy!

Enjoy.

- Pam