Cooking for Alan – Fresh Corn Pancakes with Avocado Cream

Fresh Corn Pancakes – Southern Comfort Food

When it’s summertime and I think of comfort food, I go back to my childhood and remember all of the southern dishes my mother prepared for a family of seven.  I grew up with four very active and hungry brothers.  While we didn’t have loads of money, my mother was masterful at making every penny stretch by feeding us wholesome food on a budget.  One of my favorite things she would make us was delicious cornbread.  In fact she loved it so much she would take a slice of cornbread and dunk it into a glass of cold buttermilk that she seasoned with salt and black pepper. Eww?

But every once in awhile, she would switch things up and take the same cornbread recipe and instead of baking it in her cast iron skillet, she would fry it up into little cakes.  And let me be very clear, this woman who grew up in a tiny town in Tennessee would never, ever add sugar to her cornbread batter.  Cornbread and corn cakes are a SAVORY dish.  However, we would sometimes top a slice of hot cornbread with butter and some honey for a special sweet treat.

Enough reminiscing…tonight I selected another Ina Garten recipe from her book, Cooking for Jeffrey that made a perfect addition to my roasted pork tenderloin and creamy coleslaw dinner.  I searched the internet to find my readers the original recipe, but sadly this is one that she has not fully released.  So if you click here you will find the basic ingredients needed to make this fresh corn batter.

It’s like most cornbread recipes.  The essential ingredients that make this version delicious are buttermilk, a dash of hot sauce, fresh corn kernels, fresh chives and diced jalapeno pepper.

From there you heat a non stick skillet over medium.  I then poured a tiny amount of melted butter into four areas on the skillet.  I took about 1/4 cup of the batter and placed it on top of each little puddle of hot butter.  Grilled them for about 1-2 minutes per side until they were golden brown.

Lastly I decided to make a nice little avocado cream.  I whipped it up in no time. Place all ingredients in a bowl and whip with whisk until thoroughly combined: 1/2 avocado, smashed with fork, 1/4 cup mayo, 1/4 cup sour cream, juice of 1/4 lemon, and a pinch of sea salt.  You could also add a dash of hot sauce if you’d like it to have some heat.