I've made these countless times, and they're always a hit. They're from The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook, a really fantastic book (the fall vegetable stew on page 56 is a regular in my rotation). We actually just made these over the weekend, along with a pot of Four Chile Chili (another recipe I highly recommend, by the way), and took dinner over to our friends with a newborn. The chili was well-received, but these muffins were what they couldn't stop talking about.
Blue Corn Muffins with Chile and Cheese
from The Sante Fe School of Cooking Cookbook
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
5 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk (milk may be substituted)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup blue cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking power
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
3/4 cup roasted, peeled, diced green chile
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin tins well or insert paper liners.*
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.
3. In another bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk. Slowly mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
5. Stir in the corn, cheese, chiles and mix well. Spoon the batter into muffin tins. Bake about 25 minutes, until just firm. Serve warm with butter.
(Make ahead of time if it helps - these reheat wonderfully. Yields 6 extra-large muffins, 12 large muffins, or 18 small muffins)
*I'm addicted to my extra-large red silicone muffin "pan," so I skip greasing/lining, and then rejoice when my jumbo-size hot muffins pop right out of the mold when they're done.
Those sound wonderful! Makes me miss New Mexico. :( And warm green chili stew on a cold night.
ReplyDeleteQuestion- can I use diced green chile from a (bows her head in shame) can?
ReplyDeleteI've never had canned green chiles (says the person lucky enough to call New Mexico home for five years and who now stocks her freezer with the real deal), HOWEVER... I will not judge those without access to the real thing, because fresh green chile can be difficult to come by in most of the country. (Although promise me you'll try your local Whole Foods in the fall during the harvest - I know fresh green chile made it to the Raleigh WF this year, of all places.)
ReplyDeleteSo until then, I say give canned chile a try, and then make the muffins again when we go on one of our Southern food snob/literati trips and I bring you some of my green chile stash, so you can begin an addiction of your own.
OR, buy the frozen stuff from a New Mexico distributor now. You're welcome! :-)
Ughhh you're killing me. I'm going through serious Santa Fe withdrawls.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU! I've been looking forward to this all day! For Samma - we sent some friends in Seattle green chiles last fall and they made it just fine so we've had good experience with the distributors.
ReplyDeleteI plan to try making these this weekend with a few tweaks for my gluten/egg allergy - can't wait!
You know I think you have fabulous taste, and this is solid proof. I made a few little changes (used canned green chiles, but they were Hatch, does that give me a tiny bit of cred back?! and yellow cornmeal).. but OMG yum. It's taking every ounce of my willpower not to eat the 11 remaining muffins before dinner. YUMYUMYUMYUMMMMMM.
ReplyDeletePerfect- frozen sounds great. You are killing me with your whole foods reference though, because I do not have one here in East Tennessee. It is one of the great tragedies of my life curretnly (yes, I have a nice life).
ReplyDeleteOne of the best times my husband and I ever had in Santa Fe was going on the walking restaurant tour that the Santa Fe School of Cooking does. We started at 2 in the afternoon with an appetizer and a glass of wine at the school and progressed from there to 4 other downtown restaurants. At each, the chef came out to greet us with another house specialty and another glass of wine. He would talk to us about the restaurant, history, food and it was all delicious.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to try both recipes - thank you so much for posting them! I'm drooling as I read this and bookmark the recipe for next week.
ReplyDelete