Recipes

 
These delicious and versatile little breads have a lovely light texture. They make great accompaniments to soups, salads, dips or heavier roast meats. They are so good you could have them any time: breakfast, lunch or dinner.




Makes 6

    1 egg, separated
    260 ml skimmed milk
    200 ml vegetable oil
    120 g strong flour
    160 g polenta (fine cornmeal)
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    1 teaspoon salt
    1 large red pepper, deseeded and thinly sliced
    9 cherry tomatoes, quartered
    6 x 10-cm loose-based fluted tartlet tins, greased  

Method

Put the egg yolk, milk, oil, flour, polenta, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk well until smooth. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow the polenta to soak up the liquid. This makes for better cornbread.

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F) Gas 6.

Remove the cornbread batter from the fridge. Put the egg white in a separate, grease-free bowl and whisk until it forms stiff peaks, then fold it gently into the batter. Spoon the batter into the tartlet tins almost to the top and scatter the pepper and tomatoes on top.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before serving warm. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Taken from Popina Book of Baking by Isidora  Popovic (Ryland Peters & Small), with a foreword by our very own Henrietta Green. Photography by Peter Cassidy, copyright of Ryland Peters & Small.