By Erica
According to the advertisement, this is going to be a “man-pleasin’ main dish.”
And unfortunately all I have running through my head right now is highly inappropriate jokes about sausages.
- One pound pork sausage links
- 6 apple rings
- 1 cup Quaker or Aunt Jemima Corn Meal (white or yellow)
- 1 cup sifted flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk
- 2 tablespoons sausage drippings
- Brown the pork sausage links in a 10-inch frying pan over low heat. Drain off the drippings. Arrange 10 of the sausage links and the 6 apple rings in a pattern in the bottom of the frying pan. (Save the extra sausage links and cut them into pieces to blend with the batter.)
- For the corn bread, sift together dry ingredients. Add egg, milk and two tablespoons sausage drippings. Beat with rotary beater until smooth, about 1 minute. <em>Do not overbeat.</em> Blend in the chopped sausage links. Pour the batter over the apple rings.
- Bake in hot oven (425°F.) 20 to 25 minutes. Invert immediately and serve with warm apple sauce. Delicious! Try it today!
I used fresh pork sausages in this, not a brown-and-serve frozen version. Not only do they usually taste a little better, but they are much, much greasier.
I was able to get nearly 3/4 cup of drippings from a pound of sausage, which is an absurd amount of fat. Plenty to make sure I had two tablespoons for the cornbread batter.
Unfortunately, the sausages were a little bit too long to really arrange well. Look for short sausages. (Size matters.)
This is what happened when I “poured” the batter over the sausages and apples: PLOP.
See, “pouring” implies liquidity, and this was a very solid batter. A lot of post-pour squishing around was required.
A cast iron skillet is terrific for baking with, going straight from stovetop to oven. A cast iron skillet is terrible to try to flip something out of, since it is both heavy and hot and everything just gets really precarious.
Luckily, it went mostly smoothly…
To make sure this was as man-pleasin’ as possible, Buzz wore a manly plaid shirt.
“Wait, is that a bad face? It’s just cornbread and sausages. Good sausages.”
“It just doesn’t taste like anything, unless you have sausage and apple in the bite.”
“Good thing we’ve got all that applesauce left over from the Baba last week — I’ll go get some more…”
Verdict: Pretty good, but pretty bland.
Tasting notes:
The sausage is spicy and the apples are sweet, but the cornbread is very bland in comparison. Would have been better if the sausage was all chopped and mixed in — sacrifice presentation for flavor — and maybe the apple was in small bits too, not rings on top. Definitely don’t leave off the applesauce.
Interesting! I thought for sure this was going to be a good one! But props on the presentation. I love it!
Oh – and loving the plaid shirt!
Ha! Buzz looked very manly in lumberjack shirt. I thought this would be delicious-maybe a drizzle of maple syrup is needed?? I like the idea of adding the chopped sausage and apple to the batter.
Oh my gosh, my Mom used to make this when I was a kid! She made it using spiced apple rings (which are bright red and come in glass jars), and yes, it was delicious served with a lot of maple syrup and a little butter! I think the spiced apple rings are necessary to keep it from being bland, just as I think the brown and serve sausage links are necessary to get the right flavor and texture.
You had me at “size matters” LOL!