My sister and her far flung travels inspired this delicious and hearty cornbread recipe that filled my kitchen with the most amazing scent of baked herbs and onions.

ingredients:

	1 tablespoon butter
	1 small onion, diced
	1 cup cornmeal
	1 cup all-purpose flour
	2 teaspoons baking powder
	1 teaspoon baking soda
	1 teaspoon salt
	½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
	3 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
	1 cup buttermilk
	2 eggs
	½ cup melted butter, melted and cooled
	small sprigs of rosemary or fresh parsley for topping

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan.

2. Melt butter in small frying pan over medium-low heat. Add onion; cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Cool. In a large bowl, using a fork, stir cornmeal with flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cayenne until well blended. Stir in rosemary and cooled onion.

3. In a medium bowl whisk buttermilk with eggs and ½ cup melted butter. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until combined. Turn into loaf pan smoothing top. Scatter small sprigs of rosemary or parsley on batter.

4. Bake in centre of preheated oven until tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Turn out onto a rack and cool completely.

* For this recipe I prefer to use ¾ cup of fine corn meal and ¼ cup coarser grits or polenta - it makes the texture just a bit more crunchy and the bottom crust is really quite crispy and delicious.

* If you don't happen to have buttermilk on hand you can easily substitute regular (skim or 2%) milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice poured into it. Let it sit for about 10 minutes before adding it to the recipe and it will just be starting to sour - perfect buttermilk!

after-thoughts:

* adapted from Food & Drink Magazine, Holiday, 2001

Filed under:   Side-Dishes & Salads   Snacks   Bread

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