The Meal's Other Half

Sometimes the perfect meal just isn’t complete without complimenting side dishes.

My boyfriend had made his own homemade chili two days ago. He cooked beans, fresh chopped tomatoes, chili peppers, and spices in a Dutch oven pan. It was delicious with the juices from the tomatoes and beans coming together to the tongue-flaming hot chopped peppers. We had so much that it was a meal in itself so I skipped on adding anything of my own.

The chili was so flaming-hot for me I didn’t have that much of it even though it was probably the best homemade chili I have ever had.

Oddly enough though I didn’t think of it until the next day how important cornbread is with chili! Well to me it is…

Just the Thing, Cornbread

Ingredients:

              1 cup flour

              1 cup yellow cornmeal

              2/3 cup sugar

              1 teaspoon salt

              1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

              1 egg

1/3 cup vegetable oil (or olive oil that’s what I used and just as delicious, plus healthier substitute)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray or lightly grease a baking pan, about 9 inches if using a round cake pot. In a bowl, stir together flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder then add the egg, milk and oil. Stir ingredients until mixture is smooth about 2-3 minutes. Pour the batter into your greased pan and place in the oven to bake for 25 minutes. Check with a toothpick or butter knife pocked into the center of the loaf and if it comes out clean pull it out of the oven.  

Every time it seems I remember some of the greatest and most scrumptious meals I have had I recall two things about them.

1.       What ingredients were used?

2.       What kind of flavors or tastes did the ingredients bring: zesty, crispy smooth, bitter?

Combining something spicy with something sweet like chili and cornbread tends to balance a meal out. Have you ever had something so extremely salty like French Fries that you just can’t eat it, even though they are really yummy? However, then you smother each of the fries into fresh ketchup and suddenly it seems like two okay items become one amazing snack.

Think of any strong single flavored meal. I always remember rich, sweet chocolate desserts that restaurants sometimes serve. Take one bite and it is creamy and sweet that captures all the reasons why people love chocolate so much. After the second and third mouthful, it almost feels like you might drown in chocolate. Suddenly, the savory chocolate cake described in the menu became too much of a fulfilling dessert that you can’t even finish.

Imagine if only the restaurant had added slightly salted and almost sweet crackers or something…or cornbread.

Okay, not cornbread but that would be the perfect complimenting dish for chili. Next time, I will have to think ahead and realize if the main dish is missing “its other half”.