Cornbread Ham Stuffing For Christmas Thanksgiving Roast

Christmas and Thanksgiving is the time for a roast and stuffing. I know the idea of baking a perfectly delicious cornbread only to crumble it up and then stuff a turkey with it sounds ludicrous to many. I happen to be on the wrong side of crazy so to me, it sounds perfectly sane. Of course you can dispense with this whole recipe and make double of the apricot stuffing or if you have leftover cornbread (I find I don't like it nearly as much the next day after baking it), then absolutely use that. But this cornbread stuffing is rather special.

For starters it's studded with a generous amount of super sweet corn and sweetened lightly with honey. Then it is crumbled up (channel any inner Christmas shopping rage) and mixed with cubes of ham. If I am to be honest, I used a couple of those strange ham steak things that come four to a packet. The last time I ate one was with a ring of pineapple at a countryside diner about 8 years ago. I think an 8 year gap between ham steaks sounds about right.

Cornbread and Ham stuffing

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

For cornbread-enough to stuff a giant turkey and then some

• 1 cup/150g/5ozs plain all purpose flour

• 1 cup/165g/5.8ozs cornmeal or polenta

• 1 tablespoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup/50g/1.7ozs grated cheese

• 1 cup/250ml/8.8flozs buttermilk (or regular milk soured with a tablespoon of lemon juice)

• 1/4 cup/60ml/2flozs oil (plus extra to grease tin, I used a Grove avocado oil which is why it is green)

• 1/4 cup/85g/3ozs honey

• 1 egg

• 420g/14.8 oz. tin of corn kernels (I like the super sweet variety)

For the rest of the stuffing

• 3 large onions, finely chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

• 2 tablespoons butter for frying

• 1 cornbread (above)

• 375g/13ozs ham steaks, diced

• 3 eggs

• 100ml/3.5ozs cream

• fresh lemon thyme or thyme (to taste)

• Salt and pepper

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 220C/440F. Line a loaf tray with parchment paper or grease with oil. In a large bowl, whisk the dry ingredients (flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt) and then stir in the cheese. In a jug, whisk the buttermilk, oil, honey and egg together and using a spoon mix it all together. Add the drained corn kernels and stir to combine. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool so that it can be handled (you can make this up to 3 days ahead of time).

Step 2 - In a frypan, heat some butter and fry the onions and garlic until soft on low to medium heat, stirring so that it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. It takes about 10-15 minutes to get them soft and sweet.

Step 3 - Meanwhile, crumble the cornbread and add this to a large bowl along with the diced ham. Beat 3 eggs with the cream and add this and then add herbs, salt and pepper. Add the onions and garlic when they are done.