A few months ago a chef friend mentioned a favorite breakfast casserole for many
years was the Featherbed eggs recipe in Marion Cunningham’s Breakfast book. Went on a search and found this variation online from a former famous inn called Feather Bed inn. Haven't tried it yet but this is their recipe:
Featherbed Eggs, Southwestern Style
8 servings, depending on accompaniments
Many inns serve some variation of the breakfast "strata" --- a delicious and satisfying sort of savory bread-and-cheese pudding, which pleases the eater while incorporating most of meal's main components and being imminently prepare-in-advance-able.
Here is the Dairy Hollow House version; which was much-loved, often requested. The Featherbeds (the name, but not the recipe, coined by writer Marion Cunningham in The Breakfast Book, Knopf, 1987, a wonderful cookbook) rise a good 1/2 to 1 inch above their ramekins when they first emerge from the oven, but rapidly fall. No matter; these are mighty pleasing. Our variation, zapped with the mild heat of green chiles, stuffed with a dab of cream cheese or neufchatel, and served with a hotter pico-de-gallo-style "Arkansalsa", are even more winsome than the usual.
1/2 cup green chile, either canned or fresh prepared poblano (charred, peeled, seeded, and diced)
Pam, or vegetable oil cooking spray
4 cups large, coarse bread crumbs, from fresh bread, left out to dry overnight (crumbs of leftover Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread preferred, but good crusty whole wheat bread crumbs may also be used)
1 cup (4 ounces) grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese
8 large eggs, beaten lightly
2 cups milk
Dash of hot sauce, such as Tabasco or Frank's Louisiana
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste
2 ounces Neufchatel or cream cheese, divided into 8 pieces
"Arkansalsa", optional, for serving
Preheat oven to 350. Spray with Pam 8 to 10 1-cup ramekins, or 1 14X11-inch shallow bking dish. Scatter dish or dishes with crumbs, and sprinkle crumbs with cheddar.
In a medium bowl, combine eggs, milk, hot sauce, salt and pepper. Whisk to blend. Whisk in diced chiles. Ladle and pour this mixture over the cheesed bread crumbs in ramekins or pans. Push 1 piece of the Neufchatel into each ramekin, or at intervals throughout the single pan.
Bake until the eggs are set and slightly puffed, about 30 minutes for large pan, 20 for ramekins. Do not overbake. Serve with Arkansalsa on the side.
Dairy Hollow House
Skillet-Sizzled Cornbread
Makes 1 Skillet, or 8 large wedges
The cornbread we served at the inn and its single most requested recipe, this is the first Southern food Crescent ever learned to fix. It's the recipe used in the inn’s very first Moos Letter, and it has been in many, many magazines and newspapers.
If you find the amount of butter melted in the bottom of the skillet truly unconscionable, you can cut it back to a tablespoon, and it'll still be very good.
Yellow cornmeal was used here in the Ozarks. In the Deep South, and to the East, white cornmeal was more frequently the choice. Of course, whichever one you first encountered is the right one. (Our cornbread was ready for its close-up in this 1990 inn photograph of Thanksgiving side-dishes).
1 cup stone ground yellow cornmeal.
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 to 3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup plain yogurt mixed with 1/4 cup water)
1 large egg
1/4 cup mild vegetable oil, such as corn, canola, or peanut
Pam
2 to 4 tablespoons butter
Preheat oven to 375. Make sure your oven's accurate, too; it really needs to be up to temperature to get perfect results.
In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and sugar. (If baking powder or soda appear at all lumpy, sift them in). Stir well to combine.
In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg, and oil.
Spray a 9 to 10 ¼ -inch cast iron skillet with Pam (our skillets are 10 1/4 inch; this size is called a Number 7). Put the skillet on over medium heat, add the butter, and heat until the butter melts and is sizzling seriously. Tilt the pan to coat the sides of the skillet.
As the butter's melting, quickly pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and, using a wooden spoon, stir the wet and dry together with as few strokes as possible --- only as many as are needed to combine the two. Don't beat it; don't smooth it out. Scrape the batter into the hot, buttery skillet --- if you've gotten it hot enough it will sizzle as it goes in --- and pop it in the oven immediately.
Bake until golden brown on top, about 25 to 30 minutes. Serve, hot, cut in wedges.
Arkansalsa
There are dozens of varieties of hot peppers which could be used to make this salsa. Choose whatever's available and fresh, and use a lot of just a smidgen according to how incendiary they are – and how fiery you like your food. And no, it's not particularly Arkansan... we were just being cute when we named it (perhaps too much so).
The raw freshness is wonderful, but a nice roasty-toasty flavor variation is also to char the peppers black, peel the skins off, and use the seared pepper flesh. Wear rubber gloves if you go the char-and-peel route.
This is good on almost anything savory, but try it especially on New Wave Black-Eyed Pea Soup.
1 large onion
1/2 green bell pepper, stemmed and seeded
fresh red and green chili peppers to taste
1 tomato, peeled and seeded
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon finely minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoon finely minced fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp. salt
Dice all the ingredients through the tomato into pieces a bit bigger than the head of a wooden kitchen match; the smallness and uniformity of the pieces are important here. Toss all together with the lemon, herbs and salt – the consistency should be more relishy than sauce like. Makes about 1 1/2 cups
This recipe appears in Crescent Dragonwagon's Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread, A Country Inn Cookbook.
