These cornbreads are my homage to the ones we used to serve at Milkbar’s LA Flagship. I still remember my first “unofficial” day there, the manager on duty, Nicole, gave me a bunch of the breads that we were going to make, since breads were her specialty. Among them was this mini cornbread muffin, topped with savory corn elote(a Mexican street corn that is grilled and served with a creamy-spicy sauce), micro cilantro, pickled onions, and crumbled cotija cheese. It was meant to pay homage to Los Angeles, since we are definitely one of the best cities in the states when it comes to our Mexican food. It helped open my eyes to what savory baking could entail, and it stuck with me all these years later – so I figured, why not make my own variation of it? Now I will be honest, regrettably I never stole or wrote down that cornbread recipe. I say this because I’m not even sure if Milkbar still sells it. I did some preliminary research on it, and could only find posts about it on Milkbar’s Facebook page in 2018-2019-ish, since I was trying to cross reference some of the finer details before I made my own. I did find out, only after I made this recipe, that the Milkbar one was completely gluten-free(oops, mine contains all-purpose flour), but nonetheless, mine is quite similar to theirs. That being said, I did use regular cilantro instead of micro, added fresh sliced jalapeños because I love a good kick, I also made one addition to pay homage to my time as a butcher – grilled beef heart. I always loved doing grilled beef with corn, so this is meant to add a meaty texture and just another slab of umami and savoriness. I’ve used beef heart in the past, and I love it because it almost tastes like skirt steak when you marinate and sear it. What I love about this recipe, beyond it just combining two of my past professions into one bite, is the seasonality of it – corn is delicious in the summer, and this recipe capitalizes on that beautifully!

Makes 12 cornbreads:
For the cornbread:
5.5oz ground cornmeal
10oz fresh corn
8oz yogurt or crema
2.5oz canola oil
1oz honey
1 egg
3.5oz all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

In a bowl, mix all of your ingredients together until a batter forms. Scoop the batter between 12 cooking spray-lined cupcake tins. 375 F for 18 minutes. Allow the cornbreads to somewhat cool before attempting to unmold.

For the grilled beef heart:
1 beef heart
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 tbsp honey
a pinch of salt
1 tbsp white vinegar

Using a boning knife, start by trimming any of the excess tallow/fat from the exterior of the beef heart. Render that tallow in a pan and reserve the rendered fat for future cooking(you can use it to get a gorgeous sear on this beef heart, to brush on the corn or jalapeño in the elote for example). Then slice the beef heart in half so that you have two large, flatter steaks. Carefully slice off any thin, wiry veins from the interior of the heart, as those will not tenderize. Toss the heart in a bowl with the other ingredients and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Remove the hearts from the marinade and pat dry. In a pan with some of the beef tallow from earlier, sear the hearts on each side on medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Then roast in a 400 degree F oven for another 5. The interior of the heart steaks should be roughly 120 degrees F. Allow the heart steaks to rest before slicing thinly on a bias.

For the elote:
2 cobs of corn
1 tbsp lard(or reserved beef heart tallow!)
1 jalapeño
salt
pepper
2oz crema(or yogurt)
1 tbsp Kewpie mayo
juice and zest of 1 lime
.5oz chopped cilantro
Tajine
Cotija cheese

Brush the exterior of both the corn and jalapeño with lard and sprinkle salt and pepper generously on the exterior. On a grill pan or a piping hot cast iron, sear the corn on all sides until the exterior is dark brown. Do the same with the jalapeño. Carefully rub the skin off the exterior of the jalapeño and remove the stem and seeds. Dice the remainder of it finely. With the corn, cut the kernels off the cob. Toss the corn and jalapeño with the crema, kewpie, lime juice, and cilantro, adding a bit more salt to taste. Spoon some elote onto each cornbread and dust with tajine and a crumbling of cotija cheese.

For garnish:
thinly sliced jalapeño
cilantro
lime

To finish, garnish the tops of the cornbreads with beef heart slices, jalapeño, cilantro, and lime.