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Hush Puppies
From Choice
Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around
the World and Throughout History
1
cup cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 small to medium onion, minced
1 egg
1/4 cup milk or water
Vegetable oil, for frying
Yields 3 to 4 servings.
Mix
together the dry ingredients and the onion. Break
in the egg and beat vigorously. Add the liquid. Form
into small patties, round or finger-shaped. Carefully
drop in deep smoking oil, until they are a deep brown
(see note). Serve hot and at once. |
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Note: Hush puppies are especially good with just-caught
fried fish. If you are serving them that way, fry
them in the oil in which the fish has been cooked,
although as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote in 1942's
Cross Creek Cookery about this recipe, "I do
not recommend a practice of some sportsmen of using
beer for the mixing fluid. By it, the sweet nutty
flavor of the hush puppy is a little soured, even
when baking soda is used instead of baking powder.
Devotees of this custom are likely to be those so
unbalanced by large quantities of the mixing fluid
that they are in no condition to treat hush puppies
with the respect due them."
(Updated: 10/07/08 SN) |
