Sunday, August 18, 2013

Overly-Honest Corncakes


Although I can usually tinker and sub out the wheat, it’s always a wonderful surprise when one of my favorite bloggers posts something that’s already gluten free (I can neither confirm nor deny that, in this case, I audibly squealed). What you will find below is a scaled down version of David Lebovitz’s Fresh Corn Cakes. Scaled down and also... well... profoundly, inexcusably inaccurate.

(This post inspired by #overlyhonestmethods, which, if you’ve ever worked in scientific research, I guaran-dang-tee you will find completely and utterly hilarious)


Ingredients
  • Two Medium Onions. Mine were red onions.
  • 115 g (3/4 Cup) Cornmeal
  • 3/4 Tsp Baking Powder
  • 1/2 Tsp Salt
  • 20 g (2 Tbsp) Unsalted Butter
  • 115 g (1/2 Cup) Milk
  • 1 Egg, or 50-60 g egg, not counting shell weight
  • Pinch of Maple Sugar (brown sugar is a good substitute)
  • 1 Ear of Fresh Corn (150 g or 1 cup kernels)
  • 1 Jalapeno with the gills and seeds removed, chopped 

Special Equipment
Food processor, 3 cups or bigger 

Time
No more than 30 minutes

Serves
Two as a side

Instructions
Onions were the one change I made to this recipe that was intentional. Well, semi-intentional. By that, I mean that 1) I opened up my fridge and found some onions 2) I have yet to find any food not improved by sauteed onions and 3) I wanted to sit down and procrastinate some more, and could justify that because the onions were cooking. Anyhoo, I sauted them over low heat in a little butter until I suddenly remembered their existence, frantically ran back into the kitchen, and flipped off the burner. They were just shy of inedibly burnt, so I employed the all-powerful phrase “eh, good enough!” and set them aside.

I made the batter in a food processor. Firstly, it’s less work, and secondly, you’re supposed to use finely-ground corn flour, and I didn’t have any. Instead, I decided to pulse the dry ingredients and cross my fingers really hard. Soooo, anyway, I combined the cornmeal, baking powder, and salt, and processed until whatever random fantasy was flitting through my head reached its natural conclusion. I omitted the cayenne, mostly because I was in a caffeine hole, and the thought of pulling down my spice bin made me feel exhausted.

Because my kitchen is like 80 degrees, and thus my butter is more of a nebulous, greasy blob than a stick, I just threw it right on top of the dry ingredients along with the milk, egg, and maple sugar, and mixed. I added the corn and pulsed again quickly. Then I remembered that I had wandered off and gotten distracted by a sale at the Gap website and neglected to saute the jalapeno with the onions, so I just threw it in raw. (Chiles would probably have been better, but I didn’t have any). Then I remembered the onions, and added those too.

I heated a handful of lard until it felt hot-ish when I held my hand nearby. I used a 3 tbsp scoop to portion the batter, because it was on the top of the pile. After the first couple fritters broke, I cranked up the heat a little more. I narrowly managed to restrain myself from using the lard left on my hands as moisturizer. I fried the fritters until brown on both sides. They were delicious.



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