Hominy is such a wonderful use of corn. Who knew that you could cook dried corn in lime, creating a hearty, robust, grain that's so much more filling than plain cooked corn?
And better for you. The process of making hominy supercharges the protein available from sun-dried corn. It also makes vitamin B-3 (niacin) more available for digestion.
HIstorically, dried corn was slow-cooked in wood ash or lime. Northern and southern indigenous Americans used wood ash, south-westerners used available lime. I don't know where they got the lime, but I'm guessing it has something to do with limestone.
Cooking in lime loosens the hard outer shell, or pericap, allowing it to rinse away, creating alkalinized corn or 'nixtamal.' Further slow cooking swells up the individual kernels.
I got Roy's Calais Flint Corn, a beautiful maroon and yellow corn, from Ayres Creek Farms at the Hillsdale Farmers Market.
Here's a blurb on the corn variety from the High Mowing Seed catalogue: This excellent Vermont flint corn was recognized by the Slow Food “Ark of Taste” as a historic variety in need of preservation. Roy's makes an excellent cornmeal, flour or hominy. Highly ornamental mix of golden yellow and deep maroon ears. Originally from the Abenaki tribe of the Northeast and Quebec. (Zea mays)
Turning dried corn into hominy is a time consuming process. For me, it was a two-day project. Ayres Creek sells packages of dried corn and lime as a hominy kit. The raw ingredients are also available at a good Mexican market.
I cooked the corn in lime for a total of three hours, at a super low simmer. Anyone who has made perfect chicken stock, knows that the simmer you want is characterized by slow, lazy bubbles breaking the surface of the stock. I simmered the corn in the same way, looking for a few slow bubbles to break the surface.
Initially, the liquid turns a dramatic shade of yellow and the kitchen fills up with the scent of corn.
The photo on the left is the corn in the first hour. The photo on the right is the finished product, ready to be rinsed.
The corn slow-simmered for three hours, and marinated overnight. The following morning, I rinsed the corn, washing away the pericap.
Easier said than done! The maroon kernels released the skin much more easily than the yellow. I did a lot of scrubbing (with my hands) and rubbing, rinsing until the nixtamal squeeked.
Then it went into the slow cooker. Since I usually braise anything I want 'slow cooked', I've never felt the need for a crock pot, so I picked up one at Goodwill for $10. Since I'd never used one before, I didn't realize that everything goes into the crock should be as hot as possible. I ended up putting in hot tap water and the nixtamal. So, it took about six hours of cooking for the kernels to 'open up like a flower' (according to the Ayres Creek recipe writer). The smell of cooked corn set my stomach to growling.
When I had trouble getting the pericap off the yellow kernels of corn, I had visions of popcorn hulls getting caught in my teeth. Not so! Even though not all the pericap came off the yellow corn kernels, it didn't effect the flavor in the least.
If you like corn, you will LOVE fresh hominy. The flavor is pure 'corn'. So different from canned hominy. Imagine a really good French baguette.... compared to Wonder bread. They're both white bread, but the flavors are so different. My hominy was so delicious. I'd make it again.
The only problem I'm having is using a gallon zip-lock bag of hominy!
Fear not, recipes will follow.
Corn = Good
