Lye Hominy
Ingredients
Directions
Fill a large tank with 400 pounds of corn and cover it with water, ensuring the water is at least 6 inches above the corn.
Boil the water using steam before starting the agitator.
Once the agitator is running, add 16 to 18 pounds of lye to the corn.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- White hard flinty corn
- Provides the dense kernels that the lye softens and swells into hominy.
- Lye
- Alkali that loosens the corn's hulls and softens the kernels.
The step that matters
Adding the lye once the agitator is running. Lye is caustic and reacts strongly with the corn. Adding it while the agitator turns spreads it evenly through the water, so the kernels soften uniformly rather than unevenly.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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