Dried Corn Hulled with Lye
Ingredients
Directions
Make the lye
Boil the wood ashes in cold water for 15 minutes.
Let the lye cool until the ashes settle at the bottom.
Pour off and strain the clear liquid.
Hull the corn
Mix the lye with an equal quantity of cold water to cover the dried corn.
Boil the corn in the lye water until the hulls begin to break off, then drain the corn.
Rinse the corn in cold water, rubbing it between your hands until all hulls are removed.
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
- Wood ashes
- Supplies the alkali (lye) that softens the corn and loosens its hulls.
- Dried corn
- The grain whose tough outer hulls are loosened by the lye and then removed.
The step that matters
Rinse the corn thoroughly. Lye is caustic, and any alkali left on the kernels after boiling can remain harsh and unpleasant. Rubbing and rinsing in cold water washes away the loosened hulls and residual lye before the corn is used.
“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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