Samp, or Hulled Corn
Ingredients
Directions
Soak and hull
Place the corn in a pot and cover it with water.
Add the hardwood ashes and soak for a while.
Boil the mixture until the hulls come off easily.
Rinse and finish
Wash the corn in cold water to remove the taste of potash.
Boil the corn again until the kernels are soft.
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
- Old, dry, ripe corn
- Provides the kernels, which soften and swell during the alkaline boil.
- Hardwood ashes
- Supply alkali that loosens the hulls and helps soften the kernels.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture until the hulls come off easily. The alkali from the ashes loosens the hull's bonds to the kernel. If the boil is too short, hulls stay stuck. Checking by feel, rather than by time alone, shows when the hulls are loose.
“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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