Lye Hominy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the lye
Cover the wood ashes with water and boil for 15 minutes.
Add cold water and let it settle.
Strain through a cloth and bring the liquid to a boil.
Cook the corn
Add the shelled corn and boil for about 1 hour until the hull can be washed off.
Set outside overnight to freeze.
In the morning, put over a slow fire and boil for about 8 hours, adding hot water as needed.
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
- Their alkaline liquid loosens the corn hulls so they can be washed away.
- White corn
- Dried kernels that soften and swell in the alkaline liquid, becoming tender hominy.
The step that matters
Boiling the corn until the hull loosens. The corn must be boiled until the hulls can be rubbed or washed off. Stopping too early leaves the tough outer hull attached, while the alkaline liquid continues to soften the kernel during the long cook.
“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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