Hush Puppies Base Recipe and Behind the scene

Several days ago, my partner sent me a picture of hush puppies, seared redfish, red beans and rice. I was specifically interested in hush puppies, I thought it was unique and something that we don't have in Indonesia, at least I have not found it yet. So, I decided to cook hush puppies with recipe I found online. However, I did a little modification to it due giving it more flavor. So, if you want to make this tasty golden brown southern meal, here's the recipe for you.

---

---

Ingredients

| 2 cup self-raising cornmeal | 1/2 cup of self-raising flour | 1/2 tsp of baking soda | 1 onion, finely chopped | 1 tsp of salt | 1 large egg, beaten | 1 cup of buttermilk | oil for deep frying.

Additional : celery as garnish | tomato sauce or mayonaise | spicy flavor to add into the batter.

Above is the picture of hush puppies being fried

---

---

Instructions

• Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl
• Whisk the egg alongside with onion, milk and salt
• Pour it to the dry ingredients until it soften and slighly thickens. Make sure you can make round shape from it.
• Heat up a large cast-iron. Drop batter by teaspoonful into oil. Do this multiple times until the cast-iron is full.
• Fry until the batter turns into golden brown. Drain it on paper towel
• Finally, add celery as garnish.
• Serve with mayonaise or tomato sauce.

---

---

Behind The Scene

Actually, I wasn't planning to make hush puppies today. I went to the supermarket only to get shao mei wrap and its ingredients. But then, on the way I recalled the hush puppies my partner sent me. So, I asked him to send me the base recipe and I decided to go hunting for it. He sent me this recipe Hushpuppies by Paula Deen. However, I notice the recipe is bland and having little spices. I've never eaten hush puppies before so I kinda imagined it would be tasteless. But after adding more salt and onion, it turned out fine.

While trying to gather all the ingredients for this recipe, I had to visit several stores just to find cornmeal. I thought most supermarkets would have it but nope. Instead, I found it by asking several vegetables stalls in the traditional market. I had to go back and forth couple of times as well, just to find baking soda since most stores were already closed. Eventually, I managed to find all the ingredients and the taste were worth my time and energy. My next goal is making grit, I am always curious of how that tastes.

According to me hushpuppies has unique taste. The texture is crispy, smooth and there's little corn taste to it. The onion adds more flavor to it. Though, I would imagine it would be better if I can add mushroom or cheese stick inside of it. I'd give this food 3/5 stars for the taste. I would eat this but not something I'd eat daily.

Happy cooking !

[macchiata]