The Hasty-Pudding, with a Memoir on Maize or Indian Corn/Recipes
Recipes.
The following recipes have been obtained from persons of skill and experience in the preparation of maize for food, several of them having been presented to the New-York Farmers’ Club, with samples of cooking, which were pronounced as excellent, and met the entire approbation of all who tasted them.
HOW TO BOIL GREEN CORN.
The proper state in which to eat green corn, is at the time that the milk flows upon pressing the kernels with the thumb nail. It is best when boiled in the ear with the husks on, the latter of which should be stripped off when brought to the table. The ears should then be covered with butter, with a little salt added, and the grains eaten off the cob. Over-refined people think this vulgar, and shave them off close to the core, but in so doing they lose much of their sweetness.—American Agriculturist.
HOW TO POP OR PARCH CORN.
Fill an iron pot with sand, and set on the fire till the sand is very hot. Two or three pounds of the grain are then thrown in, and well mixed with the sand by stirring. Each grain bursts and throws out a white substance of twice (four times) its bigness. The sand is separated by a wire sieve, and returned into the pot to be again heated, and repeat the operation with fresh grain. That which is parched is pounded to a powder in mortars. This being sifted will keep long for use. An Indian will travel far, and subsist long on a small bag of it, taking only six or eight ounces of it per day, mixed with water.—Dr. Franklin.
Modern Modes of Popping Corn.—Take a gill, a half pint, or more of Valparaiso or Pop Corn, and put in a frying-pan, slightly buttered, or rubbed with lard. Hold the pan over a fire so as constantly to stir or shake the corn within, and in a few minutes each kernel will pop, or turn inside out, and is ready for immediate use. May be eaten with, or without, a little sugar or salt, added while hot in the pan.
A very ingenious contrivance has been invented within a few years for parching corn, which, if rightly managed, surpasses every other mode. It consists of a box made of wire-gauze, with the apertures not exceeding one twentieth of an inch square, and is so constructed that the corn can be put within it, without being burnt, and can be held over a hot fire made either of wood or coal. The carburetted hydrogen gas, produced within the box by the decomposition of the oil in the corn, is prevented from explosion in a similar manner as fire-damp, in mines, is prevented from explosion by the safety-lamp.
HOW TO MAKE SUCCOTASH.
To about half a pound of salt pork, add 3 quarts of cold water, and set it to boil. Now cut off 3 quarts of green corn from the cobs; set the corn aside, and put the cobs to boil with the pork, as they will add much to the richness of the mixture. When the pork has boiled, say half an hour, remove the cobs and put in 1 quart of freshly-gathered, green, shelled beans; boil again for fifteen minutes; then add the 3 quarts of corn and let it boil another fifteen minutes. Now turn the whole into a dish, add five or six large spoonfuls of butter, season it with pepper to your taste, and with salt also, if the salt of the pork has not proved sufficient. If the liquor has boiled away, it will be necessary to add a little more to it before taking it away from the fire, as this is an essential part of the affair.—Western Farmer and Gardener.
Succotash in Winter.—Take, when green, your corn either on the cob, or carefully shelled, and your beans in the pod. Dip them in boiling water, and carefully dry them in the shade where there is a free circulation of air. Pack them up in a box or bag, in which they should be kept in a dry place; and succotash may be made from them as well in winter as in summer.—Agriculturist.
HOW TO PREPARE SAMP OR HULLED CORN.
Take a pint, a quart, or more, of the grains of hard, ripe flint, or gourd-seed corn; soak them over night in a lessive or ley, and then pound them in a large wooden mortar, with a wooden pestle; the skin of each grain is by that means peeled off, and the farinaceous part left whole, which, being boiled, swells into a white, soft, pulp, and eaten with milk, or with butter and sugar, is delicious.—Dr. Franklin.'
HOW TO MAKE HOMMONY.
Wash a pint of grits (particles of flint-corn ground to one fourth the size of a grain of mustard, with the finer parts of the flour separated by a sieve) in two or three waters, taking care each time to let them settle. When you pour off the water the grits must be well rubbed with the hands in order to separate them from the finer particles of flour. Then put them into a sauce-pan with a pint of water slightly salted, and let them boil slowly for nearly half an hour, occasionally stirring the mixture as soon as it begins to boil.
Hommony may be boiled to any consistency, that may be preferred, from that of mush to the dryness of rice.—A. Barclay, Esq., H. B. M. Consul at New York.
HOW TO MAKE INDIAN GRUEL.
Take 1 quart of boiling water and stir in 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of finely-sifted Indian meal, previously mixed with a little cold water. Add salt to your liking, and let the mixture boil for fifteen or twenty minutes. A small quantity of pulverized crackers, a few raisins, or a little sugar added, will render it more palatable to the sick.—From a Lady.
HOW TO MAKE HASTY-PUDDING,
Called Mush, by the Pennsylvanians; Supporn, in the state of New York; Stir-a-bout, in Ireland; Polenta, in Italy; and Api, by the ancient Peruvians. Boil a quart, 3 pints, or 2 quarts of water, according to the size of your family. Stir into a bowl of cold water, 5 or 6 tablespoonfuls of fine Indian meal, and pour it into the kettle of water as soon as it begins to boil. Stir the mixture well, add salt to your taste, and let it boil down to a thick gruel. Then sprinkle in, handful by handful, finely-sifted Indian meal, stirring briskly all the while with a wooden spatula or slice, until it is sufficiently stiff to need a strong hand. It usually requires about half of an hour to be thoroughly cooked. May be eaten with milk, butter, sugar, or molasses.—A Lady.
Fried Hasty-Pudding.—Cut the pudding, when cold, into slices half of an inch thick, and fry them brown, on both sides, in a little butter or lard, and it serves as an excellent substitute for potatoes or buck-wheat cakes. If made of the meal of white or yellow flint-corn, a small quantity of wheaten or rye flour should be added to the mush, while cooking, to prevent its crumbling when fried.—Ibid.
HOW TO MAKE BOILED INDIAN PUDDING.
Boil a quart of milk, and stir in Indian meal till it is nearly as thick as you can stir it with a spoon; then add a teaspoonful of salt, a cupful of molasses, a teaspoonful of ginger, or ground cinnamon, and cold milk enough to make a thin batter. Boil in a thick bag four hours. Care should be taken that the water does not stop boiling while the pudding is in. A dish made in this way, with the addition of a quart of chopped, sweet apples, and baked from four to six hours will be found delicious, when served up hot and eaten with sauce made of drawn-butter, nutmeg, and wine.—A Lady.
The Farmer’s Own Pudding.—Take 3 lbs. of northern yellow corn meal, 1 lb. of beef suet, 1 lb. of dried currants, half a teaspoonful of salæratus, and incorporate the whole, while dry, well together in a large dish. Then add, and continually stir, 112 pints of molasses, and a sufficient quantity of boiling-hot water to reduce the mixture to the thickness of common mush, and let it stand over night in a moderately warm place. The next morning, tie up the whole in a wide-mouthed bag, taking care to leave room enough within, to allow the pudding to swell, and incessantly boil for four or five hours. This pudding may be eaten while hot, with, or without sauce, and will be sufficiently large to feed twenty men. One half, or one fourth of the quantity of ingredients may be employed, and treated in the same manner as the whole.—A Lady.
HOW TO MAKE BAKED INDIAN PUDDING.
To 2 quarts of milk, add 1 quart of meal, a little salt, and a cupful of sugar. Prepare by heating the milk over the fire, stirring it occasionally to prevent its burning; when it nearly boils, remove it, put in the salt and sugar, and scatter in the meal, stirring rapidly to prevent its collecting into lumps; put in nutmeg and turn into a deep pan. Bake immediately, or otherwise, as may be convenient, in a hot oven, three hours. When it has baked an hour or more, pour over the pudding from a gill to a half pint of milk; this will soften the crust and form a delicious whey.
An inferior pudding may be made by substituting skimmed milk and molasses, with allspice or ginger, for seasoning. This is the common Yankee pudding. Variations can be made by adding chopped suet, apples, peaches, berries, or raisins.—Burritt.
Suffolk County, L. I., Indian Pudding.—Heat 3 half pints of milk to boiling; mix your corn meal with a half pint of cold milk, the meal having been previously sifted; and pour the cold milk and meal into the boiling milk, stirring continuously. When scalded, take it off the fire and let it cool down to blood warm. Then mix in 10 eggs, previously beaten, until they will stand alone, a little salt, a quarter of a teaspoonful of ground nutmeg, a quarter of a teaspoonful of cinnamon, a teaspoonful of allspice or pimento; sweeten with sugar or molasses; stir in a pinch of ground ginger, a pinch of grated dried lemon peel, a teaspoonful of butter, and bake. Good either hot or cold.—From Professor Mapes.
Prescott Pudding.—Take a teacupful of fine Indian meal, and a pint of molasses well mixed. Add, by constantly stirring, a quart of hot, boiling milk, a piece of butter of the size of an English walnut, 3 eggs, and a teaspoonful of salt. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan, and bake in a moderately hot oven three hours. This pudding was much used in the family of the late Judge Prescott, of Boston, in Massachusetts, from whose lady this recipe was obtained.
HOW TO MAKE CORN BREAD.
In stopping at Bement’s American Hotel, in Albany, a few weeks since, I do not know when I relished any food better than I did some excellent corn bread, which I found on his breakfast table. I was so well pleased with the article, as well as with the general character of his house, that I begged of him to furnish me with a recipe for making it, which is as follows:—
Take 3 quarts of milk, a little sour, 7 eggs, 2 ounces of butter, one teaspoonful of salæratus, and mix with Indian meal, to the consistency of a thick batter, and bake with a strong heat. The pans used for baking are of tin, 8 inches in diameter, 112 inches deep, and a little bevelled. The above is sufficient for seven or eight loaves.—American Agriculturist.A Traveller.
Indian Bannock.—Take 1 quart of sifted meal, 2 great spoonfuls of molasses, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt, a bit of shortening half as big as a hen’s egg, stirred together; make it pretty moist with scalding water; put it into a well greased pan; smooth over the surface with a spoon, and bake it brown on both sides, before a quick fire. A little stewed pumpkin, scalded with the meal, improves the taste. Bannock split and dipped in butter makes very nice toast.—From a Lady.
Superior Corn Bread.—Take 1 quart of sour milk, add the beaten yolks of 8 eggs and a handful of Indian meal, briskly stirring the mixture while adding the meal. To this add a half teaspoonful of salæratus, 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and stir in alternately the beaten white of the eggs, and a sufficient quantity of meal to form a smooth batter of the consissistency of hasty-pudding. Then quickly turn the mixture into well buttered tins, and bake in a brisk oven. The time required for baking will depend upon the size and thickness of the bread. For smaller parcels one half or one fourth of the above-named materials may be used.—From Judson’s Hotel, 61 Broadway, N. Y.A Rich Corn Bread.—I send you a receipt for making corn bread, such as is used at every meal at my house. I have stopped at nearly all the fashionable hotels in the Union, and never have found anything that has equalled it. It should be tried by every one who wishes to have a superior bread.
Take 1 egg well beaten, a half pint of thick cream, Indian meal sufficient to form a thick batter, a small quantity of salt; add half a teaspoonful of salæratus, dissolved in a small quantity of water; after mixing thoroughly, put it into the pans or oven, and bake immediately.—American Agriculturist.
Centreville, Miss., April 15, 1846.E. J. Capell.
Excellent Hommony Bread.—Break 2 eggs into a bowl and beat them from five to ten minutes. Add, by continually stirring, a salt-spoon of table salt, 4 or 5 tablespoonfuls of hot hommony reduced nearly to the consistency of thick gruel with hot milk, 1 large spoonful of butter, and a pint of scalded Indian meal squeezed dry. Make up the mixture into small loaves or round cakes 112 inches thick, and bake in a brisk oven.—From A. Barclay, Esq., H. B. M. Consul at New York.
Epicure’s Corn Bread.—Upon 2 quarts of sifted corn meal pour just enough boiling water to scald it thoroughly; if too much water is used it will be heavy. Stir it thoroughly, and let it get cold; then rub in a piece of butter as large as a hen’s egg, together with 2 teaspoonfuls of fine salt; beat 4 eggs thoroughly, which will be all the better if the whites and yolks are beaten separately, and add them to the meal and mix thoroughly. Next, add a pint of sour cream, butter-milk, or sour milk (which stand in the order of their value.) Dissolve 2 teaspoonfuls of salæratus in hot water, and stir it in. Put it in buttered pans and bake it.
In winter it may be mixed over night and in that case, the eggs and salæratus should not be put in until morning. When ready for the oven, the mixture ought to be about as thin as good mush, if not, more cream should be added.
If you are not an epicure already, you will be in danger of becoming one, if you eat much of this corn cake—provided it is well made.—Beecher’s Western, Farmers, and Gardeners’ Almanac.
Hoosier Biscuit.—Add a teaspoonful of salt to a pint of new milk, warm from the cow. Stir in flour until it becomes a stiff batter; add 2 great spoonfuls of lively brewer’s yeast; put it in a warm place and let it rise just as much as it will. When well raised, stir in a teasponful of salæratus dissolved in hot water. Beat up 3 eggs, (2 will answer,) stir with the batter, and add flour until it becomes tolerably stiff dough; knead it thoroughly, set it by the fire until it begins to rise, then roll out, cut to biscuit form, put in pans, cover it over with a thick cloth, set by the fire until it raises again, then bake in a quick oven. If well made, no direction will be needed for eating. [This bread is thought to be improved by adding to the mixture a small quantity of Indian meal.]As all families are not provided with scales and weights, referring to ingredients generally used in cakes and pastry, we subjoin a list of weights and measures.
WEIGHT AND MEASURE.
| Wheat flour, | 1 pound | is | 1 quart. |
| Indian meal, | 1 pound, 2 ounces, | is | 1 quart. |
| Butter, when soft, | 1 pound, 1 ounce, | is | 1 quart. |
| Loaf-sugar, broken, | 1 pound | is | 1 quart. |
| White sugar, powder’d, | 1 pound, 1 ounce, | is | 1 quart. |
| Best brown sugar, | 1 pound, 2 ounces, | is | 1 quart. |
| Eggs, average size, | 10 eggs | are | 1 pound. |
LIQUID MEASURE.
| Sixteen large tablespoonfuls | are | half a pint. |
| Eight large tablespoonfuls | are | one gill. |
| Four large tablespoonfuls | are | half a gill. |
| A common sized tumbler | holds | half a pint. |
| A common sized wine glass | holds | half a gill. |
Allowing for accidental differences in the quality, freshness, dryness, and moisture of the articles, we believe this comparison between weight and measure to be nearly correct.—Ibid.
Boston Brown Bread.—Take 1 quart of rye meal, 2 quarts of Indian, (if not fresh, scald it,) half a teacupful of molasses, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt, 1 teaspoonful of salæratus, 1 tea-cup of home-brewed yeast, or half the quantity of distillery yeast, make it as stiff as can be stirred with a spoon, with warm water, and let it rise from night till morning. Then put it into a large, deep pan, smooth the top with the hand, dipped in cold water, let it stand a few minutes, and then bake in an oven five or six hours If put in late in the day, it may remain in the oven over night.Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book.
