Hush Puppies

Folks-

My southern food kick is continuing today with hush puppies. I have no family links to these, we just all agreed that they're good with fried chicken or southern fried fish. This recipe is a variation of one I found at Small Town Woman, but of course, I modified it.

Enjoy!

ingredients:

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar or honey

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon Creole or Cajun seasoning

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 large egg, beaten

2 tablespoons cooking oil

3 tablespoons chopped green onions or onion flowers

Whisk together dry ingredients. Beat together buttermilk, egg, and oil, then add the onions. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix until combined. Heat 1 1/2 inches (3-4 cm) cooking oil in a cast iron Dutch oven or pan to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit and fry tablespoons of the dough in the oil just until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Place on a cooling rack over paper towels or parchment paper to drain. Eat while hot.

Deep Fried Artichoke Batter

Folks-

This is a work in progress, but it shows promise. My go-to deep-fried artichoke batter has been McCormick beer batter with added Italian seasoning, but I figured it was time to move on and make space in the pantry. So here's what I have so far.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp Italian Seasoning or Herbs de Province

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp white pepper

1/2 Tsp chili powder

1/2 Tsp black pepper

1 cup milk

1 large egg

Combine dry ingredients. Stir in milk and egg until combined and no dry flour is seen. Batter will be lumpy. Dip fresh/frozen artichoke hearts into batter and fry at 350 degrees, flipping once, until golden brown on both sides.

Creole Remoulade

 Folks-

I've been experimenting a lot with Southern cooking lately, and decided to make Fried Catfish and Hushpuppies with Creole Remoulade tonight. So I don't forget the Remoulade recipe, here's my version made using one from Food52.com.

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons minced celery leaves
  
• 4 tablespoons minced parsley
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 6 scallions, white and light green parts, finely minced
  
• 4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  
• 1 teaspoon prepared horseradish 
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 3 to 10 drops Tabasco sauce (to taste)
  
• 1/4 cup Creole mustard (i.e., Zatarain's, or you can use any coarse-grained mustard)
  
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 3-5 drops liquid smoke
• 1 tablespoon packed Brown sugar
• Combine ingredients in a blender and pulse just until combined.
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
  
• 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper to taste

Overnight Sourdough Waffles

Folks-

I'm a couple of years late to the sourdough scene, but I've been experimenting with it the last couple of months. I started with the King Arthur Sourdough Starter recipe, which took a couple of weeks to really get going, but now that it is, I'm having fun with it.

I found a recipe on The Pantry Mama that I was able to modify to my needs, and they came out better than a couple of other recipes. These have an actual sour flavor, so that's a good thing.

Without further ado, here's my version:

Ingredients:

Night before:

100g sourdough starter, fed & bubbly (fed that morning)

360g whole milk

400g all purpose flour

100g sugar

Day of:

30g sugar

100g (about 1 stick) melted butter (cooled until it's just melted)

4 large eggs, beaten

24g baking powder (about 4 tsp)

10g salt (about 1 tsp)

20g sugar

The night before: mix together sourdough starter, whole milk, flour, and sugar. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on the counter overnight, or 12-15 hours.

The next morning, mix together the sugar, baking powder, and salt, and beat together the eggs and melted butter. Whisk ingredients into the batter from the night before, and allow to sit while heating the waffle iron. Use nonstick spray or a high smoke-point oil on the waffle iron, not butter, if you want crispy waffles. Makes about 8-10 waffles in a Belgian waffle iron.

Note: You can use discard if you haven't thought ahead, but fed starter works just a smidge better.

This recipe is easily halved.

Baklava

 Folks-

This is really a work in progress, so I don't yet consider it complete. I created this by cobbling it together from several other recipes.

Ingredients:

Honey Syrup:

•  1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp rose water (or orange extract, or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 10 black peppercorns (or 5 while cloves)

Nut Filling:

• 8 oz shelled raw pistachios
• 8 oz raw walnuts (or almonds, or pecans)
• 2 tsp ground cardamom
• 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 Tsp salt

Pastry and Butter:

• 2-3 sticks melted and cooked
• 1 lb frozen phyllo dough, thawed

To make the honey syrup:

Combine all ingredients except rose water in a saucepan, being to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature before discarding peppercorns and stirring in the rosewater.

To make the nut filling:

Pulse the nuts together in a good processor until very finely chopped. Set aside about 1 tbsp, before you add in sugar, salt, and ground cardamom and pulse together to combine.

To assemble and bake:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Brush a 9x13 inch pan with butter, then layer a half-sheet of Phyllis in the bottom and brush with butter, layering 6- 10 more half sheets on top, brushing each with butter. Later 1/3 of the nut filling in top, and place a half-sheet of Phyllis on the filling, and fanning with butter (brushing will slide it off.) Later 6-19 more half sheets, another 1/3 of the filling, another 7-10 sheets of dough & butter, the rest of the filling, the rest of the dough and butter. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough and filling into squares or diamonds. Place in the oven for 45 minutes, turn it 180 degrees, and bake another 45 minutes or until golden in color. Remove from the oven to a cooling rack, then immediately pour the honey through the cuts, leaving the last couple of tablespoons to cover the top of the baklava. Decorate the tops with the saved but mixture.

Allow to cool for at least three hours, than wrap in aluminum foil and allow to sit for 12 hours before serving.