Time: 45 minutes, start to finish
You know something is wrong when a routine exam finds the patient with barely a pulse. Yet that is just what happened to the fabled hush puppy. Once the hush puppy forsook good cornmeal and added sugar to its diet, it gained a lot of weight and its once slender figure ballooned into a big, deep-fried corn-fection like something in a bad donut shop. Some hush puppies started using too many chemicals and took on the nasty flavor valence of a commercial mix. Their cooking oil went downhill and they let themselves go, getting done up ahead of time and hanging around in a warming oven. Historically a coastal fried seafood side, hush puppies should be so good that once they hit the table no one eats anything else. Instead they're often the last to leave, borne away in their greasy plastic baskets after the rest of the food is gone.Hush puppies don't need much to be terrific: great cornmeal and grated onion, a touch of butter and some clean, hot oil. A little restraint with the baking powder and no sugar. Is that so hard?
Equipment Mise en Place
For this recipe you will need a small saucepan, a large mixing bowl, a 4-quart Dutch oven or an electric deep fryer, a deep fry thermometer with a clip to attach to the sides of a pan, a pair of tongs, and a slotted spoon.
Ingredients
¾ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) unsalted butter
7.5 ounces (1½ cups) Anson Mills Antebellum Fine or Coarse Cornmeal, plus additional if needed
6 cups peanut oil for deep-frying
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 small yellow onion, peeled and grated
Directions
1. Heat the milk, salt, pepper, and butter in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter melts. Turn the cornmeal into a large mixing bowl. Pour the hot milk over the cornmeal and stir to combine. The cornmeal should be moistened completely but not runny. Cover the bowl and let the cornmeal rest 5 to 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat 3 inches of oil (about 6 cups) in a 4-quart Dutch oven over medium heat or in an electric deep fryer to 360 degrees.
3. Crack the egg into a small bowl and whisk to combine. Whisk in the baking powder, then stir in the grated onion. Turn the egg mixture into the moistened cornmeal and stir with a wooden spoon to combine. The batter will be fairly thick, but drop shaggily from a spoon (View Photo. Click on photo to close. ).
4. Using 2 regular teaspoons (one to scoop and one to shove) drop 7 to 10 1-inch hush puppies one at a time into the hot oil. Loosen the hush puppies from the bottom of the pan with tongs and turn them frequently so they cook evenly (View Photo. ) Fry the hush puppies until deep golden brown, about 2 minutes. Remove the fried pups from the oil with a slotted spoon and transfer them to paper towels to drain. Bring the oil back to temperature and continue to fry the remaining hush puppies. Serve the hush puppies hot as hors d'eouvres with our fabulous Dipping Sauce for Hushpuppies, or as a side with fried fish or barbeque and cole slaw.
Makes about 24 bite-sized hush puppies
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