This is quite good. I think I'm on to something here. The remainder of the chilled polenta is dusted with flour, drenched in egg with milk, dredged in seasoned ground corn with flour. Shallow-fried at 350℉ / 175℃ until golden.
This polenta is heavily seasoned and includes a small can of diced jalapeños including the juice. It's hot. The inside is exceeding and surprisingly soft, the outside is delicately crispy. The honey is very light from orange blossoms. The combination of sweet with hot is very nice.
It's nice but it's not incredible and not quite there. I intend to keep at it, next time I'll include masa harina, the stuff tamales are made of, a type of ground husked de-germed corn treated with alkali. Masa harina possesses a distinct characteristic aroma and flavor that immediately puts one in mind of Mexico. It's very easy to work with and combines well with other flours.
Combining masa harina with my own ground corn meal will be mixing two types of corn; one processed with alkali and germ-less, and the other full-grain corn meal. The idea is to capture the best of both corn worlds, the lovely processed masa, and the freshly milled, along with the tendency for both to set up when chilled that enables milled corn to be handled as a solid, if a soft tofu-like solid.
I will persist with the chiles because they're excellent and increase the quotient of Mexican spices, coriander and cumin specifically, plus onion and garlic.
Combining masa harina with my own ground corn meal will be mixing two types of corn; one processed with alkali and germ-less, and the other full-grain corn meal. The idea is to capture the best of both corn worlds, the lovely processed masa, and the freshly milled, along with the tendency for both to set up when chilled that enables milled corn to be handled as a solid, if a soft tofu-like solid.
I will persist with the chiles because they're excellent and increase the quotient of Mexican spices, coriander and cumin specifically, plus onion and garlic.
I do this, go through phases, working out the kinks until either I land on something spectacular or abandon the whole thing. I sense something phenomenal on the immediate horizon.
If you've seen masa harina on the grocery shelves but were reticent to try it, I urge you to toss a sack in your cart and then once at home follow the simple instructions on the side of the package for a very fast dough. Uses for it will come to mind immediately. A very nice tamale-like casserole is made by layering Masa dough (masa=mass, dough / harina=flour, meal) with nearly anything, chicken with sauce, pork stew, beef, ostrich, alligator, craw fish whatever. Cheese or cheese sauce are both excellent with masa. It's hard to go wrong. It can even be the crust and top for pie. It's also impressively inexpensive so even if you decide you hate it, ha, scant chance at that, there'll be scant loss in tossing it.
Whatever you do, resist an impulse to use cream of mushroom soup, like that lady at work, if you get such impulses -- that's just admitting defeat before even beginning.
Whatever you do, resist an impulse to use cream of mushroom soup, like that lady at work, if you get such impulses -- that's just admitting defeat before even beginning.
No comments:
Post a Comment