Tag Archives: flint corn

Polenta from Home-grown Corn

7 Nov

(from July when fresh beans were in season) Once you have jars of colorful flint corn on the counter, you look for things to do with them… what about fresh red-and-blue polenta, with slow-cooked dragon tongue beans and boiled fresh shelling beans (both also from the garden), a fried egg, and a fresh corn and tomato salad?

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Even if my favorite use of dry corn has been cornmeal pancakes, soft polenta is a nice part of a low-effort but several-hour dinner, and something I make a few times a year.

I started with 3/4 cup of dry kernels and ground them into a medium-fine cornmeal (about 1 cup). I boiled 4 cups of water with a little salt, whisked in the cornmeal, brought it briefly to a boil, then reduced it to a low simmer (adding water once when it seemed to be drying out). About an hour later, it was ready to eat, and I melted in a pat of butter.

The dragon tongue beans fresh from our garden are honestly nice just blanched and very briefly sauteed in oil with a torpedo onion or shallot, even if this time I took the more time-consuming slow-cooked vegetable approach.

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Corn Muffins 5 Ways (from Backyard Corn)

23 Jun

(from last winter) What do you do when you grow five different varieties of colorful heirloom corn in the back yard?

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Grind them into cornmeal and make individual corn muffins, of course:

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Some day I’ll type up some notes on the corn growing itself– it was very fulfilling and an interesting challenge (especially the hand-pollinating due to the small area under cultivation and desire to keep separate varieties from cross-pollinating).

We couldn’t really taste a difference between muffins made with different corn (as expected, I suppose), though in a blind taste test H and I did both pick out the muffin made with Oaxacan Green corn as our favorite and a bit “nuttier” than the others… and we tasted a big difference between our freshly-ground dried corn (any variety) and cornmeal-from-a-box.

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Savory cornmeal pancakes, backyard greens

15 Jan

For a savory brunch, we made cornmeal pancakes from some beautiful Floriani red flint corn my sister grew and ground:

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I took a ‘Johnnycakes’ approach, which is more like a thin griddled cornbread or polenta, with no baking powder or flour. The general recipe (made 12 hearty pancakes, for 4 adults + 2 kids with toppings):

  • Mix 2 cups of cornmeal, 2 cups boiling water, and 1 tsp salt, stir and cover for 10 minutes, to let the hot water soften the cornmeal
  • Stir in  between 1/2 and 3/4 cup milk, gradually, stopping when it’s a very thick but spreadable batter (when I did this a few months ago and added too much milk, the batter was too runny and I ended up making thin crisp corn wafers).
    • [update] When I made these again from fresh-ground fine blue cornmeal a few months later, I ended up using about twice as much milk to make this closer to a thick pancake batter
  • Mix in 1.5 Tbsp olive oil
  • Cook in an oiled skillet on medium (or medium-low) heat, flipping when golden brown. I found it took about 4 minutes per side.

I made test pancakes with and without egg in the batter, and the one with egg and a bit more liquid made a thinner, smoother, more traditional-looking pancake (on the right)– but while both were delicious we preferred the texture of the eggless, thicker version on the left:

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We served them with a buffet of savory toppings– black-and-white orca beans, cheddar cheese, scrambled eggs, avocado, and a collection of beautiful greens from the back yard ‘winter garden’ (which in Oakland has been just hugging the edge of frost at night)– mizuna, broccoli greens, kale, arugula, daikon greens, and some oregano and thyme, sautéed with caramelized red onions and garlic. The daikon greens have been a surprisingly good addition to many sautés– they give off a puff of mustardy spice when you first start to cook them but then mellow out.

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This quick cell phone photo of a plate doesn’t make it look especially appealing, but this was a delicious (and relatively simple) combination I’d make again:

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