All over the place... food to sport

I don’t make a habit of putting recipes in here, but we found one that is kind of interesting.  MFO tried it and probably wouldn’t do it again, but we did very much like part of it (read on).  The recipe appeared in dear old Martha’s Living Magazine along side all the make your own wallpaper from scratch articles.  It is called “Fried Hominy” which Martha terms “dangerously delicious” being the "new popcorn".  Since we were hosting the annual raising of the tree ceremony with the help of friends we thought it might be worth a try.  Well, to jump ahead, we probably would not attempt it again (keep reading).  We don’t have a deep fryer in our arsenal of kitchen equipment, and I've never been convinced that the frequency of use would offset the storage requirement and cost.  Besides, one member of the kitchen brigade has a very deep aversion to “covering the counter with grease!”, so alternative procedures (dutch oven, deep sided fry pan, etc.) are not normally employed.

However, we thought since we’re not dealing with hunks of chicken or something, using a dutch oven, if carefully managed, might be worth a try.  So, here is the original, unadulterated recipe:

Fried Hominy

Ingredients:

2 (14.5 oz.) cans white hominy – drained

Canola Oil

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ Cup plain white cornmeal

¼ Cup cornstarch

¾ tsp. table salt

½ tsp. Ground Black Pepper

Savory spice mix or Cinnamon spice mix

Method:

1.     Spread Hominy on paper towels in a jelly-roll pan.  Chill, uncovered, 3 to 24 hours.

2.     Pour oil to a depth of 3 inches in a Dutch oven, Heat over medium high heat to 350°

3.     Combine flour and next four ingredients, toss with hominy, in batches.  Shake off excess flour.

4.     Fry hominy, in batches, 6 minutes or until kernels float to the top; remove and drain.  Sprinkle hot hominy with desired amount of either spice mix.

Savory Spice Mix; Combine:

·       1 Tbsp. chopped fresh Thyme

·       ¾ tsp. table salt

·       ½ tsp. ground cumin

·       ½ tsp. ground coriander

·       ½ tsp. paprika

·       ½ tsp. black pepper

·       ¼ tsp. ground red pepper

·       ½ tsp. dried oregano

Makes about 4 tsp.; duration about 5 minutes.

Of course the magazine had a lovely professional food photograph of a bowl of the same sized perfectly separated, golden brown orbs, looking all crispy and nice. Like this:

Well, not quite. 

Kitchen notes:

• Coriander:  Turned out the only jar we had in the rack was “seeds”, those (hard) little round things.  No matter, the Bottom Feeder can fix this.  Bottom of fry pan: about 30% crushing;  Small food processor: maybe one in ten; Hammer in baggie:  break the baggie; one in six.  Where is that damn little coffee grinder we used to have?  No clue.  Rats.  In car off to Shopper’s.  Scour the spice section, only more of the seeds.  Try the international section.. no joy.  Finally threw in the towel and asked the lady in the store.  What?  Coriander (Ground).  Should be in the spice section, sir, let’s go look.   Sure enough, way down below the McCormicks, Spice Island, was another row of I think McCormicks “Gourmet collection” (i.e., $$$) was the sought after jar of ground Coriander.  All this for ½ teaspoon, probably a lifetime supply.
• Preparation:  Candy thermometer lost its “springyness” and let the stem rotate over to the metal Dutch oven.  MAYBE oil was 350 or close to it.   You know what flour coated things do when you put them in oil?  They LOVE each other..   gather in little clumps at the bottom of the pan.   “6 minutes”? HAHA ..“or until float to the surface”  HAH!   At any rate after about 45 minutes we had about a third of the little things cooked.  They didn’t look too bad, but you had to separate them by hand.  Plus they were all different sizes so some were “done” before others, and all were hard to fish out.

Now, I know this sounds like bumbling performance, but we did our best, and in the end we had enough to be served respectably.  And, despite the angst of preparation, they tasted pretty good, albeit some were a little gummy or al dente. 

BUT (before I got carried away) the point of all this is that the spice mixture is VERY GOOD!  Since we threw in the towel and didn’t come close to two cans worth of Hominy, we had some of the spice mixture left over.   The other night we had the salmon with Mayo, and we sprinkled some of it over the Mayo before baking.  Really good!.  Then we've also put it directly on some Tilapia filets and that was also excellent.  I would think it would be great on roasted nuts, maybe on baked potatoes, and other applications.  SO… I think we will pitch (actually keep but probably not use) the Hominy part but definitely keep the Spice Mixture..  Besides we have to use up that gold plated jar of ground coriander..

Dress for…. Business

I get daily emails from organizations like National Restaurant Association Smartbrief,  that keep me informed on burning issues like: “Creamy Mexican Drinks are spicy stand-ins for egg nog”; or “Burger King close to finalizing deal with Tim Hortons”, and the like.  Most are of varying interest, but they are fun to look over.  One caught my eye the other day, with the headline of: “How Restaurant Dress Codes Define the Brand”.  DFD?? It led me to a story in QSR (Quick Service and Fast Casual) magazine.  Their story was called “Inked and Pierced”.  It wasn't what I expected.  The story began:  “In October, coffee giant Starbucks revised its employee appearance policy that marked some body adornments off limits. The news gave the industry a moment to consider the links between employee dress and branding and morale… previously baristas could not display any facial piercings or tattoos”   They (a marketing consultancy agency) say that revising the policy is quite smart because their (Sbucks) brand is much more about creativity and free flow of ideas than their strict appearance policy denotes..  So look around the next time you order that Latte..

Gentlemen

And lastly a happy but sad story… There are a few individuals that achieve what I call “a Gentleman of the sport” status.  Joe DiMaggio, Roger Staubach, Bob Cousy, are examples that quickly come to mind.  No beatings, drugs, questionable associations, criminal investigations, just people who played their sport without chest bumps, histrionics on routine plays and so on.  They were joined the other day by a giant (almost literally) in his sport, Jean Béliveau.  As a player, he played on 10 Stanley Cup winners, and as an executive he was part of another seven championship teams, the most Stanley Cup victories by an individual to date.  Plus he played for “Les Habitants”, the most (IMHO) hallowed name in Hockey, the Montreal Canadians.   And mostly in the palace of Hockey, the (original) Montreal Forum.

Which, recalls one of my favorite memories of hockey (coached for 20 years or so) which means a lot to me.  The FOJ’s are saying “oh, not again!”, but what the hell, I’m old and can repeat myself.  When we had the kids in a hockey school in Montreal one year, we took a tour of the Forum.  There are a few things in life that you have to do (which would now be called a bucket list).  So when we were taking our tour, eventually we got down to the bench by the ice.  So I kind of hung back and at one point opened the gate, leaned down and touched the ice.  Whereupon our guide said:”SIR!! Please DO NOT touch the ice!”. Too late sweetheart, one of my life dreams is fulfilled.  That goes in the bucket with touching the 18^th Fairway at St. Andrews in Scotland..

Thank you Jean, you were a gentleman. 

And I can only imagine you always were

DFD