January 23, 2008

SOUTHERN HUSH PUPPIES & MY LAST MEME!


Mansi from "Fun and Food"
blog has asked us to make some snacks, drinks for the all the games that are going on here these days. This event is called "Game Night Party" and I am bringing my favorite crunchy and delicious "Southern Hush Puppies". Thanks Mansi, enjoy!:)



About Hush Puppies:
These traditional southern Hush puppies, also called "corn dodgers", are made of mixing plain flour and corn meal with added spices with a hint of sweet and they do make the most delicious, crispy, handy snack for any game night. There are several stories about how these little snacks came to be called "Hush Puppies".
According to WIKI, here are some interesting stories;
1. The name “Hush puppies” is often attributed to hunters or fisherman who would quickly fry corn meal and feed it to their dogs to “hush the puppies” during cook outs or fish frys.
2. The other legend surrounding the Hush Puppy dates back to Civil War days. Southern soldiers would sit beside a campfire, preparing their meals. When Union soldiers came near, they would toss their barking dogs some of the fried cakes with the command "Hush, puppies".
3. During the time of the underground railroads, escaping slaves would feed these to the dogs tracking them while coaxing them with hopeful commands such as "hush, puppies"!

Southern Hush Puppies:

You need:
1 cup white or yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup plain flour,
1 tbsp Soy Flour(my addition,not traditional. Optional)
2 tsp baking powder,
1/2 cup buttermilk,
1 tablespoon sugar,
1/8 tsp Baking soda,
1 egg, beaten (optional for vegetarians),
1/4 cup finely chopped onion,
1 tsp garlic pd,
1/2 tsp chilli flakes or chilli pd or minced Jalapeños,
2 tbsp hot oil and enough water and salt.

To make them:
1. Heat oil to 370F or on medium high heat. Meanwhile, add and mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Add all the liquid to the dry flour, mix first to see the consistency and then add enough water to make a thickish batter like we make for Indian Pakoda batter. Adjust the spices, let it rest for 15 mins. Do not make the batter thin, Hush puppies will become hard.
3. When oil is hot enough, with the help of a spoon, drop little balls of that thick batter in to the oil and fry both sides until they are golden. Drain on paper towel.
4. Stick a few attractive toothpicks in them and serve with Ketchup or spicy Mayonnaise.

Traditionally in the south, these are served with fried Cat fish.

Other snacks you could choose to make for game night:

Cheddar Cheese Spritz,
Chana dal Vadas,
Fenugreek leaves and cornmeal fritters
Spinach Pakodas.

Enjoy!:))

*****************************************************************************************************************************
Dhanggit from "Dhanggit's kitchen" and Uma tagged me for this "Five favorites" MeMe. Reading her MeMe makes mine very bland in fact but I will try it anyway!:)
This would be my last MeMe. I have revealed myself enough already with all those MeMes I have done so far.There is nothing else to tell, don't you think? :D
Thanks for the tag Dhanggit!:))

What were you cooking/baking 10 years ago?
10yrs ago, I had a 6yr old and a 2 yr old kids!! What else but I was baking cakes shaped like cars, trucks and butterflies, topped with colorful frosting and sprinkles!

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?
A year ago, I was experimenting with Creme Brulee after tasting it in the restaurants. Breaking the hard caramelized sugar crust and digging into the most luscious creamy custard inside made me want to try at home! It was a great success but so much heavy cream makes me hesitate to make it often but will try again and post it for you next time.It's a beautiful dessert!

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. Chakli (Indian)
2. Kodubale (Karnataka)
3. Cheddar Cheese Spritz cookies
4. Spinach and Feta Spanakopita
5. Spinach Pakodas (Indian)

Five recipes you know by heart:
All of the above!!

Five culinary luxuries you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:
Well...
1. A World tour and to taste every cuisine in the World!! Egypt, China, Russia etc. I would love that.
2. A HUGE kitchen with marble counter top, walk in pantry and all that!:)
3. Every modern kitchen gadgets I can get my hands on!!
4. I have more than 200 cookbooks in 2 1/2 bookshelves and spilling over! I do need a walk in library right next to the pantry!:D
5. I will never allow anybody else to cook in my kitchen, so I do need several appliance to make it easy for me!:D

Five foods you love to cook/bake:
1. Any traditional Indian dish which calls for elaborate preparation.
2. My grandmothers' dishes, makes me feel good and eel at home.
3. Baking bread. I love the smell of freshly baked bread.
4. Making Cardamom flavored Indian sweets, reminds me of India and the festivals.
5. Pizza! And the way it makes my kids eyes twinkle and make them smile from ear to ear!:D

Five foods you cannot/will not eat:
1. Octopus, fried or not.
2. Any whole Fish with head intact and eyes wide open staring at you.
3. Caviar.
4. Sushi.
5. Worms! Like those contestants who chew them on TV shows to win a million dollar! They can keep the million dollar, thank you very much!:D

Five favorite culinary toys:
1. My KitchenAid Mixer/blender (don't know what would I do without it!:D) and all my Calphalon Total pots and pans!:)
2. My flat surfaced electric cooking range, so easy to clean, looks great and so efficient too.
3. My bread box Machine, specially to make any kind of dough.
4. Ice cream machine, which makes the creamiest Ice Cream!
5. All those little kitchen gadgets like Ravioli maker, Gnocchi board, Wafle maker, Panini press, sandwich maker etc. Not essential to a kitchen but makes my cooking easier and fun too.

Five dishes on your "last meal" menu:
Oh, this is morbid!!:D
I want to live for now and not think about my "last meal"!!:D
Besides, who cares about last meal when you are about say "Sayonara" to the World!! I want to see my kids before I go! HeHe!

Five happy food memories:
1. Cappuccino in Venice, Italy! It gave me a stomach ache after the fact but was happy to be sipping that THERE!:D
2. First time I ate Creme Brulee and the sensation of crack and swoosh into that delicious custard!
3. Eating Bhelpuri from the street cart as a teenager in Belgaum, India with another teenage boy standing beside me munching on Pav Bhaji! Can you guess who? That would be me and Arvind, same guy I am married to for 21 yrs!!!:D
4. Looking at my kids happily gobbling up the food I make and say "thank you mommy"! What more happiness could a mother need?!:)
5. Lastly, one happy (and almost silly!) memory is associated with Switzerland for us, not necessarily connected to their traditional cuisine though. I am not saying they don't have great food, they do!
But let me tell ya, after eating all those almost unfamiliar food in small Swiss towns where they don't have fast food restaurants like UK or US, we drove to Zürich for sight seeing and we saw a McDonald there for the first time in a week!!! Oh boy!! We were soooo happy!!! We were literally hopping and skipping to that Mickey D's! Hahaha!!!

That's it for the MeMes!! Enjoy the rest of the week!:)

57 comments:

Sia said...

thank god... u have opened it for comments:) am i the first to comment???????????

Sia said...

i missed leaving comments in ur blog ashakka. sounds very kiddish but true:) he he he...
hush puppies is what i am wearing...he he he...no, not the one u cooked but my knee high boots;) lol... i am on strict diet now. so no deep fried stuff and no high calaorie diet. these days when i go for shopping, i carefully check the calorie and fat content in any food i buy. yeah, i know it sounds very 'excited' but cant help. :)
and last meme han? i have decided not to write any meme unless it is food related. i guess i have written enough meme's till date(oh, nothing like u though;) i enjoyed reading ur last meme:) and couldn't help but laugh loudly when i read ur food exp in swiss:) he he he... we did the same thing when we found pure 100% vegetarian snacks being sold at mt.titlis... :)

amna said...

ur memes are fun to read! and i want all those kitchen gadgets u have!!! :( :( all i have is one non stick pan, one tawa and two bowls!!

thank you so much for trying to get papaya, didnt know it would be such a diff fruit, when i chose it though :(

good luck!

Raks said...

That hush puppies make me feel hungry and did you say thats ur last MEME?

FH said...

Sia, good to see you. Yeah, I had to disappear for a while to reappear with new plans!:D
Arvind always wore Hush Puppies shoes to work when we were there too, really classy stuff!:)
Good luck with your diet,good start for a new year. I am too back on my exercise routine and doing very well with my free time, feels good. Dieting is not good for me though, need to eat well on weekends! Haha!
I know! It's so hard to find some familiar food in Europe other than England.We were so happy to see MC D's!!!!!

FH said...

Nags, I will try again this weekend to get a Papaya can somewhere.I know it will be too late but will try and get it to you if I can! We live in a small town, it's hard to get "exotic" fruits!:D

Raks, try these sometimes. It's really crunchy and delicious!:)

Siri said...

Oh My, the hush puppies look so cute and yummO.. give me any fried food.. I am sure I will gobble up all of them..:D.. Loved ur last Meme.. each and every bit of it.. :)

Ya I know what u are thinking, I must be on my break rite.. but what to do. I am so tempted to visit some imp blogs.. or else I don't feel like my day has gone well.. hehehe.. so addictive na.. I know!..

Hugs,

~ Siri

Meeta K. Wolff said...

Lovely ideas. The Hush puppies really do look great. Hugs!

Mansi said...

you are up and running girl!! tippee!!!:) I'm so glad to see you back..hope you are felling rejuvenated:)

and thanks for the cute entry to my event!!

FH said...

Siri, take your time if you need it, not a problem.I know how it is!:D
Yes, it is very tempting and if saying hi to friends now and then makes you happy, do it! I do the same now!:)

Thank you darling Meeta. It's one of the southern soul foods, served in the restaurants here as well!:)

Mansi, yup! Up and running but a bit slower than before!;D
Glad you liked it. I know it's deep fried but great for snacking on game night! I just sent this to you thru' email too! Enjoy!:)

Rajitha said...

loved the stories about the hush-puppies..i always wondered about them..i also wonder about puppy-chow too ;)..and the meme was a fun read..glad that ur comments section has been opened...you do not have to respond to me if u are busy asha..i am aware that u will be reading it..that is enough for me :)

FH said...

Rajitha, Puppy chows are great too but for the little doggies!:D
That's okay, I have time today. Arvind is not coming home for dinner, so got some free time. I will be reading this afternoon!:)
Enjoy, thanks.

Finla said...

I have never hzard about hush puppies. Well one is learning every day.
Meme is so nice. You made me laugh few times, while i was re&ading it.
I too love cream brilee, but till now i've never made them at home.
I can imagine the joy when you saw the Macdonalds.

Seena said...

Meme was very nice,
With all that kitchen gadgets cooking would be really funny and may be interesting too...
Nothing we need more than our kids praising mommeee..its yummee..thats right.. Like you, me too enjoy baking pizza to see the twinkling stars..:D

FH said...

Hi F, these are really crunchy and easy to make. Try it once!:)
Here, we don't go to McDonald's much but we were so happy to see that in Zürich!:D

Hello Seena! Yeah, gadgets are always fun, most of them are unnecessary but I love to collect them anyway!:)

musical said...

Ashakka, the comments are back :). Hugs to you, dear! Love the hush puppies recipe and will check out your spanakopita recipe too, i love those! Keep taking time for yourself though, i'd rather see you happy and relaxed and enjoy all your other hobbies :).

hugs,
musical.

Suganya said...

You have 200 cookbooks? :O. I have about 10 (4 very small ones). And a few borrowed from the library. I am already feeling guilty about this :D

DK said...

yeh yeh yehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! comments are open comments are open..yeh yeh!

Ok was too excited! guess thats apparant! I am tooexcited to type in anything else. And also it can quite get cumbersome for you to keep hearing How Good you are..how tasty ur dishes are, how good ur snaps luk..are and how come u managed to make so many! Its like telling aishwarya rai is good looking! Duh! we know!

So will jus wallow in the feeling of typing nonsense , for you to read and wonder from which planet did I come from! he he he

Anonymous said...

Oh! I really loved your MeMe, who said its bland?!
I totally agree with you what you wish if you would be a millionaire. My wishes would have been exactly the same too ;-)

www.zaiqa.net

FH said...

Musie, you are a darling. I will sweetie, thank you. It feels good to hear you do really care about me. Hugs to you too!:))

Suganya, don't feel bad! You are way smarter than me.Like everything else, I do get obsessed with the books too and it's NOT normal!!:D

D, did I see you on planet Mars today? You know that red human thingie they showed on CNN!! May be it was me last week! Hahaha!!
I know, we run out of words to say sometimes. Just type "Hi" next time!!Good enough for me!
Glad I am still in your blog roll though!:)

FH said...

Mona, I don't really experiment much with foreign foods, specially Sea food dishes etc.So, my experience is limited in that dept., that's why it seems bland to me!:D
Don't we foodies wish we all had a huge well equipped kitchen? That one I would love to have!! :)

Sig said...

ASHAAAAAAAAA Welcome back :) :) Missed you.... Yeah, you were commenting and stuff, but not being able to comment here kind of made it feel like you were gone :D

Nice meme, about the five food you can't eat, the first four are my favorites... :) Well sushi is a new favorite... I have never had worms, but if it is deep fried and spiced up, I'd eat that too ;)

Laavanya said...

I always assumed that hush puppies had meat of some sort in them. Well now I know better. Looks yummy.
That was a nice meme Asha.. it may seem to you like you've said it all but it was an interesting read for me... :)

vimmi said...

Loved the meme, especially about wanting a huge kitchen with all the gadgets and a library for cookboks. I feel the same.

Loved the recipe for hush puppies.

Do u live in Charlotte???

Seema said...

Hey! nice to see comments back again!! Nice snacks for game time - loved those Puppies :-)
Nice Meme - got to know more of you :-)

Pravs said...

It was enjoyable reading your meme :) It will be so hard for me to write a meme. Even i would love to have a big kitchen with walk in pantry.
All those snacks are just great for a party !

Daily Meals said...

Hush puppies look yummy. I like the snacks. All the snacks look mouth watering Asha!

Daily Meals said...

Forgot to say, nice Meme.

FH said...

lol! Sig, I know you would love all those too. I grew up as a vegetarian, so it's pretty hard come around those Sea food taste!
Yes, I needed to get away for myself for a while but I am back with new plans now, feels great!:)

Laavanya, these are meat free but always served with meat though, tastes great. MeMes are great, I have told everything I have, so sayonara for those!:D

FH said...

Vimmi, no. I live about 100 miles away from Charlotte.
I would love to have a separate library for all my books, may be one day!:)

Thanks Seema, good to be back too. I will take it easy, so I don't have to run away again!;D

FH said...

Pravs, if you love cooking and creating, you will love a huge, bright kitchen. That sounds so good, huh?:))

Thank you Vijaya. These taste so good specially in Winter. Great for parties too as handy snacks. Enjoy!:)

TBC said...

Hush puppies?- those were my Bata chappals back home in India!:-)

FH said...

Hahaha!! TBC, those were soft and good to wear too! In US, you do get Hush Puppies(Shoes I mean) in few stores, very expensive!:)
Try these crunchy ones.

Ramya's Mane Adige said...

oh, I'm so glad I can post a comment now!!! Enjoyed reading the MEME, Ashakka!!you have 200 odd books????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats amazing!! and those hush puppies look good....

FH said...

Ramya, don't you know by now that I am little crazy? Hahaha!!
Yeah, nobody meeds that many cookbooks but I can't resist every time I see a pretty one. Another obsession I have to try and get over!:)
Thanks Roopa, have a great weekend!:)

Nanditha Prabhu said...

that was an interesting meme! your hush puppies just look yummy!:)

FH said...

Glad you enjoyed my last MeMe, Nandhita!:))

krystyna said...

Hi Asha!
Thanks! I enjoyed my time being here. Thanks for sharing!!!
I wish you be a millionaire and visit my country Poland. Visit excellent Polish restaurands. You weren't regret.

FH said...

Poland sounds lovely Krystyna! May be one day. Thanks sweetie!:))

Rahin said...

hi asha, the chana dal wadas , every time i look at themm , make me nostalgic :), it was my granpas fav , with lots of dill in it .....enjoyed ur meme :)

FH said...

Hi Rahin, dill vadas are the best for winter or rainy day. Makes me nostalgic too!:)))
Happy Republic day.

Reeta Skeeter said...

Wow!
BEAUTIFUL presentation of the hush puppies and cheese spritz do look like chaklis! :D
I am finally getting maharashtra style butter chaklis in delhi at same prices and m soooo happy!
Yayyy!

FH said...

Reeta, they are butter chaklis but cheese! They use cookie spritz to make these , can easily use chakli gadget too!:D
You get EVERYTHING in there what we have here except paycheck in dollars, may be we should move back to India!!!!!!:)

Priya said...

Asha,

My cookbooks look at me waiting to take a look coz I browse them like a magazine seeing gr8 pics;)

Swati said...

Hi Asha
I feel so nostalgic reading your meme here....I have lived in Belgaum for 3 years and remembered having my cup of coffee in Venice and Mc Donalds in Switzerland....You brought back so many memories..
All your meme's have been a great read!! :)

Swati

Raaga said...

enjoyed reading the meme and reading about american pakodas :-)

FH said...

HeHe! Priya, I do that too. It might look strange to some people, "reading" the cookbooks but I can go for hrs!!:D

Swati, you were in all those places too! We have more in common than we think.Hurray!:)
I love Belgaum, one only city I didn't get "eve teased" and that was such a relief at that time!:))

Hi Raaga, that's right!! Indian pakodas except add Corn meal which makes them very crunchy!:D

Red Chillies said...

Hi Asha, I did not know that your comment line was open. I loved reading your meme and hush puppies. I loved the small 'shankha' that you have put at the end of the tooth pick.

KonkaniBlogger said...

All the snacks and pakodas for the game nite party look so good. Interesting read about the game nite party, never knew about it before :)..The spanakopita looks real nice...Loved reading your Meme too..

FH said...

RC, those "Shanka" toothpicks are made in India!! I found them in FL, grabbed a few hundreds!!:))
That's okay. I opened comments about 10 days ago,had to unplug for a while!:D

Maya, thank you!:))
Spanakopita is easy to make and I love filling combo too, hope you try.

Namratha said...

Oh the hush puppies look awesome, would love to try them Asha, and I am gonna do it sometime soon :)

Lovely Meme, boring in the least!!

Shella said...

This looks really lovely. Nice MEME.

FH said...

Try them Nam, you will love it. You can make them for catering too, very easy!:))

Thanks Shella, enjoy girl!:)

Coffee said...

And thats a dream Kitchen !!! Me too! :D

Finally I am here Asha Aunty!! ;) :P

FH said...

OHO!! Did I wake up on the right side today? :D
So good to see you. Hope you are doing well, take your time. I plugged off for sometime too from blogging completely and came back with new plans, feels lot better now!:)
Yeah, I want that kitchen!! May be when kids move out and done paying for their college, I could plan to have one!:))

Kribha said...

Hush puppies... Don't do this Asha. Why are you going on tempting me like this? It looks absolutely delicious, perfectly fried. I didn't look at the picture for long. I can't bear it anymore.
Last meme? Why is that? Your meme's are always so fun to read. No fancy stuff. Just the plain truth told in a fun way. I've always enjoyed it.

FH said...

Kribha, move away quickly!;D
I know how tempting, I am sticking to the exercise too since Jan. Keep it up, you will do well!:)
MeMe! Oh, it's becoming the same thing again and again, I think I will stop!:)