6 recipes that use cornmeal, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Hushpuppies, takes 30 minutes. It is most often cooked with plain flour, strong white bread flour and bicarbonate of soda.
Got a few things in the fridge? Search by everything you have
Anadama is a cornmeal and molasses sandwich loaf from the fishing towns of Rockport and Gloucester on Cape Ann, where it was sold from bakery vans for generations. The cornmeal is cooked into a mush first, which keeps the crumb soft and gives it a gentle sweetness and a golden colour. It makes excellent toast with butter and jam. Chef's tip: let the cornmeal mush cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast, or the heat will kill it.
The New York bagel came with Jewish bakers from Poland to the Lower East Side, and it is still breakfast on the go across the five boroughs, split and spread thickly with cream cheese. The dough is stiff and rested overnight in the fridge, then each ring is boiled before baking, which gives the dense, chewy crumb and the glossy, crackly crust. Chef's tip: test one bagel before boiling them all; if it floats in a bowl of cold water, they are ready.
Salt-rising bread was baked by settlers in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia and western Pennsylvania who had no yeast; a starter of potato, cornmeal and milk is kept very warm until wild bacteria make it bubble. The loaf is dense, fine-textured and famous for its cheesy, tangy smell, and is best toasted and buttered. Chef's tip: the starter needs a steady 38–40 °C, so stand it in an oven with only the light on, and check it is truly bubbling before going on.
Hushpuppies are the little golden cornmeal fritters served in paper baskets at fish camps and seafood shacks from the North Carolina coast to the Gulf, always next to fried catfish and slaw. The batter has onion and buttermilk, so they are crunchy outside and steamy and slightly sweet inside. Chef's tip: let the batter rest for 10 minutes so the cornmeal hydrates; it makes them rounder and less gritty.
In Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, fried okra is served in bowls on every meat-and-three counter and eaten like popcorn in summer, when okra pods are young and tender. Sliced into coins, dipped in buttermilk and tossed in seasoned cornmeal, they fry crisp and nutty with none of the slipperiness okra is known for. Chef's tip: choose pods no longer than your finger; big ones are woody.
Scrapple is the thrifty breakfast meat of Pennsylvania Dutch farm country and the Delaware Valley, made at pig-killing time from pork trimmings simmered and set with cornmeal and buckwheat into a loaf. Slices are fried until crisp and brown outside and soft within, and eaten with eggs, apple butter or maple syrup at Lancaster County diners. This home version uses pork shoulder and a little liver. Chef's tip: slice it 1 cm thick and leave it alone in the pan until a dark crust forms; it sticks if you move it early.
American
