Hush Puppies with Jalapeño Yoghurt
Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes
These tasty little morsels are balls of light crunchy corn goodness and because they are made with cornmeal as well as corn, I find they are also pretty filling.
Leftovers
Personally I like them cold, but you might want to split the salad into two. When you are preparing it, save the avocado just for dinner.
What you'll need
1 cup of polenta
1 cup of plain gluten free flour or besan flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Polenta.
Polenta can be one of those ingredients that hangs around the pantry unused......but don't worry I have a recipe coming your way to use the rest up.
1 tin of corn kernels
1 1/4 cups of buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 bunch of coriander
2 jalapeño chillies
1 packet medley cherry tomatoes
1 avocado
1/2 cup of Greek yoghurt
1 can of black beans
1 lime
From the pantry
grapeseed oil or light olive oil
Use Up The Buttermilk
Make buttermilk pancakes in the weekend - here's how:
Prep and Cook
Mix Batter
In a large bowl combine the polenta, flour, baking powder, buttermilk, egg and 1 cup of corn kernels. Mix with 1/2 teaspoon salt and lots of fresh pepper.
Wash the coriander and roughly chop just the stalks and add to the mix along with 1 finely sliced jalapeño. Mix well then set aside.
Make Salad
Slice cherry tomatoes in half.
Peel and cut the avocado into chunks.
Combine tomatoes, avocados and 2/3 of your coriander leaves with the remaining corn kernels.
Drain black beans well.
Combine everything together and drizzle over with fresh lime juice and some olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper but don’t mix yet.
Make Yoghurt Dip
Combine yoghurt with 1 roughly chopped jalapeño, the last of your coriander leaves, some salt and pepper and blitz till smooth.
Heat Oil
To make the puffs you are basically deep frying. To do this you will need either a deep cast iron casserole dish or an electric deep fryer. Alternately you can shallow fry in a good heavy based fry pan.
Fill oil 1/3 of the way up your dish and heat oil to approx. 160c. (Important: never ever leave hot oil unattended, and don’t EVER try to deep fry in a cheap thin material pot or a pan that doesn’t hold its heat well).
Gently and very carefully add dessert spoons of the hush puppies mix into the hot oil and cook till lightly golden on each side. (Personally, I like to use something small like a table knife to gently nudge them over when they are ready to be turned).
After a couple of minutes when your puppies are a lovely golden colour, remove from the hot oil using a small pair of metal tongs or a slotted metal spoon.
Place on paper towels.
Repeat until your mix is finished.
Plate it Pretty
Toss your salad ingredients and check the seasoning.
These hush puppies look quite cute on scrunched up baking paper. Try and find a small dish for the dip that suits the plate you are going to serve on or alternatively you could splatter the yoghurt over.
When trying to arrange a salad or a salsa attractively on a plate, I always find it easiest to use my hands; you can manipulate things such as height so much easier. Build a nice little pile on the side.
Enjoy!
Lunch Tomorrow
There are plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow; this mix makes on average 14 balls.