For invalids it may be made thin, and eaten as gruel.
HOMINY CAKES.—A pint of small hominy, or Carolina grits.—A pint of white Indian meal, sifted.—A salt-spoonful of salt.—Three large table-spoonfuls of fresh butter.—Three eggs, or three table-spoonfuls of strong yeast.—A quart of milk. Having washed the small hominy, and left it soaking all night, boil it soft, drain it, and while hot, mix it with the Indian meal; adding the salt, and the butter. Then mix it gradually with the milk, and set it away to cool. Beat the eggs very light, and add them, gradually, to the mixture. The whole should make a thick batter. Then bake them on a griddle, in the manner of buckwheat cakes, greasing or scraping the griddle, always before you put on a fresh cake. Trim off their edges nicely, and send them to table hot. Eat them with butter.
Or you may bake them in muffin rings.
If you prefer making these cakes with yeast, you must begin them earlier, as they will require time to rise. The yeast should be strong and fresh. If not very strong, use four table-spoonfuls instead of two. Cover the pan, set it in a warm place; and do not begin to bake till it is well risen, and the surface of the mixture is covered with bubbles.
TO KEEP INDIAN CORN FOR COOKING.—Take the corn when it is young and tender, and barely full-grown. Let it remain on the cob till you have boiled it ten or fifteen minutes (not more) in a large pot of slightly-salted water that must be boiling hard when the corn is put in. When thus parboiled, take it out, and when cool enough to handle, cut down the grains from the cob, into a deep pan, with a knife. Then spread out the grains in large flat dishes or shallow pans, and set them in an oven, after the bread, pies, &c., are done, and have been taken out. Let the corn remain in the oven till it is all well dried. If your oven is heated every day, you may put the corn into it a second time. When quite dry, and after it has cooled, put it into a large thick bag; tie the bag tightly, and hang it up in a cool store-room. When wanted for use, corn thus prepared will be found excellent for boiling in winter soup; or boiled by itself and drained, and sent to table in a vegetable-dish to eat with meat; first mixing with it some butter, and a little pepper and salt. It will boil as soft, and taste as well as when fresh from the garden. It will be better for soaking all night in water, before cooking.
Bakers who heat their ovens every day, would find it profitable to buy Indian corn in large quantities, and prepare it as above, to sell afterwards for table use. If the corn is not young and fresh, it will require half an hour’s boiling before it is dried in the oven.
What is called sweet corn is excellent for this purpose.