Heavenly Hush Puppies
Hush Puppies make a wonderful appetizer or side dish for fried fish, shrimp,
oysters, or other seafood dishes, with or without tartar sauce.
Makes about 2 dozen
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- dash of Cajun seasoning, or cayenne pepper
- 1 egg
- ¾ cup milk or light cream
- 2-3 teaspoons sweet onion, grated or minced
- 1 quart or more hot cooking oil
Mix cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and Cajun seasonings (or cayenne pepper) well in a large bowl. Add egg, milk or cream, and onion to dry ingredients and stir until well blended. If adding seafood or corn, do that now and gently mix into batter.
Drop one heaping teaspoon at a time into hot, 350 degree, oil. If you just fried fish, the oil you used works great. Fry until golden brown.
The origin of hush puppies is not clear, possibly being the result of a creative cook choosing to fry rather than bake corn bread. Whatever their roots, hush puppies are served in most all coastal seafood restaurants and can be either plain or with a little shrimp, whole kernel corn, or crawfish tails and a dash of Cajun seasoning stirred into the batter.
