- Mar 5, 2011
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How many times a year do you make this?Yes, it tastes wonderful!
When you make hominy, picture your grandmother slaving over an outdoor wood fire or a cast iron wood stove and having to rinse using water she drew from a well or from the spring.
Here's recipe for Lye Hominy
You can cut in half to save you some time and to make the quantity easier to handle. I make enough to can because the process is so time consuming.
10 cup dried corn. I use dry field corn...pick thru it like beans and rinse to remove dust. I use only the whole kernal.
3 gallon water (Well water or distilled)
3 ounces (by weight) of food grade lye...Sodium Hydroxide. You can get this at a health food store or by ordering from a soap maker's site. I use mine from www.Essentialdepot.com Lye is a caustic alkaline and will burn your skin even when dry,. So handle carefully.
Use a stainless steel pot (not aluminum) and bring to a boil for 30 minutes stirring frequently. The lye will dissolve the skin off the corn and will make removing the black nibs from the corn easier.
DO NOT get this on your skin...it will burn. Turn off the burner and let the corn/lye sit for an additional 20 minutes. Stirring utensils should be stainless steel, wood or plastic.
Now rinse the lye from the corn in hot water several times. Be careful at this stage not to get burned by the lye. You can use plastic bowls in the sink.
I find it easier to scoop out part of the corn into a big plastic bowl in my sink and then rinse it. I then use a large weave scoop (coarse sieve) to lift the corn from that bowl into another plastic bowl or bucket filled with hot water. Debris from the skin and nubs will float out and can be strained instead of going down your drain. Rinse several times. Your water will no longer be brown and it will be safe to handle the hominy.
Now fill a bowl with cold water and scoop the hominy into that. Once in cold water, you can safely work the corn between your hands to rub off the remaining nubs and skin and rinse again.
Yes, You use a lot of water.
Place rinsed nub free corn into a pot and cover with 1 inch of water. Boil 5 minutes and change the water. Repeat 4 x. This removes any left over lye from the corn and cleans impurities. It allows you to remove any unwanted dark corn kernals. and you will see a color difference in the water. When it is ready, the water will have gone from brown to tan to creamy clear.
Finally bring the cleaned hominy to a boil with clean water and cook 30 - 45 minutes to finish softening the corn and plumping it.
Drain the hominy and fill hot sterile jars, leaving 1 inch of head space.
Add 1/2 tsp canning salt per pint; 1 tsp to quarts.
Fill jars to within 1 inch of the top of the jar with clean boiling water. Remove air bubbles, wipe jar rims, adjust sterile lids and process in a pressure canner.
10 pounds of pressure: Pints 60 minutes, quarts 70 minutes.
10 cups of clean yellow dried corn will make 20 cups of yellow hominy filling 10 pint jars.
You can use prepped hominy right away in your favorite recipe or store in your refrigerator up to a week.
You can dehydrate hominy and grind it for grits.
