Corn Fritters, AKA Hush Puppies

Friend and fellow food blogger,

Rosie Hawthorne,

has been giving me some suggestions

on what to do with the remaining ham

from our Annual Eight Days of Ham.

This year we received a larger ham than usual,

so I have been scrambling to come up with ideas

to use the ham.

Oh, and Rosie?

You might be interested in what I made this time.

Rosie got a recipe from an Internet friend and decided

to do her own little twist on things.

I, of course, then put my own spin on things.

The players are:

1-1/2 cups yellow cornmeal

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 cup oil

1 cup milk or buttermilk*

2 eggs

pinch salt

pinch black pepper

1/2 cup corn

1/2 minced Serrano chile

1/4 cup minced onion

3/4 cup finely diced ham

mozzarella cheese

*Once again I am substituting Half and Half for the milk.

After the dry ingredients were stirred together,

I beat the eggs into the milk and oil mixture before

adding that to the dry ingredients.

Stir to combine.

The ham is finely diced.

Happily, this was the remainder of the sliced ham.




As my family is not fond of too much heat in their foods,

I only used half the Serrano chile and I removed the

seeds and the membrane as that is where much of the

heat is in a chile.






The batter is ready for the fryer.





I heated the oil to 350 degrees and got ready for the

test hush puppy.

Rosie had lamented that she wanted to make

a hush puppy that had an ooey-gooey center of cheese,

but she didn't know how to do it.

I had an idea.

Let's see if it works.

We cut cubes of cheese, about 1 centimeter square,

and after scooping out the batter for each hush puppy,

we pushed the cheese into the center of the batter.

These take just a couple of minutes to fry and just

about the time they rise to the surface of the oil

is when they are ready to be turned.

Now let's see if my idea worked.

Oh yeah.

Is this what you were looking for, Rosie?

By the way, these are good, but even my husband

thought that a bolder cheese, such as Pepper Jack,

would have been better in these.

We will be making these again.

Thanks Rosie and Zzzadig!