No other ingredients ever used and never cooked in a fry pan, just fried in crisco in a quart or so size pan. She immediately dropped that in hot Crisco and the hush puppy would float and dance in that hot oil until a light golden color-heaven on earth!!! I would guess her mixture probably made maybe twenty puppies. The mixture would conform to the fold of her fingers and make a little oblong hush puppy. Once she had her batter together and could stand the heat of the hot water in the palm of her bare hand she would put a scoop in her hand and start forming her hush puppies (I use that term because the shape was close to a crescent hush please shape). Getting the right amount of water and salt is the test. Sally only used three ingredients: white cornmeal, salt and boiling water. My Aunt Sally made the best hot water cornbread and there is an art to making it_Novices be prepared for several test batches. It wasn’t quite so round and neat, and had lacy crunchy edges that were so delicious. One of my last challenges was this cornbread. Who knew that in the 21st century so many of us would yearn for that particular simple but unerringly delicious cuisine. I’m sure that this is where my mother learned her not particularly brilliant but memorable cooking skills. The house is now designated as an historic landmark. She was written up several times in the local paper for the 20-foot table she and her spectacular African-American cooking help spread daily for her boarders and guests, and all on a wood stove gallons of sweetened iced tea on the table and tubs of lard under the large prep. My grandmother on my father’s side owned a large boarding house in Fayetteville, NC, where I was born. But even before I left, that wonderful two or three decades when people were still mostly “down-home” and cooked with that aesthetic had largely evaporated. I left Carolina for good when I was in my early 30s to live in NY. I can spend hours trying to piece together a recipe based on memory alone. One of my life missions seems to be to recreate the wonderful home-cooking that I remember. I serve it with most any meal but seems to be best with greens as he says, a salad, or a soup. I am going to try this one with less oil as mine are crispy on outside and soft on inside and his look wonderful. Garlic and peppers work well, I used a white, pink, green and black melange in mine. Almost anything you put on pancakes will work as a topping but I love it plain. drain and let cool down to warm, it is a good way to burn you mouth. About 3 Tablespoons, I prefer olive but any decent hot cooking oil is fine, peanut is also great, in an 8″ cast iron skillet, less if it is just me and I use the 5″, fry till bottom is golden, if oil runs out, it does absorb into the bread, just add a little and rotate skillet so they all are sizzling again. I use baking soda as I am allergic to baking powder but everything else is the same, a fairly thin level of oil works very well and I prefer it with mine. I am used to using a thicker recipe, fairly solid and thicker. My Instapot air fryer made something fairly unpleasant, edible but a waste of calories. I haven’t tried air frying with this recipe but I have been making a very similar one for more than 40 years, our cook, Jenny Mae, showed me how and she was a wonderful cook.
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