Hush puppies

The fish were great, but that's not a meal by itself. Traditionally hush puppies accompany a fish dinner, especially fried fish. I'd only eaten hush puppies in restaurants, and I'd never loved them, but they seemed easy enough to make, especially since I was using corn meal anyways.

And these were very simple. basically, you can just follow the instructons on the box for making cornbread, but instead of baking it, you carefully plop big spoonfuls of the mix into 375F oil. the moment they hit the oil, they take shape and start to solidify. They are made a lot like beignets, a New Orleans delicacy (and likely to be a future post). The first couple I dropped in took weird shapes, but after a little practice, I was making pretty nice, spherical hush puppies. Like the fish, these float, so you have to pay attention while cooking and flip them as necessary. And after a couple minutes, they are done.

Also, if you haven't deep fried before, when letting food that has just come out of the fryer cool down, you'll want to lay a couple paper towels on a plate, and set the food on the paper towels so the oil that drips off gets absorbed. This is true for just about everything you'll cook in a deep fryer.

My previous complaint with hush puppies was that they can a bit dense, and not particularly flavorful. Well, these were incredibly soft, fluffy, and surprisingly sweet. They almost had a honey taste. They were incredible, like biting into a sweet cloud. We ended up making way more than we could eat (and we ate a lot), and I had some with lunch the next day. Eating them as leftovers doesn't do them justice, however, so you'll really want to enjoy them soon after cooking.

Also, as good as these were, there are countless recipes out there that add jelepenos, bacon, and tons of other things. So, you can expect me to cook more of these soon enough. I just have to catch some more fish first.