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On today's episode of what's cooking with Paula Deen, Paula talks about her hush puppy recipe and offers tips to making delicious fried fish.
Hush Puppies
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups self rising corn meal
1/2 cup self rising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg lightly beaten
onion, chopped
Directions:
1. Combine corn meal, flour, baking soda and salt. Whisk together.
2. Add egg.
3. Slowly add buttermilk while whisking. Continue to whisk until thick consistency.
4. Stir in chopped onion and let sit for a few minutes to thicken.
5. Use a teaspoon to scoop batter into fryer. Make sure to dip the teaspoon in cold water each time before scooping batter.
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0:00
hey y'all uh on today's podcast I'm
0:03
going to talk about the art of making
0:05
hush puppies and of course with a hush
0:08
puppy you got to have some fried fish
0:11
well let's get started on the hush puppy
0:14
uh my a Peggy actually taught me how to
0:17
make a wonderful Hush Puppy years ago
0:20
and uh naturally you know I fry
0:22
everything in peanut all y'all and I'm
0:25
going to start with a cup and a half of
0:28
uh self RIS and cornmeal and a half a
0:32
cup of self-rising flour and I'm going
0:35
to add a half a teaspoon of baking
0:39
soda and a half a teaspoon of salt not
0:42
much salt because when we're using
0:44
self-rising products uh they all they
0:48
also contain salt so you don't want to
0:51
overdo it with with the salt and I just
0:55
take a
0:57
um um
1:00
wh whisk yes I just take a whisk and I
1:04
whisk my dry ingredients together and
1:08
I'll tell you I have been using the same
1:10
cornmeal since I was a very young bride
1:14
and I use nothing but Alabama King the
1:19
best cornmeal around if you want the
1:22
flavor of a true country Southern uh
1:27
cornbread or hush puppy you know there's
1:30
nothing any better than Alabama King so
1:34
I have um oh excuse me I Dro My I keep
1:37
dropping my glasses y'all so I'm going
1:40
to add about a cup of Buttermilk and I'm
1:45
going to do this rather slowly I'm going
1:47
to add one egg that's been lightly
1:50
beaten and the most important ingredient
1:54
to a wonderful Hush Puppy though y'all
1:57
besides the buttermilk and the Alabama
1:59
King
2:00
is an onion and I put almost as much
2:05
chopped onion as I do
2:08
cornmeal so heavy on the onions now
2:12
you'll want to slowly add your
2:14
buttermilk until it's like real thick
2:18
pancake batter because if you put too
2:22
much buttermilk you know the the hush
2:24
puppies won't hold together and I've got
2:27
a special bowl at my house that uh
2:30
someone sent me and it's a Hush Puppy
2:33
Bowl and uh the bowl part you mix your
2:38
hush puppies in and then it's got a
2:40
little miniature Bowl made into the side
2:44
to hold your
2:46
water and uh it's real important that
2:49
when you're making hush puppies in order
2:52
to get them off the spoon and into the
2:54
fryer you must dip that spoon in cold
2:58
water after to every drop and that cold
3:02
water allows the hush puppies to slide
3:06
right off into your hot oil so here's
3:10
another little trick about Hush Puppies
3:13
they get very heavy on one side very
3:17
quickly so as soon as you finish
3:19
dropping them you'll want to take your
3:21
slotted spoon and turn every one of
3:25
those Hush Puppies rather quickly so
3:28
they can get a balance because once they
3:30
get heavy on one side it's so hard to
3:34
get them to flip over so that they can
3:36
Brown on the other side and we'll fry
3:40
these until they're nice and golden
3:43
brown and I always take one out and
3:47
break it open to test it and so I won't
3:50
make my hush puppies real big I'll use
3:54
like a normal uh teaspoon you know do
3:58
like a a heap in teas spoon uh for each
4:01
Hush Puppy and sometimes y'all uh
4:05
Michael loves hot stuff so sometimes
4:07
I'll dice up fresh
4:09
jalapenos and put in there or you can
4:12
just use the Pickled uh jalapenos as
4:15
well but either way practice makes
4:19
perfect on this Southern delicacy and
4:23
you know it got its name from they said
4:25
years ago you know you'd have your fish
4:28
fries outside and of course all the dogs
4:31
would be jumping around and barking and
4:34
wanting whatever was being uh cooked so
4:38
they'd throw the cheaper part of the
4:40
meal to the dogs which is the hush puppy
4:44
and they'd say hush puppy so that's how
4:48
this wonderful bread got its
4:51
name I'm going to get started making our
4:54
hush puppies now I like to put a good
4:57
bit of flour in my hush
5:00
puppies uh some people won't put but
5:03
like a tablespoon or two but I use more
5:06
than that because you know I just prefer
5:08
flour over meal now I'm going to start
5:11
by putting one
5:14
cup in fact I bought this meal while I
5:17
was in Alin y'all uh I can't seem to
5:21
find real good meal over here in
5:24
Savannah so this is some good old plain
5:29
cornmeal it's a fine ground meal and
5:34
it's just the best all right so I'm
5:37
going to
5:38
use my half a cup
5:42
measurer and I'm going to put about a
5:44
half a cup of I'm using self rising
5:47
flour that's all right one's self-rising
5:49
and one's um plain but that's all right
5:54
because I'm adding a teaspoon of
5:57
soda and a teaspoon and a half half of
6:00
baking powder and I'm going to need
6:02
about a teaspoon of uh
6:06
salt so that looks about like a teaspoon
6:09
I hope it's not too much so I'm just
6:12
going to mix that
6:14
together I'm going to put my egg
6:18
in all right so now I'm going to
6:21
probably add about a cup a cup of
6:25
Buttermilk it'll probably take for two
6:29
cups of this maybe a little bit more
6:32
after you get your Hush Puppies made you
6:34
want to let them sit a little bit
6:36
because uh it'll swell up and all blend
6:39
together and it may turn out that you
6:41
need a little bit more
6:45
[Music]
6:49
liquid and I like a lot of
6:54
onion all right so I'm going to switch
6:57
this to one of my neatest Bowls in the
7:00
world this is actually a Hush Puppy Bowl
7:03
y'all see you want this pretty
7:06
thick cuz you don't want when you drop
7:08
your Hush Puppy batter you don't want it
7:11
going every which way so this is what
7:16
that extra little bowl is for
7:18
[Music]
7:19
y'all it's for your water because before
7:24
I can drop a hush puppy in the pot you
7:26
have to dip your spoon in water and when
7:29
you drop drop that Hush Puppy in it'll
7:31
all just slide right out of that
7:34
[Music]
7:44
spoon the space that you live in really
7:47
affects the way you feel so my first
7:50
recommendation is start by updating your
7:53
window treatments with Smith and Noble
7:55
Smith and Noble's beautiful handcrafted
7:58
blind draped shade and shutters are
8:00
custom made just for you and they offer
8:03
different service options to fit your
8:05
needs to get started today contact Smith
8:08
and Noble to get my special limited time
8:11
offer 25% off on your window treatments
8:14
plus free design consultation create a
8:18
space that you're going to love for
8:21
details about my special offer go to
8:23
Smith and noble.com
8:25
slpa that Smith and noble.com slpa
8:29
or call 1 1800
8:32
659
8:34
3300 that's 1 800 659
8:41
3300 so let's talk about fish now my
8:45
family loves all kind of fish uh but you
8:49
know I think my favorite fish is like
8:52
freshwat fish like brim and crappy and
8:57
catfish and bass I just love every fish
9:02
that comes out of those ponds that we
9:06
have in Southwest Georgia so I there's a
9:10
good chance that I'll be um cooking a
9:14
catfish filet so that catfish filet uh I
9:19
want to make sure it's salt and peppered
9:21
real good uh one of the secrets to a
9:24
good piece of fish is the salt you must
9:28
make sure you um salt that
9:32
catfish and put your pepper on it and
9:35
then I sprinkle it with uh something
9:37
like old baay so old Ba's got salt in it
9:41
so be careful though not to get your
9:43
fish too
9:45
salty um because using the old baay
9:48
will'll be like salting it twice so
9:50
you'll want to be careful and on my
9:54
fried fish I really like more of a flour
9:58
coating than I do meal so I'll take like
10:03
four parts of flour to one part meal and
10:08
uh I will mix those together and uh
10:13
naturally I'm frying these in peanut oil
10:16
and I want to deep fry those so I'll
10:18
I'll bring my cast iron uh pot of peanut
10:22
oil up to about
10:25
350° and I'm going to dredge that
10:28
Catfish real good in my flour in Alabama
10:31
King
10:32
cornmeal and I'm going to drop it into
10:35
the fryer and the worst thing that you
10:38
can do to fish y'all is overcooking it
10:42
so you'll want to make sure that um it
10:46
the fish has just lost that
10:50
translucent uh look to it and it won't
10:55
take long depending on how thick your
10:57
fish is
10:59
and there ain't nothing nothing like
11:03
sitting down to a plate of fried catfish
11:06
hush puffies and cheese
11:09
grits I'm getting hungry
11:12
y'all so I'm going to go ahead and
11:15
season my fish and you want to make sure
11:18
when you're cooking fish that you got it
11:21
good and
11:24
salty because remember this came out of
11:26
fresh water so it didn't have that salt
11:30
water to you know make it even more
11:33
salty so I'm going to flip these
11:36
over this was a big old catfish
11:40
[Music]
11:45
y'all okay kiddos so now we're ready to
11:49
uh address the fish now I sprinkled it
11:52
with salt and pepper and a little old
11:54
baay and now my grandma this is where we
11:58
differ y'all my grandma would use
12:00
straight meal where my mother introduced
12:05
flour into the mix and I like that so
12:09
much better so I'm going to actually use
12:12
more flour than I do
12:16
meal and I'm just using an allpurpose
12:19
meal just like I made my hush puppies
12:22
from but I'm using self-rising flour so
12:25
it really doesn't matter all right so
12:28
you just want to mix that up real
12:30
good and then we're going to dip our
12:33
catfish fillets in that oh you know what
12:36
I wanted to sprinkle this with a little
12:38
buttermilk by sprinkling it with a
12:40
little buttermilk it'll just help it
12:44
stick I think buttermilk kind of makes
12:47
everything fried a little bit better
12:49
don't
12:51
y'all all right so here we
12:54
go into our
12:58
mixture and into the frying pan you know
13:01
what I think I think I'm going to cut
13:04
these in two cuz like I said that was a
13:06
dadgum big catfish all right I need to
13:09
check and see what temperature our
13:11
grease is at I like to fry at
13:15
350 I really probably should have had a
13:17
bigger pot I would feel better if I was
13:20
cooking this in my Dutch oven which is
13:23
and you know what I may I may stick a
13:27
few hush puppies in around where I got a
13:30
little
13:31
room so I want to show y'all how that
13:35
see that water makes that batter just
13:37
fall right
13:39
off it's the greatest little
13:43
trick just and you know I was telling
13:46
y'all I just love a little bit of Tara
13:48
sauce with my hush
13:51
puppies so good
13:54
M
13:57
delicious oh my gosh it's
14:00
delicious and that little bit of
14:02
seasoning that I put on it just really
14:04
makes it
14:06
pop the space that you live in really
14:09
affects the way you feel so my first
14:12
recommendation is start by updating your
14:15
window treatments with Smith and Noble
14:17
Smith and Noble's beautiful handcrafted
14:20
blinds draped Shades and shutters are
14:22
customade just for you and they offer
14:24
different service options to fit your
14:26
needs to get started today Conta Smith
14:29
and Noble to get my special limited time
14:32
offer 25% off on your window treatments
14:36
plus free design consultation create a
14:39
space that you're going to love for
14:42
details about my special offer go to
14:45
Smith and noble.com
14:47
paaa that's Smith and noble.com
14:50
paaa or call 1800
14:54
659
14:56
3300 that's 1 800 659 9 3300
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