Finding Uses for Flint Corn

[oxbowfarm]

We've been experimenting with our flint corn, trying to find or develop recipes that use it for the majority of the grain in the recipe vs a token amount and the rest wheat flour. Flint is the easiest corn to grow for us and the easiest to dodge potential crosses with GMO field corn and the lawyers that ride behind them. Still in the hunt for an accurate rendering of a recipe for true, traditional peasant-style, pure corn Portuguese yeasted cornbread (broa, Paõ de Milho).

Here's a first attempt at flint corn egg noodles. There is a bit of wheat flour used in these pics to prevent the dough from sticking when I was rolling it out. The dough itself is pure flint corn meal ground on our CL mill.



We had fun laying them out to dry. Used our dryer trays but they are all laying around the woodstove.

We'll be using them in beef and noodles tonight, so we'll see how they hold up when they get boiled.

[Walk]

We grow Roy's Abenaki Calais flint. We like to use the red cobs for cornmeal. The yellow we like to make into hominy or tortillas with the lime/nixtamal method. The hominy can be used in place of pasta. Great flavor without a lot of work. Long cooking time is the one drawback so we only make this dish when we've got the woodstove going or in the solar oven.

[raymondo]

I hadn't heard of pao de milho before. Looks interesting

[steev]

You raise your own kitchen-help, Ox?

[oxbowfarm]

Yes, that is 100% Oxbow Farm raised kitchen help. The noodles seem to hold up very well to boiling, I was worried that they'd just disintegrate. I followed the egg noodle recipe pretty exactly except I replaced all the flour with corn meal and used a whole egg instead of just yolks. I'm thinking I may try the same recipe minus the 10 minutes of kneading, if corn has no gluten, one needn't knead your noodles.

[steev]

Good crop of kitchen-help, there.

[12540dumont]

What's a CL Mill?

We really like corn waffles with chili and sour cream on top.

Substitute 1 cup of flour for 1 cup of Flint Corn. Put 1 cup of flint corn i 1 cup of boiling water and let soak before adding to waffle recipe.

I have been able to add the one cup of wet flint corn to any bread recipe that I normally make with wheat flour.

[oxbowfarm]

CL= Country Living

[oxbowfarm]

Finished in the dish. They were very tasty and held together very well as a noodle, although they definitely are a little more brittle or crumbly than a normal wheat egg noodle. But they work completely well in this kind of dish, and I'm going to experiment further to see about eliminating the kneading step.



Someone was mentioning nixtamalization in the Glass Gem thread. I have zero interest in exploring nixtamalizing corn. To me the idea of boiling the corn, removing the pericarps by hand, then rinseing, wet processing or drying the nixtamalized corn sounds like a total PITA. And all to gain a bit of niacin? I'd prefer to just drink milk, that's why I got a cow. It does make sense if you are trying to eat a diet of only or primarily corn, or if you really need to make something like tortillas out of corn and need to change the protein structure to make it workable.

As far as Paõ de Milho, it is really hard to find a recipe for it that doesn't have wheat flour in it. But there are some Portuguese Youtube videos showing the traditional process, and you can buy corn only Paõ de Milho in Fall River or New Bedford MA in the Portuguese bakeries. Probably in other Portuguese enclaves as well like SF and Hawaii, but I've never been there. Its wicked good, and the only cornbread I've ever had that you could actually use to make a sandwich with, although it is really dense and a bit sticky.

[raymondo]

So is it best to soak flint corn flour/meal before adding it to things like bread dough? Is it because it takes a while to wet?

[oxbowfarm]

I'm definitely not an expert, but a lot of old recipes involving flint corn especially have you add boiling water the the cornmeal, mix, and let the resulting mush rest till its cooled to a workable temp. This seems to be a method to modify the starch and make it more cohesive in the bread. IT affects the texture of the finished product.

[12540dumont]

Flint for boiling
Flour for baking
Dent for chickens.

Interesting, I've had such a hard time find a mill to grind flint corn, that I'm thinking of giving up flint and only growing flour corn.

Ox, did you try Carol Deppe's skillet corn bread?

I'm looking to try homemade corn flakes. Maybe this weekend. I'm busy pickling beets.

[raymondo]

May 18, 2013 14:25:16 GMT -5 12540dumont said:

...
Interesting, I've had such a hard time find a mill to grind flint corn, that I'm thinking of giving up flint and only growing flour corn.
...

I'm hoping to buy a mill later this year. Are flints difficult to grind? I wonder if rehydrating the kernels and putting them through a meat mincer would work.

[oxbowfarm]

I've tried the "Universal Skillet Cornbread" or whatever she calls it, 5 or six times and it never has worked for me yet. It makes an edible corn-based food product but not anything I'd call great. Certainly never a loaf of cornbread you could actually slice and use for sandwiches, which Carol claims to be able to do. Has it worked for you?

Flint corn is definitely more effort to grind than wheat in our hand crank Country Living mill, but it grinds fine and makes very acceptable cornmeal. The noodles above are an example.

[12540dumont]

I have not made a cornbread suitable for slicing as bread...yet..

Well, mine slices great if I only use 1 cup of cornmeal per loaf (and boil the dern stuff first). I hand grind mine as well, and for the CSA, it's getting very tedious, so I want to go to an electric mill. My arm is tired and so am I.

All the ones that will do Flint corn, are of the 2 arms and a leg price wise. I'm very fussy about a new mill. It has to work without clogging, or getting the grain too hot, it cannot run on 220V, it has to be able to grind at least 8 cups without resting, it has to be easy to clean and easy on the ears. What? I can't hear what you said...dern old deef wives. And there will be no "poof" going everywhere in the kitchen.