Jalapeño Hush Puppies

Well greetings from SNOWY Ohio friends!  Columbus has finally joined the rest of the Midwest region and is covered in a blanket of winter wonderland.  Thankfully my current schedule allowed me to stay in my jammies at home while the rest of the city faced the elements on Monday which was an excellent way to enjoy the first snow, making me much less bitter and angsty!  Anyways lets talk food instead, but first...I want to send a birthday shoutout to my dear Great Aunt Chookie who blogs over on Here's Another Sunday!  Hope you have a day just as special as you! 

Ok NOW we can talk food.

A couple weeks ago Chris had a homebrew beer tasting with co-workers and needed to bring a snack to share.  Of course I thought since it was a mostly male audience I couldn't go wrong with bacon or meat or some combination of bacon and meat.  Then he tells me no dice, the majority are vegetarians, whomp whomp, wind completely blown out of my bacon/carnivorous supportive sails (is that even a thing? Yes!).  So I played around with some ideas and we landed on these tasty Jalapeño Hush Puppies.  Even though I've never been this biggest corn bread fan I've been coming around to it and these golden nuggets make it very easy to do so.  

Jalapeño Hush Puppies

Ingredients:

- 1 cup all-purpose Flour
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

- 2 large eggs

- 1 cup buttermilk

- 2 jalapeños, finely diced, (seeds and membrane removed)

- 1/2 cup sweet yellow corn (thawed and drained)

- 2ish cups vegetable oil, for frying

Instructions:

-Combine flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. Make a well in the center of the mixture.

-In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and buttermilk. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir just until combined.  Then add jalapeños and corn until well incorporated.

-Pour oil into a cast iron skillet, deep fryer or a deeper pan and heat to 375° (if you don't have a thermometer you may have to do some testers to see if the oil is the right temp.  You want it to sizzle and start to float when the mixture is dropped in but you don't want it to brown too fast or else the outside will be burnt and the inside will be raw.)

-Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfuls into oil, I used a cookie scoop. Fry in batches 3ish minutes on each side or until golden brown.

-Drain on paper towels, sprinkle with salt and serve immediately.

Fluffy inside flecked with corn and jalapeno, brings fun color to it!

I served these with a side of spicy Sriracha Mayo (about 2 to 3 tablespoons of sriracha mixed with 1/2 cup of mayo, use more or less sriracha depending on spicy preferences).  Chris said they were a hit and went well with the beer(s) they had.

So to flip things on it's side a little, next I'll be posting about my Aloha dietary supplement trial!  Stay tuned!

Cheers!
Steph