Journey Cakes (aka Johnnycakes)
from Patricia Klindienst Author, The Earth Knows My Name (Boston Press 2006) Demonstrated at CUESA's Market to Table programs on September 13, 2008.
Recipe for Johnnycakes to go with excerpt from Chapter 8, “Justice: A Yankee Farmer and Sacred Indian Corn." Read an interview with Patricia Klindienst from the CUESA e-letter here >
Serves 12
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup stone ground white corn meal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
about 2 cups water at a rolling boil
a little milk
a good quantity of corn oil for griddle
PREPARATION:
1. Combine meal and salt in a bowl. If using sugar, add now, and stir dry ingredients. Add enough boiling water to bring the mix to the consistency of oatmeal. As the corn swells, add a little milk to thin the batter (but not as thin as pancake batter).
2. Grease a griddle well with corn oil and shake batter from a spoon onto a hot griddle. “Here’s the secret now,” Whit says. You keep that griddle well greased with corn oil. After about minute to a minute and a half, turn your spatula upside down and gently life the corner of the Johnny cake to see if it’s golden brown. When you turn it, turn it onto a new place on the griddle that is wet with corn oil. If you put it back on the same spot, it will burn before you can rescue it. Keep adding corn oil as you cook. After 2 or 3 minutes, lift a corner again to see if the bottom is golden brown. The Johnny cake will be soft in the middle. It may not look done, but adding the boiling water in step one cooked the meal. So it should be moist in the center. You can serve it with plain butter or with maple syrup. You can even add drippings from a steak.