Learn how to cook hominy with great taste by traditional recipes. Mamaliga - thickly brewed porridge cornmeal, the national dish of Moldovan cuisine. Once upon a time, hominy replaced bread for the poor inhabitants of the Danubian principalities, and before the advent of corn, it was made from millet. The consistency of the porridge is very thick and it needs to be cut with a knife. This dish is not only tasty, but also very healthy. Usually served with cheese, cracklings or sour cream. Hominy can be both a side dish and a main dish to your table.

Follow these tips, and you will definitely get a wonderful dish:

• Hominy should be cooked in a cauldron or in a bowl with thick walls. Be sure to stir it so that it does not come out in lumps and does not stick to the walls of the dish.
• Remember that real hominy is made from cornmeal, and not from cereals. Dry finely ground flour in the oven before cooking (all excess liquid should come out of it), and then sift.
• To evenly cut the hot hominy into pieces, use a thick thread instead of a knife.
• How to determine the readiness of hominy? Dip a wooden rolling pin into it and quickly scroll between your palms. If the porridge does not stick to the rolling pin, then it is ready.
• Put the finished hominy on a tablecloth or on a board. If you put the porridge on a dish, it will sweat and the taste will deteriorate.

Hominy "classic"

Ingredients:

• finely ground cornmeal - 1 cup;
• salt - an incomplete teaspoon or to taste;
• water - 3 glasses;

Cooking:

1. Salt water, bring to a boil.
2. Slowly add cornmeal and stir continuously.
3. Cook over low heat for 20-25 minutes until completely thickened.

You need to cook hominy in a ratio of 1: 3 (for example, for 1 glass of hominy 3 glasses of water), in a cauldron or in a saucepan with a thick bottom. Porridge must be continuously stirred, preferably with a wooden spoon, and you can use wooden utensils (board, spoon, knife). After cooking, turn the porridge on the board and cut into small pieces.

Hominy with hard grated cheese

Ingredients:

• finely ground cornmeal - 1 or 1.5 cups;
• milk - 1 l;
• butter - 150 gr;
• hard grated cheese - 100 gr;
• salt - an incomplete teaspoon or to taste;

Cooking:

1. Boil milk (1 l) together with butter (50 gr).
2. Add salt to taste.
3. Pour in the cornmeal in a thin stream, stirring constantly.
4. Vari on small fire 20-25 minutes until completely thickened.
5. Ready-made porridge with melted butter (100 gr).
6. Sprinkle grated hard cheese on top.

Hominy with cracklings and cheese

Ingredients:

• cornmeal - 2 cups;
• grated cheese - 1.5 cups;
• butter - 100 gr;
• pork rinds - 250 gr;
• onion - 2 pieces;
• water - 1.2 l.
• salt - to taste;

Cooking:

1. Salt the water and bring to a boil.
2. Add cornmeal, stirring.
3. Cook over low heat until full cooking(20-25 minutes).
4. After that, put the hominy on the board, cut it and let it cool a little.
5. Finely chop the onion and lard or fatty meat. Fire the greaves.
6. Pour the hominy with melted butter, sprinkle with grated cheese and cracklings.
7. It is necessary to pour melted butter over the slightly cooled porridge, and then sprinkle with grated cheese.

The benefits of hominy

It is useful to use this porridge for people suffering from cardiovascular diseases and anemia, hypertension, tuberculosis.

There is a lot of fiber in hominy, which positively affects the digestive system in the body, and it perfectly satisfies hunger.

Hominy lowers the level of "bad" cholesterol, so it is a good tool for the prevention of atherosclerosis.

This dish contains useful trace elements (potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, iron, calcium), and vitamins (A, B1, B2, B6, B9, E, H, PP).

Hominy is a versatile porridge. It is suitable both for lovers of delicious food (with a variety of additives - cracklings, cheese, etc.), and for people on a diet (removes excess fat and slows down aging).

Unlike any other porridge either in texture, taste, or even outwardly, hominy occupies a special place among these dishes. After all, to divide it into portions, they use a special waxed thread or a special wooden knife - this is how thickly brewed real porridge from cornmeal. It looks more like steamed bread.

It is interesting that initially hominy was prepared from millet, but the latter option is much tastier and more nutritious.

Who invented hominy?

There is no single answer. It is only obvious that this cheap dish was used in their diet by ordinary people who were not accustomed to luxury and frills in food. Surprisingly, they will tell you how to cook hominy in the most different regions and countries. This miracle porridge is equally loved:

• in Romania;
• in Moldavia;
• in Ukraine;
• in the Caucasus.

Hominy is called very differently in different parts of the Caucasus:

• among Georgians it is gomi;
• among the Abkhaz - abysta;
• among the Ingush - zhuran-khudar;
• among the Adyghes - mamrys;
• Ossetians have mamalai keber.

It is difficult to say exactly where the first pot of this peculiar dish was prepared, but the Romanian origin of the name suggests that hominy was “born” among this people.

How porridge is prepared

The recipe for the famous porridge is surprisingly simple. Romanians claim that the following products are needed to make hominy:

1. Corn flour - 0.5 kg.
2. Salt - 1 teaspoon.
3. Water - 1.5 liters.

This is where the list ends. As for dishes, here you will need:

1. Cast iron.
2. Wooden stirrer.

So, water is poured into the cast iron, which is salted and brought to a boil. Then a handful of flour is added to the container, without stirring, and they wait for the secondary boil.

After that, pour the remaining flour into the pan with a "hill". And, again, without stirring, they begin to cook. In this case, it is desirable to divide the resulting form in half with a stick with a stirrer.

You need to cook porridge over low heat so that it does not boil, does not boil, but “languishes” on fire for 25-30 minutes.

And then quickly and thoroughly stir the resulting mass with a wooden stick so that not a single lump remains.

And all - hominy from corn grits ready. To make sure that the dish turned out to be the “correct” density, take a stirrer stick in both hands and, lowering it into the cast iron, quickly twist it in your palms. Good porridge does not stick to a stick. If it is watery, it is enough to hold the pot for some more time on the fire.

Varieties and use of hominy

Since corn porridge is a simple and cheap dish, it is prepared in the North Caucasus in almost every family. But they are used in a wide variety of ways:

• as an independent dish;
• instead of bread;
• as a side dish.

Hominy with sour cream and cheese, bacon and eggs, cracklings and mushrooms, as well as fish is very tasty.

Moldovan corn porridge, unlike Romanian, is prepared with the addition of oil. By the way, Moldovans dispute the palm, claiming that they are the authors of hominy, because their state was formed two centuries earlier, and people always wanted to eat cheap and tasty. And all other peoples learned from them how to cook hominy.

Hominy in Caucasian style

Although Romanians and Moldovans consider corn porridge their national dish, yet the most delicious and tender hominy is prepared in the North Caucasus. Don't believe? Come and try. Goryanka women are happy to share the recipe, but know that in your city apartment you will never get such a taste for porridge.

So, hominy is a recipe for cooking in Abkhazian. Unlike those described above, this hominy is cooked without salt at all. But they add to it best cheese of all times and peoples - sulguni, thanks to which the dish acquires a unique taste and texture.

Every hostess in a mountain village knows that it is enough to take:

• a full glass of corn flour or even fine grits;
• 2.5 glasses of water;
• 150 g of sulguni cheese;
• 1 st. a spoonful of butter.

And after 30 minutes, your favorite, and most importantly hearty meal will make the family happy.

True, the hostess herself should spend these half an hour at the stove, since the porridge is cooked on the slowest fire, but needs continuous stirring. Otherwise, how to cook hominy from corn grits without a single lump?

Flour, as in previous recipes, is poured into boiling water in a thin stream. Yes, and readiness is defined similarly.

By the way, properly cooked porridge is easily taken out of the cast iron in one whole piece. To do this, you just need to slightly pry it with a wooden stirrer, then shake the pan several times and, turning it over, put the hominy on a beautiful plate prepared in advance.

Are leftovers sweet?

If suddenly you accidentally left pieces of hominy after the feast, and this can happen only if not all of the invited guests arrived, and there really was a lot of porridge, then do not be upset. Of course, it is bad that someone could not please you with their presence and sit at the same table with you.

But we won't let the hominy "abyss". From it you can cook a lot of new, no less tasty dishes.

For example, cakes made from corn porridge. The sliced ​​​​pieces are simply fried in oil, and an appetizing and high-calorie dish is obtained, which both adults and children “gobble up on both cheeks”.

Hominy is no less tasty if it is crumbled into a plate and poured with hot milk. From such a soup "you can't drag it by the ears."

And you can also cook from corn porridge:

• dumplings;
• bulls;
• papara.

The last two dishes are very similar, but some nuances in the process of formation and baking ultimately give a different flavor set.

Well, if sauces specially designed for this dish are prepared for corn porridge, then it can be safely served in elite restaurants. Which, by the way, is successfully done in some reputable institutions.

What is this special sauces, we will tell separately.

About sauces

Most often, the Abkhaz hominy is served with vegetable, cheese sauce or tkemali, although each housewife has her own subtleties and secrets. Consider three classic options.

Tkemali. Since tkemali is a kind of plum, it is clear that it will be the main component of the sauce. And you can add "anything" to them. Let's take an example of spicy gravy. To 1 kg of plums add a head of garlic, coriander, mint, red hot peppers, Dill. Initially, the plums need to be boiled so that the peel and seeds can be easily separated. The juice is drained at the end of cooking, it will still come in handy later. The remaining pulp is ground and stewed by adding a little water. When the mixture begins to resemble sour cream - in terms of density, the same juice is gradually added to it. Then pour spices ground into powder, keep the pan on low heat for another 3-5 minutes and cool. Tkemali is ready.

Vegetable. It consists of large cubes of tomatoes, peeled and chopped small cubes onion, carrot grated on a fine grater, finely chopped cilantro and garlic. First, the onion is fried butter, if there is olive oil, you can add it too. Then carrots are added to the onion and sautéed for a few more minutes, then tomatoes are sent to the pan, a tablespoon tomato paste, some water, and the stewing process begins, at the end of which they put pepper, salt, garlic and cilantro. Amazing tasting and healthy sauce ready.

cheesy. It is cooked in butter, which is pre-melted in a pan, then flour is added, mixed thoroughly and the milk is carefully poured in so that the mass remains homogeneous, for this the mixture must be continuously stirred. Next add processed cheese, after which rubbed hard cheese. All this should boil. At the end, with a light wave of the hand, the sauce is flavored with paprika and salt.

In every home, Caucasians have their own preferences, their own tastes, but there is no doubt that hominy appears on the tables of hospitable people regularly. A hearty and quick-to-cook dish is easy to make tasty and appetizing, and what else do real gourmets need, which undoubtedly include mountaineers? Well, maybe a glass of good wine...

This article will focus on Moldovan cuisine. We will talk about how to make hominy - cool corn porridge. For Moldavians, hominy is both a side dish, bread, and the main independent dish. It is served with meat, cheese and even mushrooms.

Moldavian hominy - recipe

There is nothing complicated in cooking hominy, but still, you need to know some secrets. How to cook hominy, we will tell you below.

Ingredients:

• corn flour - 200 g;
• water - 600 ml;
• butter - 20 g;
• onions - 2 pcs.;
• sheep cheese - 150 g.

Cooking

Cornmeal must first be dried in the oven. If you don’t have it, then you can cook the flour yourself by grinding corn grits in a coffee grinder. It is better to cook hominy in a cauldron. Pour water into a saucepan, add salt and bring to a boil. Now, little by little we add flour, it is better to do this by sifting it through a sieve. Be sure to stir continuously with a wooden spoon. On a small fire, cook the hominy for about 25 minutes. The main nuance of preparing this dish is that the mamalyga must be constantly stirred with a wooden spoon throughout the entire time. Moreover, stir diligently so that nothing sticks either to the bottom of the cauldron or to the walls. At the very end of cooking, the spoon should be moistened in cold water and the contents of the cauldron should be separated from the walls. After that, we leave the hominy for another 2 minutes on the fire, and then remove it, put the cauldron in a bowl with cold water literally for a minute (this is done so that the hominy better lags behind the walls), then shake the pot and turn the contents over onto a wooden cutting board or towel. It is not recommended to spread it on a dish, wood and fabric will be able to absorb liquid. And on the dish, the hominy will sweat, and its taste will deteriorate. If everything turned out right, then the hominy should not fall apart, it should keep its shape - i.e. it turns out a cake that repeats the shape of the pot in which it was cooked. By the way, the readiness of this dish can be checked in the following way: a wooden rolling pin is inserted vertically into the center of the cauldron and quickly rotated by hand. If the rolling pin remains dry, then the hominy is ready. It is customary to cut corn mamalyga with a thread or a wooden knife. This dish is served with butter-fried onions and shredded sheep's cheese. Hominy also goes well with goat cheese.

Recipe for hominy with meat and "muzhdy" sauce

Ingredients:

For hominy:

• cornmeal - 1 tbsp.;
• water - 3 tbsp.;
• salt.

For frying:

• pork - 500 g;
• onion - 1 pc.;
• salt, pepper - to taste.

For sauce:

• meat broth- 50 ml;
• garlic - 5 cloves;
• salt, pepper - to taste;
• lemon juice- 20 ml;
• vegetable oil- 20 ml;
• dill and parsley - 30 g.

Cooking

How to cook hominy, we described in detail in the previous recipe. And now we will tell you how to make hominy with meat and sauce. So, wash the meat, dry it with a napkin and cut into pieces. We clean the onion and cut into half rings or small cubes - it depends only on your desire. Fry the meat with onions in a pan with vegetable oil. Near the end of cooking, add salt and pepper to taste.

Now let's start preparing the Husband sauce. It is prepared quite simply: we clean the garlic cloves and grind with salt to a gruel state, then, add vegetable oil, lemon juice (if desired, you can replace it with wine vinegar), mix, add meat broth (if there is no broth, you can use ordinary boiled water). Once again, mix everything and add chopped dill and parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Sometimes a little crushed walnuts. We serve hominy to the table, pouring sauce, with fried meat.

By the way, if you still have hominy, you can cut it into pieces and fry in butter. And you need to serve it with sour cream for tea.

Corn porridge recipes

Moldavian hominy recipe with photo

40 minutes

300 kcal

5 /5 (5 )

Moldavian hominy is a thick corn porridge shaped into a round loaf. This is an independent dish, and a great side dish for fish, meat, vegetables. As a retinue makes a king, so Moldavian hominy fully reveals its taste only in the circle of the usual accompanying dishes - sauce "Muzhdey", skrob and cracklings. All this is prepared quickly and simply. Let's get started.

A step-by-step classic recipe for making Moldavian hominy with a photo

Kitchenware: cauldron with thick walls and a bottom, cast iron or aluminum,wooden spatula or rolling pinwooden cutting board or cloth napkincotton thread.

Ingredients for 4 servings

V classic recipe fine cornmeal is used. However, if it was not found in the nearest store, do not despair, since you can also cook hominy from small corn grits, the recipe does not change.

Important! In order for the hominy to turn out “five plus”, the flour must be dried. To do this, it must be scattered on a baking sheet with a thin layer and sent for 3-4 minutes in an oven preheated to 150 degrees. This will give the flour more friability and save ready meal from small uncooked lumps.

Step by step cooking

1. Pour water into a cauldron, put on fire, salt.
   
   
2. When the water warms up a little, add half a glass of flour and mix thoroughly.
   
   
3. When the contents of the cauldron boil, reduce the heat and begin to add the remaining flour in small portions.
   
   

   It is very important to thoroughly mix the porridge, breaking up the resulting lumps.

4. For 20-25 minutes, periodically stir the porridge, running a wooden spatula along the walls and bottom of the cauldron. When it starts to thicken, add oil.
   
   
5. When the porridge thickens (it should resemble a thick viscous dough), we separate it from the walls of the cauldron with a wooden spatula, reduce the heat to a minimum and cook for another 5 minutes.
   
   

   After that, check the readiness - insert a toothpick into it and turn it slightly. If the porridge does not stick to the toothpick, then it is ready.

6. We put a board on the table or spread a cloth napkin. We take the cauldron with both hands, gently shake it a couple of times and turn it over onto the prepared surface. If the operation was not entirely successful, we trim the shape of the hominy with a knife or spoon, forming a rounded loaf.
   
   
7. Ready hominy is not cut with a knife, it sticks to it. For this step, we have prepared a thread. We take it by the ends, cut into portioned pieces and serve.
   
   

What is hominy served with

Hominy is a versatile side dish. Matches her perfectly vegetable stew and mushrooms, meat and fish in any form - boiled, fried, stewed, smoked and so on. It is served with pickles, sour cream, fresh vegetables and greens.

In Moldova, grated sheep's cheese, Muzhdei sauce, skrob and cracklings are traditionally served with hominy. All these dishes can be cooked at the same time with hominy.

grated cheese

Sheep cheese can replace plain cow cheese, cheese, feta, mozzarella or suluguni (if you have suluguni cheese, you can cook it). We rub it on a coarse grater and put it in a separate outlet. The dish is ready.

Sauce "Muzhdey"

Ingredients

Pour into a gravy boat and proceed to the next dish.

Scrob (serves 4)

Ingredients

Cracklings

Ingredients

When serving, sprinkle hominy with cracklings and onions, pour with melted fat.

Moldavian hominy video recipe

You can see the process of making Moldavian hominy in this video. And even if you have never had to cook such a dish before, the video will be a good helper in this process.

As you can see, the cooking process is simple.. Moldovan peasants knew a lot about food, and it is not for nothing that this dish is included in the menu of expensive restaurants in our time. However, you don't have to be a chef to make it.

• If four servings is not enough for you, increase the amount of food, strictly observing the ratio of cornmeal to water - 1:3.
• If at the end of cooking the hominy remains not thick enough, increase the cooking time - the water will evaporate and the porridge will thicken.
• You can turn the finished hominy only on a wooden board or a cloth napkin, on a regular plate it will become damp and tasteless.
• Mamaliga is cooked only on a slow fire.

If you didn’t manage to eat all the cooked hominy at one time, while it is warm and fragrant, it doesn’t matter. The next day, it can be fried in oil until golden brown and serve as a side dish or dessert with jam, honey, sour cream.

Corn cannot be called a low-calorie product, but it removes excess fats and toxins from the body, so we can safely recommend this dish to those who follow their figure. A large list of vitamins, useful trace elements, vegetable proteins allows corn porridge to rightfully be called the “queen of the table”. If you liked the sunny taste of hominy, try alternative recipe.The recipe for corn porridge in a slow cooker is suitable for those who own such kitchen appliances. Fans of dairy dishes will love the recipe for corn porridge in milk.

Hominy is cooked in Abkhazia, Adygea, Romania, Moldova. In Italy it is called polenta, in Georgia - gomi, in Africa - ugali. With such a vast geography and centuries of history, there are probably a lot of secrets and unique family recipes. Share your experience or own recipe, and also tell us what you like to eat hominy with.

Hominy is considered a dish of Moldovan, Romanian and Western Ukrainian cuisine. In fact, such a dish exists in a number of Caucasian countries, and in Italy polenta is an analogue. It is prepared from corn flour and is a kind of porridge - dough.

To make hominy from cornmeal, you will need the ingredients from the list.

Almost all recipes for cooking hominy say that you need to put salt in boiling water and slowly pour flour, stirring confidently so that there are no lumps. I want to suggest another way, peeped from one Italian who cooked palento, and they are very similar. With this method, there will be no lumps. Pour water into a saucepan with a thick bottom. Add salt.

Add a third of the serving of cornmeal to cold water and stir. The flour will settle to the bottom without forming lumps.

Here you can see that there are no lumps.

Now put the pot on medium fire and bring to a boil while stirring. You will get a smooth creamy mass. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon for 10 minutes. Then gradually add the remaining flour and mix well. It is best to stir with a wooden spoon. Hominy will begin to thicken gradually.

Continue to boil it for another 25 minutes, until it becomes one lump. When crusts form on the walls of the pan, the hominy is ready.

Put the finished hominy on a dish and pour with butter.

Traditionally, hominy made from cornmeal is served with cheese, milk, cracklings. It is ideal as a side dish for meat and fish.

Bon Appetit!