tuna hushpuppies

Tinned tuna, called tunafish here in the United States which is a bit redundant but we'll let it go, it does distinguish this pre-cooked product with a half-life of a million years, and so an impressive shelf-life, from proper tuna, frozen or fresh. Any of those will do. In fact any seafood will do. Hushpuppies are a Southern thing. They go with a southern catfish fry. The original idea of mine based on catfish fry combined the catfish directly into the hushpuppies and then that was expanded to salmon, then tuna, then pretty much anything. 

The coating for catfish at the Southern catfish fries is turned into a batter and deep fried along with the fish then given to the dogs to shut them up. Of course we dog trainers know that rewarding a begging dog only worsens the behavior but we'll let that go too. It explains how these things came about. The coating for the catfish was a cornmeal base. As hushpuppies became popular and spread, then the idea arose of including actual corn, either fresh, frozen, or canned cream corn. All sorts of flavorings expanded the profile, notably cayenne.  These hushpuppies here include jalapeño. Any capsicum will work. 

Whoever invented tinned tuna was brill-o. A favorite use is tuna fish salad which is sweetened with pickle relish and provided crunch with celery. It is mixed with mayonnaise and includes diced onion. There are a million variations. <--- contains lies. 

I'm showing you this ↓ because I do get a number of visitors from Britain through Google searches, "wot is tinned tuna". Pretty much any food-related search with the word "wot" in it comes here. 

For one tin of tuna I used 1/2 cup frozen corn. This was processed in a mini blender that came as an accessory to an immersion blender. 

This recipe combines tuna fish salad minus the mayonnaise with hushpuppies. It expands the range of corn by including masa harina which is cornmeal ground from corn processed with alkali. So three types of corn; frozen whole corn, corn meal, and masa harina. 

In the days of yore well before maize became the corn we know today, the Spaniards took the New World vegetable they found in Central America back to Europe, but they neglected to take also the process of nixtamalization which was a way of dealing with the undigestible husk using pot ash at the time. Likewise, the general use of maize spread northward through the Americas. Over time, In those areas of North America where native populations became heavily dependent on maize without the accompanying alkali process, all kinds of health problems arose, most notably scoliosis, that did not arise in populations that were not dependent on maize. This is known from archaeological evidence. So the moral of the story is masa harina is better than cornmeal. So go on then and look at nixtamalization for yourself or just accept mah authoritah!

1/2 cup milk. Some hushpuppy recipes call for buttermilk so that its acid will react with baking soda to lighten up the resulting balls. This is regular milk to be faintly soured with cider vinegar. The advantage of vinegar is that it will brighten the fish, besides not having to buy buttermilk and either have it around or eventually waste it. Buttermilk is a pain in the butt. It's not even buttermilk anymore. It's just regular milk that's been acidified, cultured, like yogurt. 

Process the corn and milk to your heart's contentment. Not enough ↑, just about right ↓. 

Hushpuppies usually do not have celery but tuna fish salad does. I'd like to have a little bit of crunch. A single celery stalk is diced finely. 

Jalapeño is nontraditional too, but I want its heat and I do like its flavor. The real heat of the capsicum is in the membrane holding the seeds. One can control the amount of heat by controlling the amount of membrane. I want it all, but I'm a bit neurotic about the seeds. They have to go. It doesn't have to be jalapeño. It could be any capsicum in any form. 

You might be wondering how I convinced the egg to stand up like a gentleman. I abruptly smashed it into the work surface and said, "Behave!"  Its little bottom is crushed. 

Pickle relish to hit the sweet spot on your tongue. Now you just never see this in hushpuppies, but let me tell you, it adds so much to the party in your mouth especially when you're expecting something 100% savory and heavy and  somewhat unctuous from deep-fry,  and it turns out light and bright and even a little bit sweet. But don't overdo it. 

The ingredients that I would like to have in both tuna salad and in hushpuppies go directly into a bowl, you see. The resulting mixture is sloppy wet that must be stiffened sufficiently to roll a ball. 

Regular hushpuppies take more cornmeal than flour but this approach is having  real whole corn processed to mush, and masa harina along with the cornmeal, so three types of corn instead of just one. 

Finally we will stiffen the mixture with dry ingredients, holding off on the baking soda, which is active, and the tuna, which is too tender to mix vigorously. 

We can confidentially add 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup cornmeal, but less confidentially 1 full cup of masa harina. The last portion might need some adjustment, possibly two adjustments if the first adjustment goes too far. We're down to teaspoons worth of adjustments back and forth between masa harina and water until we get the desired ball-rolling consistency.  

Now it probably a good time to start heating the oil. 

1/2 cup flour ↓.

1/2 cup corn meal ↓.  This is kernel popcorn ground up at home in a Nutramill. I used to use coffee grinders until I burned out three of them. They were cheap. My new coffee mill is stronger, but I learned my lesson. It's probably not worth it, although it does have the advantage of being 100% kernel, and it sure does taste good. 

1 full cup of masa harina. The cups look the same size but they're not. I left a tablespoon in the photos for size comparison. 

1 teaspoon cider vinegar. The spoon is smaller than the previous spoons shown. 

Okay, here is where the mixture is tested for stiffness ↑ and adjusted with one tablespoon masa harina ↓.

As it turns out, the mixture is now too stiff so it was adjusted with about 1 tablespoon of water. But then that made it too loose again so it was adjusted back with 1 teaspoon of masa harina. Finally, it seemed about right. 

Just two more ingredients, baking soda to react with the cider vinegar, and the tuna which is too tender to add before all this vigorous mixing. 

Houston, we have activation. 

This baking soda/cider vinegar combination will prevent our hushpuppies from being little rocks. Most of the expansion will occur in the bowl, but some expansion will occur in the hot oil. We can expect a few hushpuppies to break open as the outer shell sets before the internal hushpuppy full expands. 

If you are more clever than I am, you can use two spoons to form quenelles and drop them into the oil directly from the spoon. Alternately, you can wet your hands, form a little ball, and drop the ball into flour, cornmeal, or masa harina, or breadcrumbs, then into the oil. I form three or four balls and drop directly into the oil. By then my hands become quite gloppy with mixture which makes forming balls nearly impossible so it's a constant necessity to rinse my hands in order to continue making balls. So the balls end up frying in batches of three or four at a time. I'm a klutz, you could probably do better. 

Man, oh man, these are good. I'd be happy to serve these anytime, anywhere. 

I'm slumming it over here though. I'm having these with catsup because I'm too lazy to make a decent sauce. Even plain lemon would be great. I think I would go with cucumber/yogurt tzatziki type of thing if I was feeling just a little more industrious.