Hominy has a wide range of “food applications” depending upon where the recipe originates from:  it can be served plain as a side dish, for breakfast (on low heat: saute olive oil, scrambled egg whites, chopped leeks, garlic, chives, cilantro/parsley and ground chili peppers), pureed and flavor enhanced (i.e., add olive oil to puree, then mix in chopped cilantro),  used as an ingredient in other dishes (for example, home-made soups like pozole), or ground up and made into masa (used as a base for home made tortillas and tamales).

Finding a clear definition of hominy is tricky: some people define it as “corn without the germ”, others define it as “corn that has been soaked in lye (which undergoes a nixtamalization process – see below), and our version of Larousse defines hominy as “dried corn (maize) kernels, ground to make hominy grits”.  We’re going to interpret “Hominy” as being dried corn that has been reconstituted and made into a dish.  This blog post is a little long, but we’ll cover where the Andean corn is grown, and chat about a few different ways that the dried corn can be brought back to life.

Growing and Harvesting Andean Corn (photos):

Fields of Andean Corn

Corn Drying Process:
Farmers lay the corn out on the fields to dry

Harvesting Process

Donkeys carrying maize

Transporting Maize via local roads

From a strictly basic perspective, we can see why the Incan crops are superior in both size and diversity:

Cooking and Eating Corn

Canned versus “Do it yourself”: I think there is a significant taste difference

It comes to no surprise that home cooked/re hydrated dried hominy tastes *significantly* better than canned hominy  When we compared sodium values, our dried package of hominy noted a very definite “low-sodium” serving of 10 mg sodium per 1/3 cup serving, versus 115 mg for white canned hominy calculated by the USDA — but there is a tradeoff of ease of use/time (canned) versus flavor.

Making hominy takes a little advance planning as its’ recommended to soak the dried hominy (in water or mineral lime)  over night –  and there is a some cooking time involved (between 2-3 hours, depending upon the texture).  It was suggested to us that we “make a lot of it — and freeze it in smaller batches” to save time when making other dishes.

Do it Yourself Methods

Here are the things we’ve learned the “hard way”:

Pressure Cooking -  we suggest that you first pre-soak the corn overnight, to allow the kernels to initiate the “break-down” process.  We tried just pressure cooking the dried corn straight up (@ 15 pounds per square inch above the external pressure), and results were “marginal” at best:  25 minutes the corn was really uncooked; 50 minutes was still not that great, 100 minutes seemed to reconstitute most of the corn, but the kernels still hadn’t “popped out of their shell”.  We opted for the “typical preparation” at that point.

Typical Preparation - we took a poll, and asked people from our circle of friends, from people who worked in the local Hispanic grocery store to a couple of different Peruvian chef’s and the consensus was all the same – and the hands down winning preparation is that people just soak the hominy overnight and boil it [well] for a couple of hours the next day.  Additionally, the people we polled don’t manually “peel” off each individual shell: this caused some initial confusion for us when we were doing our research –  because when we were in Peru, we ate corn/hominy “fresh” (meaning, not dried).  Now that we’re home, what we’ve come to understand is that the boiling process should continue until the shell, or husk, have cracked open, allowing kernel to expand. Then, “if you really want to, you can rub the hominy in your palms (to remove the outer shell), and rinse the hulls off”.

Alternative Preparation Method: Nixtamalization — means soaking the dried corn in mineral lime (sometimes referred to as “Cal”) to remove the outside hull: We should note that not one person in our “circle of friends” regularly uses the nixtamalization method of soaking the hominy in Lye/”Cal” the night before to remove the germ and hull.  We called a number of local grocery and specialty stores without any luck, our guess is that you’ll probably have to go to a specialty store for this puppy (or do a better job of explaining it than we did).

However, we were able to find one main source online that sold the “pickling lime”. After some research, it seems that pickling lime isn’t really a widely recommended method, due to the (1) potential risks of “not effectively rinsing” off all of the pickling lime which may affect the pH of the food (allowing bacteria to grow), and (2) the safety aspects of using a chemical (well ventilated area, protect eyes, etc.).  Note that when used per the National Center for Home Food Preservation instructions, the product should be safe for consumption.  Alternatively, we found this ratio (on the Culinary Institute of America’s website), which you can use as a starting point:  1 kilo (2.2 lbs) hominy – dissolved: 1 cup water 1 tablespoon lime (calcium hydroxide). Bring to boil for 5 minutes, let it sit overnight (8 hours). Rinse WELL (for several minutes), and rub the hominy in your palms (to remove the outer shell).

Digestion Caveat – Make sure the dried corn is “well cooked”

The universal advice we received in Peru was to “make sure that the corn was fully cooked” to mitigate any potential digestion issues.  No one will willingly admitted to this tip — and in our case we learned this because had a traveler’s “health/digestion” complication while traveling and after our “dietary trouble”, we were warned by locals to consider staying away from the wonderful tasting “hot popped” dried yellow corn kernels – which we were told, can “tend to cause many tourists digestive issues” if “your stomach is not conditioned and if the kernels have not been fully cooked”. Nice. (It’s funny that no one will specifically tell you this useful piece of information until after you’ve lived to tell the tale.)

Now that we’re home (with access to more resources), we now better understand why the process of nixtamalization is used — the (Wikipedia cited) explanation is that the “lime water adds bio-available its’ calcium and also renders the B vitamins and amino acids in maize far more easily absorbable by the human digestive system”.

Also according to Wikipedia, the lack of nixtamalization when preparing hominy, combined with the factor of hominy being eaten as the predominant staple food, contributed to an epidemic of pellegra incidences  (typically caused by a niacin deficiency) in residents of the southern US states during the early 1900′s (because they ignored the nixtamalization process long used by the natives).

In short, no matter which way (or color) you eat hominy, I’d just make sure its “well cooked”.

Basic Preparation: Traditional Stove top (Boiling) Method

Similar in preparation to re hydrating and cooking dried beans — soak first, then boil.

1. Soak the dried hominy overnight. The hominy will expand (about 50%) overnight, so factor in enough water and space.
2. [The next day] Rinse.  Place the hominy a large pot with water, using the same ratio as above.  Bring to boil, and reduce temperature to medium, stirring occasionally.
3. Cook until the hominy is soft and begins to “pop” out of the kernels, approximately  2-3 hours.  When adding additional liquid (as required), bring back to a boil and reduce the temperature to medium. The boiling process should continue until the shell, or husk, has cracked, allowing kernel to expand.
4. Remove from heat and strain.
5. (Optional:) Loosen the husks to remove by rubbing the kernels between both palms.  This doesn’t have to be a “kernel by kernel” process, it’s more of a “less is more” type of husk removal step.

You can use this as a base and use the loosely defined instructions (at the top of this article) to provide some inspiration on other Hominy applications.