Monday 4 August 2008

Brasilian sweet corn pudding

Polish: kukurydza
Malagasy: katsaka
Zulu: ukolweni
Bambara: kaba
Basa Jawa: jagung
Nahuatl: cintli
Slovenian: koruza
Thai: ข้าวโพด
Ossetian: Нартхор
Bantu: pémbá

My Peruvain friend was somehow surprised that in Poland we have basically only yellow corn in cans and not much idea what to do with the fresh one, besides grilling or cooking and eating with melted butter and salt. Plus, cornflakes and corn porridge cooked with milk and sugar for children. Oh yes, and we have (at least in my city) great corn bread, yellow and soft. While in Peru there are so many variants, including the purple one, an ingredient of mazamorra, purple corn pudding, something I am dreaming about to try :) Maize is a staple food in many regions of the world, just remember Italian polenta, Romanian mămăligă, African sadza, Mexican chicha and tortillas, Peruvian mazamorra :) and so on, without forgetting corn syrup and cornflakes. Maize can be prepared on a sweet or savoury way and to proove the first declaration, prepare yourself a Brasilian dessert, curau (when made from fresh yellow maize; when white dried and soaked in water is used, the dish is called canjica), which is a kind of milk pudding with corn.

see also: Egyptian zucchini pudding

4 fresh corn cobs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup coconut milk
sugar to taste
cinnamon

1. Grate corn cobs using a fine vegetable grater. If your grater is not very fine, you can puree the corns in a pood processor. Strain through a strainer and squeeze with a spoon to divide bagasse from juice. Throw bagasse away, keep the juice.



2. Put the maize juice in milk and cook until thicker. After about 20 minutes of low cooking and stirring, add coconut milk and sugar to taste (I added 5 tablespoons vanilla sugar) and cook some minutes more

3. When the cream is homogeneous and thick, pour it into bowls and set aside to cool. Set in the fridge for about 2 hours. Sprinkle with cinnamon and serve! (traditionally, especially during Festa Juninha, Midsummer Night!)

2 comments:

Tim said...

Wow, you have outstanding web traffic management. 3 for 3 on the first google search results page when I was looking for different recipe ideas on several day period.
This time I was hoping to reconstruct the recipe for porridge we were served in Jamaica each morning along with side dish of boiled calaloo/amaranth greens. Cornmeal and pumpkin cooked in freshly made coconut milk. Spices? Allspice &/or cinnamon &/or nutmeg? With cornmeal there is always the question, hominy/nixtamal or without alkali?

Ewa said...

Tim, I am afraid I am not able to help you reconstruct that recipe... but if you do it, please share! I have never been to Jamaica and, alas, know only a little about its cuisine