I don’t have a proper Saturday very often as I’m usually working, so today I made the most of the half-decent weather and packed the day with lots of fun things with Jane. At Moseley Farmers Market I didn’t find anything that was on my shopping list and spent lots of money on stuff that wasn’t on the list (isn’t that just the way with Farmers markets?!). Fortunately Nima delicatessen was fantastic as usual and I got most of the stuff I needed there including this fab Louisiana Hot Sauce direct from ‘nwalins, which will go great in the dressing for tomorrow’s Cajun Slaw dressing for the Cajun cook-off. After a bacon sarnie for lunch we cycled out to a brew-pub nearby that we’ve never visited before, the Coach and Horses in Weatheroak. After a couple of pints and a tough cycle home I decided to test out the two hush puppy recipes that I have for tomorrow – one from Donald Link’s Real Cajun, and one from Soul Food Project.

Although I’m not gonna type out the entire recipes, in essence the Donal Link recipe adds to the base of cornmeal, plain flour and baking powder some milk, egg, scallions (spring onions), jalapeno, onion, thyme and parsley, whereas the Soul Food recipe adds sweet corn, scallions, cheddar, and beer (Brooklyn Brown Ale in this case). There was a marked difference in the batter before it was fried as you can see below – Donald Link’s recipe was thin to the point of watery (I added a little more flour), whereas Soul Food’s was almost as thick as scone mixture (I added a little more beer). The other marked difference was the Donald Link recipe had quite a bit more baking powder.

Both were fried at about 180C for 2-3 minutes, and came out looking crispy and delicious. Jane and I did the taste taste and although both were great in different ways we both plumped for the Donald Link recipe to go forward for tomorrow’s cook-off. They turned out much lighter probably mainly due to the increased baking powder, although I’m gonna reduce it a little as it did come through in the flavour a bit. I’m also going to thicken up the batter a little more it was easier to get a decent shape with the thicker Soul Food batter – Link’s ended up all shapes and sizes.

Just topped off a great day with a fantastic Goodnight Lenin gig at MAC, and now listening to the Water Tower Bucket Boys (thanks Gordon) as I ready myself for tomorrow…good times!