December 6, 2015 - 3:46am
Nixtamalization?
Has anyone a good method for making nixtamal? As I understand it soaking in an alkaline solution unlocks nutrition in the corn not available in untreated grain.
Thanks
Stu
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Has anyone a good method for making nixtamal? As I understand it soaking in an alkaline solution unlocks nutrition in the corn not available in untreated grain.
Thanks
Stu
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/make-masa-nixtamalized-corn-zmaz04amzsel.aspx
Nice link. It looks like all the methods I've seen use approximately the same technique. I do find it interesting that the origin of the process may have come from dusting grain with wood ashes as a repellent for molds and vermin.
My mother made hominy for many years, she used lye, a very small amount, since after a time she couldn't find unslaked lime anymore. The lime was taken off the market because of a serial killer who drove the highways killing women and girls and burying them and filling the hole with unslaked lime which you could buy in the hardware stores for making cement. My brother didn't like using lye as its very caustic, so he bought a bag of plain lime for marking lines on playing fields in the hardware and we used that, made many batches of hominy from popcorn, which is the only corn we can buy here in non frozen form. Never managed to grow enough to dry and make hominy from corn.
Here I think pickling lime is used most often. I live on the middle of the US corn belt but it is difficult to find non GMO corn. Finally got some from Great River Organic Milling which can be purchased through Amazon.