Food
South County Jonnycakes
By Aimee Tucker|Mar 25 2017|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine Keenan
By Aimee Tucker|Mar 25 2017|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine Keenan
When you make RI Johnnycakes and add the boiling water to the dry ingredients, you need to let the mixture sit for 15-20 minutes before frying the pancakes. This allows the boiling water to cook the meal a little before you quick fry it. If you don’t let it sit, the dough will taste raw and nasty in the middle if your griddle is hot enough to cook the outside in just a few minutes.
You are so right! My mother always actually covered the bowl with a cloth for 10-15 minutes to allow the mixture to swell.
My grandmother’s recipe calls for scalding a cup of milk (not water), and slowly adding/stirring small amounts at a time to swell the corn meal. Her jonnycakes were browned in sausage or bacon grease and served with stewed blackberries over the top. You never got hungry before lunch after eating these.
Here in the south.Virginia, we put Smithfeild ham on them.along with oysters cooked in butter. The best meal.
Grandmother ALWAYS stirred the corn meal over a flame, adding MILK, a bit at a time, stirring constantly, swelling the meal…no water or sugar added. And cooked on an iron spider using chorizo or bacon grease in the pan. Topped with stewed blackberrys…TO DIE FOR!
My Mother and Gramma always made them thin, and that’s the way my children and I make them today, with just butter on them. Heaven on a plate <3