This post goes is dedicated to my Mom for Mother’s Day and to every other Mom as well.
When I was in Lima a couple of months ago, my Mom and I got together to cook. She’s always been a great cook and I’ve learned many tricks and recipes from her. My Mom says that the passion for cooking that I have, I’ve inherited from my great-grandmother (her grandmother). That’s why that day we cooked Mamitas’ Ester great Humitas.
I promised my Mom that I wouldn’t tell the secret ingredient of this recipe, so you’ll see listed in ingredients a “secret touch“. Let me tell you though that you can play with the Humitas all the time. You can add raisins and more sugar and they’ll be more for dessert, some cilantro and chili and they’ll be more ‘criollas’, other flours, another corn, both, purple corn, plenty of ideas. Imagine the “secret ingredient” as an “imagination ingredient” where you can add whatever you like to make a different recipe.
So today this goes to my mother with love and hoping she’ll have a great Mother’s Day with my two brothers and family. I hope that next time we meet we cook again. Happy Mother’s Day!!
Ingredients. 25 humitas.
- 3 thick grain corn (in Madrid you can get frozen and use those)
- 1 1/2 tablespoon butter
- 1/2 cup fresh milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
- ‘secret touch’
Preparation.
First of all we need to prepare the “molds” with the corn husks as you can see in the pictures:
- With the wider husks prepare the moldes on which the “humita” prepartion will be placed on. If there is a hard part, cut it because later it would prevent the husk from folding right and the preparation will spill out. Place one husk over the other as you see on the second photograph.
- With the softer husks we make the threads. Take two and make the knots as shown. With this we will wrap the humitas later.
Once we got this we go on to prepare the humitas and the filling and wrapping:
- Put water to boil with some husks on the water.
- Take out the corn kernels from the cob.
- Blend the kernels with the butter and salt.
- Pass to a bowl and taste the salt.
- Add the sugar.
- Add this to the center of the “molds” prepared before and quickly el relleno en el centro de los moldes preparados anteriormente y rápidamente doblar primero por los extremos horizontales y luego cerrar por el lado izquierda y derecho apretando para evitar que se escape el relleno. Esto debe de ser rápido igual que el atado posterior.
- Add the filling to the center of the previously prepared mold and quickly turn the ends first horizontal and then close by the left and right side to prevent the filling from escaping. This must be donde fast as well as the tying later.
- Cook in boiling water for 30-40 minutes aproximately.
Wait for them to cool so they are more solid and enjoy!!! You can keep on the fridge and freezed them and they last a lot of time. Just boil again and you have breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack!
