Wrapped up in corn husk

I owe my food curiosity to my father, who tried out eating papaya with mustard and, for a change, dipped his mango into dark soy sauce. My kitchen is full of things that I've bought without knowing what they are, at the time of purchase. These things often bring surprises to an otherwise ordinary daily life.


Yesterday, when I was planning the dinner menu, I suddenly found myself run out of ideas on how to cook a big bunch of vegetables. We've already eaten casseroles, stir-fries and vegetable eggs throughout the week. It's time for a change. I opened the cabinet to browse around. Then the corn husk fell down from the shelf. It was through buying it that I found out corn husk is used in a Southern American dish called tamale. My first tamale was from a boiling recipe. It did not turn out that well. The flavor of the ingredients was lost to the liquid during the boiling. Later I found out that corn husk is like paper, it can survive high heat even when dry. So I decided to try out baking it this time. Since baking will take shorter time than boiling, I improvised a more sticky filling to speed up the caking process. This filling caked very well this time and tasted perfect, especially if eaten the next day after baking!


Recipe: An impromptu wrap with corn husk (4 wraps)
Note: corn husk can be obtained from Latin American specialty stores. In the recipe, the corn husk need to be about 8"x8" big.


Ingredients:
- 6 (tablespoon) TB soggy cooked rices
- 2 TB cream of mushroom soup paste, low salt and fat
- 4 slices honey ham
- 4 TB ricotta cheese
- 4-8 oz baby kappa cabbage, chopped to pack 2 cups
- 4 corn husk, softened with boiling water


Procedure:
1. To prepare the soggy cooked rice: cook 1/2 cup rice in 1 cup water until it is cooked and soggy. 
2. Mix 6 TB of cooked rice with 2 TB cream of mushroom soup paste. Chop baby kappa cabbage finely.
3. On a corn husk. spread one slice of ham. Add 1/4 cup of chopped cabbage, about 2 TB rice and 1 TB ricotta cheese. Roll up and fold. The wrapping part is needs some elaboration. The corn husk has veins that stretch into a fan shape, so I roll up the filling perpendicularly to the veins, like rolling up a fan. Then fold both ends. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes or until corn husk is browned. You can smell the aroma of corn bubbling in a little juice of the filling when it's done.

 

Guess what! I always pronounce "corn husk" as "horn cusk", and people give me a funny look when they hear that!