I feel a bit foolish admitting there was a time I had no idea what a hushpuppy was, and it wasn’t that long ago either. Growing up, the small town I lived in had a limited number of restaurants, and of the few in the area, they were mostly diner style menus filled with burgers, fries, and milk shakes. Occasionally, “exotic” foods, like the steak finger or a fish sandwich, might pop up as a weekly special, but for the most part things were the same, day-in and day-out. And I certainly never had heard of elk sausage hushpuppies.
I actually had my first hushpuppy at a Church’s Chicken in Texas during a trip to visit college campuses and was instantly a fan of the small, savory bites of deep fried cornmeal dough. I kind of felt cheated in life for a moment. “How come the exciting world of hushpuppies is something I am just discovering now? I have been missing out on the good things in life!” I said to my fellow diners.
Anyway, if you are silly like me and don’t know what a hushpuppy is, I will tell you. Hopefully, you aren’t like me and have had the pleasure of the hushpuppy being a permanent fixture in your life. Hushpuppies are spoonful sized balls of deep fried cornmeal, flour, eggs, milk, and baking soda. Often times, they also have bits of garlic and onion in them. Some versions also include corn. They should be fluffy, light, crunchy, and a bit salty.
A funny little tidbit about hushpuppies is legend says they were named during the Civil War by Confederate soldiers. Soldiers would feed the little fluffy fried balls to the dogs in order to “hush” them. I don’t know how true the legend is, but I liked the story and thought I would share it.
Hushpuppies are typically served as side dishes to a variety of meals. They are often found at barbeques and also, in the completely opposite direction, can be found complementing a seafood dish. For these Cajun elk sausage hushpuppies, I went the barbeque route and served them along-side smoked ribs.
My hushpuppies featured a little twist, the addition of a spicy Cajun homemade elk sausage. The recipe for the sausage can be found here: Cajun Elk Sausage.
The nice thing about working with hushpuppies is they are basically a blank canvas for developing flavor. The base, cornmeal and flour, is essentially just a building block that brings texture to the dish but not much else. This allows one to create a hushpuppy flavor profile that can trek in any direction the preparer desires.
The Cajun elk sausage added a really great heat to the hushpuppy. These little fried balls were salty, spicy, and just a little bit sweet from the onions.
The Recipe
To start, over medium high heat, completely cook half a pound of the homemade elk sausage and one medium diced onion. Be sure to break the sausage up into as small of pieces as possible.
You can also start heating the oil for frying the hushpuppies. I used a 10.5 ounce ceramic dutch oven for cooking my hushpuppies. You need about three inches of frying oil to cook in, so this size is nice because you can cook a few pieces of dough at a time without using a lot of oil. For frying, you need a high heat oil. People typically use vegetable oil for frying, but you can also use canola or coconut oil (if you are looking for a little healthier frying options). I actually ran out of my usual frying oil and had to resort to using peanut oil. It smelled like roasted peanuts in the house, which was weird, but oddly enough the peanut fragrance did not carry over to the actual food. Anyway, heat the oil to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and hold it there.
For the dough, in a large bowl mix together 1 and a half cups of cornmeal, ¾ a cup of flour, two tablespoons of baking powder, a teaspoon of salt, and the cooked elk sausage and onions. Give everything a quick mix, being sure to cover all the sausage with the dry ingredients, and continue to the next step.
To the dry ingredients, add one lightly beaten egg, 2/3 cup of your favorite beer, and 1/3 cup of buttermilk. Lightly combine everything, there is no need to over mix this batter, just stir until the dry ingredients are moistened. Let the bowl stand for 10 minutes.
After ten minutes, the dough should look light and fluffy. It is now time to start frying!
Frying the Hushpuppies
I used an ice cream scoop to portion out my hushpuppies. This helped keep everything the right size and made the cooking time even between all the batches I did. Drop a scoop of the dough into the hot oil and allow to fry 1 and half to two minutes, you should see the sides peeking out of the oil browning. Flip the puppy to get the other side and allow to cook an additional 1 and half to two minutes.
I added about four dough scoops to the pot at a time. This was a good number for each batch size because it didn’t cause the oil to drop too much in temperature. You want to try and keep the oil as close as possible to 375. If you overcrowd the pot and drop the heat too much, your puppies will cook slower and be a lot greasier and possibly soggy. If you have the oil too hot you will wind up with a burnt outside and a raw inside. So, keeping the oil at the ideal temperature is key to a good hushpuppy.
Working in batches, continue to cook the hushpuppies. Allow the grease to drain off by placing them on a wire rack when they are done frying. You can keep them warm in the oven by putting it to a low 200 degrees.
This Cajun elk sausage hushpuppy was easy to make and very quick to throw together. It also made a delicious side dish to my smoked rib dinner. The spicy, savory crunch of the hushpuppies paired great with the smoky sweet ribs. Give these puppies a try and let me know how it goes for you!