Energy value of mamalyga from corn grits. Mamalyga – a traditional dish with amazing health benefits

Mamalyga, such a familiar dish for us, brings incredible benefits to the body, experts say.

Corn is rich in unsaturated fatty acids (85-90%), it contains a lot of fiber, hydrocarbons, protein, many B vitamins, vitamin E, vitamin K, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, potassium and fiber. Although it loses some of its nutrients when cooked, more than 60% of them are retained in the finished dish.

Corn has astringent, diuretic, anti-inflammatory, tonic properties and is primarily used as a food product of the cereal group, and then as a medicinal plant. It has long been present in traditional Moldavian cuisine in the form of mamaliga, which is cooked from corn flour.

Corn is effective against stress and is rich in B vitamins, especially vitamin B1, which affects the functions of the nervous system, muscles, heart and the production of red blood cells. Vitamin E in its composition protects against arthritis, lowers cholesterol levels, thereby reducing the risk of developing atherosclerosis and, therefore, protects against heart attack. It also helps the cell renewal process. In addition, cooked corn contains potassium, which is essential for proper muscle and heart function.

In case of increased acidity, gastritis and ulcers, it is useful to replace wheat bread with warm hominy, since, in addition to reducing acidity, it also has a slight calming, sedative effect.

The carbohydrates contained in corn provide the body with energy and prevent the accumulation of fat. Moderate consumption may lead to weight loss because certain molecules in corn speed up the breakdown of fat. At the same time, the vitamin A it contains is a natural antioxidant, very important for the health and proper functioning of the body, for accelerating metabolism, which makes it easier to lose weight.

Due to its rich fiber content, corn regulates intestinal function. It is a good diuretic and when consumed regularly can prevent water retention in the body. Corn silk brewed as tea is also recommended for detoxification.

Consumption of hominy regulates the concentration of glucose in the blood, so it is useful for diabetics. Hominy helps detoxify and cleanse the colon, and detoxification eases the burden on the liver by neutralizing toxic substances, reducing the risk of liver failure and cirrhosis.

Corn does not contain gluten, so it can be included in the diet of those with gluten intolerance (celiac disease), and is a successful substitute for rice, wheat and other gluten-containing grains. Helps prevent lung cancer due to its high beta-cryptoxanthin content. Protects vision because it contains zeaxanthin. Helps support cognitive abilities and slows down the aging process of the brain by up to 10% due to its high thiamine content. Helps strengthen the immune system and prevent colon cancer. Improves mood. Treats colds thanks to vitamin A. By consuming hominy, pregnant women can get the right dose of folic acid.

Despite the many new modern baits and baits that appear on fishing markets all the time, the good old hominy does not lose its popularity among fishermen, as it is an excellent bait and bait. This article will discuss in detail recipes for making mamaliga, its features, storage methods and much more.

What is mamalyga

Mamalyga is ground corn porridge, which is distinguished by its aroma and softness and is not only a culinary dish for people, but also for fish, which also readily accept it as bait or bait.

You can catch the following types of fish using hominy:

crucian carp;
roach;
carp;
chub;
carp;

As you can see, quite a large number of fish do not mind swallowing the hook on which the hominy will be located.

In addition, this bait has the following additional advantages that make it indispensable for fishing:

Hominy has a rather bright color and a persistent aroma that attracts fish from distant parts of the reservoir.
Mamalyga is several times cheaper than other baits, so the fisherman will not spend too much on buying it.
This bait has good viscosity and elasticity, so it does not dissolve in water for a long time and holds well on the hook.
Hominy has a porridge-like taste that is pleasant to fish, so it always readily bites on it.
There are more than enough hominy recipes, so a fisherman can combine them and feel free to experiment, creating his own unique bait.
Hominy can be used on many types of gear, which makes it a universal bait and bait.
It can be used in summer, autumn and spring, which is also very convenient.
Hominy can be easily rolled into balls and placed on a hair or hook.
Hominy is prepared very quickly - within 15 minutes it is ready.

Cooking hominy

In order for the mamalyga to turn out correctly, you need to follow all the recommendations for its preparation and use only clean and high-quality utensils. There are a lot of recipes for making mamalyga, but here we will consider the most effective recipes, which have already been repeatedly tested in the process of fishing.

Recipe No. 1

To prepare mamalyga you will need the following ingredients and components:

Corn flour (you can buy ready-made, or you can grind corn grits yourself).
Wheat flour.
Two transparent plastic bags.
Water.
Raspberry or strawberry extract.
Stainless steel utensils.

First you need to fry the corn and wheat flour in a frying pan with sunflower oil. This will give the porridge a richer aroma and taste. The main thing is not to overdo it so that the flour does not burn.
There should be three times more corn flour than wheat flour, this should be taken into account when preparing. Wheat flour is needed to make the porridge more viscous.
After this, you need to add warm water to the flour and mix everything thoroughly. You need to add water in small increments so as not to overdo it. The resulting mass should look like a very thick cream.
Add raspberry or strawberry extract, distributing and mixing it throughout the mixture. If such an extract is not available, you can use honey or vanilla sugar. They will not in any way impair the attractiveness of the finished hominy for fish.
Then the resulting mixture must be carefully transferred into a thick plastic bag, then tie the latter well. To be safe, it is better to place it in another package, so that if the first one ruptures, there will be additional insurance. Also, it is important to know that using cloth instead of bags is highly not recommended, although some fishermen advise this. The whole point is that when cooking porridge from cloth, it can absorb foreign odors and waste its own, which will never happen in a plastic bag.
Place the packages of dough in a pan filled with water so that the liquid “covers” the entire package completely. This way it can cook well.
Cook for approximately 15-25 minutes. If the fish needs the hominy to be very hard and thick, then it should be cooked for about forty minutes, but if, on the contrary, soft hominy is required, then fifteen minutes of cooking will be enough.
After the required time has passed, you need to remove the hominy from the stove, leaving the packages in the same pan until it cools completely. After this, you need to leave the still packaged porridge for several hours to infuse.
After this, the hominy is considered ready, but it is advisable to unpack it immediately before fishing or during the fishing itself, so that the smell does not dissipate once again, and in this way the hominy will not turn sour.

You need to cut the finished hominy while fishing, into small slices, from the slices of which you need to roll small balls, which will then be put on a hook.

Recipe No. 2

We will need the following ingredients:

Corn sticks – 15 pieces.
Sweet shortbread cookies – 3 pieces.
Soft white bread.

Place corn sticks in a saucepan and add hot water.
Crush the cookies and add them to the sticks.
Mix everything very well, adding pieces of bread little by little to the dough to form a homogeneous mass.
Add a tablespoon of honey and mix again. After this, the fish dish is ready for use. It is recommended to use it as bait in reservoirs with weak currents.

Hominy recipe No. 3

To prepare hominy you will need:

Corn flour (1.5 kg).
Water (1 liter).
Sunflower oil – 2 tablespoons.

Pour water into a container and bring to a boil.
Add flour, stirring frequently with a spoon until smooth.
Pour in sunflower oil and mix again.
Cover the pan with a lid and turn off the gas. Leave to steep for ten minutes.
After this, the porridge should swell and you need to make pancakes from it about one centimeter thick and 7-8 cm in diameter.
Cook these pancakes in boiling water for 304 minutes.
After this, they need to be placed on a plate and allowed to cool.
After cooling, the pancakes should be crushed well with your hands, which must first be moistened in sunflower oil. This hominy can be used for fishing in a body of water with a weak current. In order for this bait to be used in a body of water with a large current, you need to add the following ingredients to this recipe:
- wheat flour;
- semolina.

Features of preparing hominy for catching different types of fish

Cooking hominy for carp, carp and rudd has the following features:

Hominy for these types of fish is prepared according to the usual recipe, but with some additions and additions. The first is sunflower oil. It needs to be poured into the mixture when mixing flour and water. The amount of oil should not exceed two tablespoons per kilogram of corn flour. You can also lubricate casting springs with sunflower oil.
In hominy that will be used for catching carp and carp, you do not need to add macadamia or sunflower grains into the dough, since they will greatly worsen the elasticity of the finished bait and its color.
Grinded seeds and dry complementary foods can be mixed with ready-made hominy immediately before use. You can also dip hominy balls into dry bait, and then, after casting, this food will fall off and attract the attention of the fish.
For carp, the best option would be an additive with the sweet taste of honey, fruit, berries or vanilla. Carp also readily bite on hominy flavored with banana, coffee and strawberry. This trend especially works in the spring and summer seasons.

Features of the preparation and use of hominy depending on the season and the equipment used

Depending on the season and the equipment used, various types of bait can be added to the bait:

In the autumn, when it gets closer to cold weather, ordinary hominy becomes uninteresting for carp. To attract this fish, when cooking hominy, you need to add flavorings with the following odors:
- Shrimp.
- Crab meat.
- Red caviar.
In summer and spring, you can add the following flavors and ingredients to hominy:
- Vanilla.
- Sugar.
- Garlic.
- Sunflower oil.
- Raspberry or strawberry extract.
- Banana or berry flavor.
When fishing with a spring, in addition to hominy, you can use a red worm or maggot. This combination will work well when catching carp, crucian carp and carp.
When fishing with a regular fishing rod, the corn mixture should be baited in small portions and the bait should be changed frequently.

How to plant hominy

You need to put hominy on the hook tip in this way:

Cut the boiled bait into small slices.
Pinch off a small piece of porridge from a slice.
Roll this piece into a tight pea.
Thread this pea through the hook like this. So that the point of the hook peeks out a little.
The nozzle needs to be changed every fifteen minutes, regardless of whether it bites or not, or whether the porridge has dissolved in the pond or not. This is necessary in order to renew the smell of hominy, which over time becomes less in the water and does not attract fish.

How to properly store cooked hominy

The cooked mixture should be stored under the following conditions:

Packaged in a bag or other tightly closed container.
You can store it in the refrigerator for no more than two days, after which it is advisable to cook new hominy, since its taste and fish-attracting smell will go away.
During the fishing process, it is recommended to store the mixture in a jar, which will be covered with oilcloth so that the sun does not fall on it.
You cannot store hominy in the freezer, as the porridge will then lose its fish-attracting properties.

Properly prepared hominy should be so dense that it can be cut with a knife; if it falls apart and crumbles, it simply will not “sit” on the hook tip.
The porridge should not be burnt. During its preparation, the fisherman must stir the mixture and make sure that there is no burnt vent, since the fish will smell this unpleasant burnt aroma and will not peck at such bait.
A good hominy should have a pronounced, pleasant aroma and rich color. It is better to use hooks for hominy with number 6, since they are the ones that best hold the porridge on its tip.
If a fisherman plans to fish with a feeder and a bottom, then he needs to make versions of hominy of different consistency.
You need to cut hominy with a knife with a clean blade, which can be slightly moistened with water. So, the porridge slices turn out more even.
It is better to cook hominy in the evening before the day of catching, so that it is fresh and does not lose its aroma;

Description

A very dense porridge made from corn flour, which is often served instead of bread or even as a separate dish.

Making mamaliga doesn’t require a lot of ingredients, and you don’t have to fuss with kneading or baking it. This is because hominy is cooked in an ordinary cast-iron pot and only takes about half an hour.

Under no circumstances should you place the finished hominy on a ceramic dish: this will cause it to become covered with perspiration from below and become too soft, which means it will become tasteless. It is best to prepare Moldavian hominy at home and place it on a wooden board.

Surely, many people know that hominy is not cut with a knife. The reason for this is tradition and simple convenience.

Hominy is served hot, and it will definitely stick to the knife while cutting. The thread will very quickly and clearly cut through dense porridge in the way that is convenient and necessary for you. In addition, hominy cut in this way is a tribute to the traditions of Moldavian cuisine.

Hearty and dense as bread, corn porridge can be served with a variety of sauces, heated in a frying pan, or eaten just like that. A step-by-step recipe for its creation with photos will tell you about all the subtleties and details of the process.

Let's start creating a tender, aromatic and appetizing Moldavian hominy.

Ingredients

Cooking steps

To prepare Moldavian hominy, we need a glass of clean sifted corn flour.

Also, select a pot or cast iron pan with very thick walls and bottom for cooking. Pour the specified amount of water into the pan, bring the liquid to a boil and add salt to taste. Carefully pour the entire glass of cornmeal into the water, portionwise, so that it does not form lumps. Cook the porridge over medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring constantly.

The thickness and readiness of the porridge can be checked in different ways, but one of the traditional ones is to insert a wooden skewer into the center of the porridge and twist it: if the hominy does not stick to the skewer, it means it is ready.

Carefully, having previously moistened a wooden spatula in cold water, separate the hominy from the walls of the pan, reduce the heat and continue to cook the porridge for another 10 minutes until fully cooked.

We sharply turn the pot or cast iron pan upside down and dump the cooked hominy onto a wooden cutting board.

Give the porridge time to cool a little.

We cut the finished porridge exclusively with thread and serve it to the table as a side dish or an independent dish. Moldovan mamaliga made from corn flour is ready.

Bon appetit!

Mamalyga - unique corn dish, which can be considered both porridge and bread at the same time. It is considered a Moldavian national dish, but in one variation or another, mamalyga also existed in other cuisines of the world - Caucasian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Ukrainian.

But in ancient times, when Europeans did not yet know about corn, a dish similar to hominy was prepared from those grain crops that grew in a certain region. So, on Ukrainian lands, for example, the dish was prepared from millet.

In any version, mamalyga was a simple but satisfying dish that gave peasants the strength to plow the field, care for animals and do a lot of other physical work. And today we will tell you how to cook hominy according to a traditional Moldovan recipe.

Corn grits mamalyga

The popularity of hominy is explained not only by its nutritional value, but also by its usefulness. It contains vitamins B, E, K, as well as zinc, iron, potassium, magnesium. This dish contains enough unsaturated fatty acids. Therefore, such porridge saves not only from exhaustion, but also from problems with the cardiovascular system, as well as from arthritis, high acidity and even stress.

It was not for nothing that legends were made about mamalyga, since, thanks to the content of useful microelements, it increased male strength and enhanced the synthesis of male sex hormones. Therefore, they prepared the dish with special trepidation.

Ingredients

300 g medium-ground corn grits
200 g pork belly (you can use any other meat for greaves)
5 glasses of water
sour cream, butter, salt to taste

Preparation

By the way, Americans, who are considered the biggest fans of corn, also love to prepare a similar dish. However, in the US it is served with honey. And here traditional mamaliga never acts as a dessert and is served just with cracklings.

If you like mamalyga, try crispy Moldavian placindas, which can be fried in a frying pan or baked in the oven. And if you want to treat yourself to dessert, then take on the task of preparing the pearl of Moldavian cuisine - babka negre.

Which cuisine do you like best? Tell us in the comments.

Hominy

As I already promised, today I will talk about the Moldovan, (Romanian) national dish, which, unfortunately, is forgotten by young people. I noticed that his hostesses were somehow embarrassed to cook for guests. Yes, I myself, who grew up with a piece of hominy in my hands, almost never cook for myself. And I only cook when “foreign guests” come from Russia, Belarus, etc. Recently, I was in a good Moldovan restaurant, where they served...mamalyga with feta cheese and tokana (cracklings), but the menu said: “Polenta with Feta cheese and Pancetta. It's a shame...we have become ashamed of the national dish, because it has become a symbol of poverty. This is how detractors of this historical dish contemptuously call it “Tsaranskoe”, that is, peasant dish. But in vain!

All my “foreign” guests are always delighted with mamalyga, they are especially delighted with the method of portion cutting,...more about which below

A little history: Historically, mamalyga was the main food of Romanian and Moldavian peasants and the poor, replacing bread. At a time when corn had not yet been introduced into the Moldavian principality, hominy was made from millet. The earliest mention of corn fields in the principality dates back to the reign of Constantin Ducas (1693–95). Corn began to spread very quickly, since it was not subject to tribute from the Turks. Corn hominy is much better in taste and calorie content than millet hominy that was made before.

And now, the latest history of hominy.

During my childhood and youth, with all the dominance of Khrushchev’s queen of fields - corn, when they mercilessly forced the sowing of American corn varieties, which the Moldovans called “Horse Tooth”, the Moldovans treasured like the apple of their eye the ancient variety that came to Moldova from the Incas. American varieties and hybrids gave excellent yields, the cobs were large, there were 2-3 such cobs on each plant, but there was no hominy made from such corn, but the wild boars really liked it!

The Moldovans did their best to preserve the purity of historical corn from cross-pollination. I remember how my mother and grandmother tried to sow corn away from areas where careless owners, rejoicing in large harvests, sowed newfangled varieties. The yield, ears, and stalk height of old-fashioned corn were modest, but the smell and cooking properties were fabulous. The cobs were dried in Russian ovens (don’t be surprised, the Moldovans had Russian ovens in their houses, but with a Moldavian “accent”), not as large as in Russia, but very similar.

The dried cobs were pulled and peeled. The grain was winnowed from inclusions and taken to the mill. Every self-respecting housewife had such flour; others began to eat hominy made from newfangled corn along with piglets.

Alas! Cross-pollination and careless attitude to the purity of the variety ruined the classic hominy variety.

Fortunately, the Transnistrian Breeding Institute restored this variety and now true hominy flour can be found on sale.

And now about how to cook hominy (the variety only affects the taste, but the technology remains unchanged)

For hominy, you need to take only finely ground corn flour, pre-dried in the oven and sifted through a sieve. The utensil is usually a cauldron - a cast iron pot with thick walls and a bottom. Salted water is boiled in it, into which corn flour is poured (400 g of flour per 1.2 liters of water, by volume it turns out to be 2 tbsp. flour per 6 tbsp. water). To prevent lumps from forming, stir constantly with a wooden spatula. The hominy cooks for 25-30 minutes over low heat, then reduce the heat to the lowest setting and cook for another 10-15 minutes. until the flour thickens completely. As housewives say, hominy should!” whisper. To determine the readiness of the hominy, lower a stick into the cauldron and quickly rotate it - if the hominy doesn’t stick to it, it means it’s ready. When the mamalyga thickens, it is separated with a wet spoon from the walls of the cauldron and left for a while on the fire so that it is “baked” to the very bottom and better lags behind the dishes. Then the cauldron is shaken several times and the hominy is tipped onto a board or kitchen towel, but not onto a dish, otherwise it will sweat and be tasteless. The hominy is cut in an original way. A harsh thread, you can take a simple sewing thread No. 10, is brought under the hominy and very effectively cut into layers. Those who see such a “trick” for the first time usually applaud. They eat hominy only with their hands, and hominy is not friendly with cutlery.

As you understand, Mamaliga is a meatless dish among Moldovans. Mamalyga is eaten with borscht, fried fish, cracklings, but mainly with sheep cheese, milk and sour cream, with “Muzhdey” sauce (see internet)

Bon appetit!