Corn - from growing to processing

How to make the best nacho's ever.

I recently surprised myself by making the best nachos I’ve ever eaten! At the same time as being surprised (and I must say, impressed) I was also aggrieved. Surprised because I made the corn chips myself and aggrieved because I’m now out of corn! If you plan to make home made corn chips, you do need to plan ahead. If you’re in Australia, now is the time to plant the corn - maize or flour corn is what you need for corn chips, not sweet corn. Although, that may work, but I can’t guarantee it.

I grew this corn in 2022, after much indecision as to whether I wanted to take up space in my garden with maize. I did attempt to plant the three sisters - corn with beans alongside and in the middle of the bed I planted a tromboncino, and zucchini’s at the end.

Edmund (middle son) had put me onto a podcast where Shane from Zero Input Agriculture had talked about his experiments with maize seed where he selected for bird resistance amongst other traits. He had gotten the original seed from the DPI in Biloela, which is near where we used to live, so I thought was a cool coincidence and after listening to the podcast myself, I put in an order and got quite a few different seeds, including the maize seeds.

My first crop really wasn’t that great, not huge and definitely not thriving. Below pic was a month after the above pic. The beans didn’t really grow very well either.

We did manage to harvest enough corn to do about 4 batches of tortillas. It was the final batch that I’d made, that I thought to have a go at corn chips - the tortillas were quite breaky and so problematic to eat easily. The corn chips can be cooked in lard or coconut oil - both worked really well. After shallow frying them, I tossed a little salt on them.

I have done two different methods with the nixtamalization process, with the first one being this process from Breadtopia, which just cooks the corn in the lime water and then soaks and the second way, which I think I will do from now on, is to soak first in the lime water, then cook and then soak until ready to use, which I picked up from Su Dennett from Do with Su.

What you’ll need:

Corn/maize

Pickling lime - I got mine in Australia from here

Food processor, thermomix or masa grinder - I used a thermomix.

Tortilla press - I borrowed mine from a friend, so now need to buy my own!

This is what I did to nixtamilize the corn: Start the evening before you want to make the tortillas or corn chips. Weigh out 500g field corn/maize, and add 5 grams chef grade pickling lime, mix and cover with enough water to cover the corn by about 5cm. Soak overnight. Next morning cook in the same water until the corn can be broken with a fingernail and less than half is opaque. This takes an hour or two. Leave to soak in this water until ready to use. This corn is now called hominy.

To cook the tortillas or corn chips you need to drain and rinse well. I rub the corn a bit to make sure I get as much chaff and other floating bits out. I then use my thermomix to process the corn into masa dough. Professional tortilla cooks might use a proper grinder and I think that would do a better job, but the thermomix worked okay. Although for this amount, it’s best to do it in 2 batches and you need to constantly scrape down the sides. I also add in some water if I need to - but be careful, as the dough is ready when you can form it into a ball and it stays together relatively well. if you over do the water, you may need to add some sort of flour to the mix. I also add some salt at this point.

Get your tortilla press and a plastic bag. The plastic bag is used to place in between the press and your ball of dough. This makes it much easier to manage the tortilla after pressing. If making tortillas, you cook them now in a dry and preferably cast iron pan. If making corn chips, cut them into 6 or 8 pieces (cut like a pie) and then shallow fry in your chosen fat, making sure it’s really hot first. The chips cook very fast and you will need to turn them over halfway.

Hopefully you have all your other meal selections ready before you start cooking as the tortillas are best eaten very fresh. I find that the longer the tortillas sit, the more likely they are to break apart. The corn chips hold up very well and can be left to eat cold.

My best ever nachos below: home grown beef mince with home grown veggies to bulk it out, cooked with some Mexican seasoning. Served with a sprinkle of grated cheddar and some home-produced yoghurt.

Eat and enjoy……….