This is the first time I have grown flour corn and part of the reason was because I read about parching them in the resilient gardener. When I try with my seeds I don’t really seem to be getting it to work, on my cast iron pan. Maybe that is also partially because we have a wood fried stove and I am not that skilled using it yet. Anyway, in the book it says to heat them for 1 minute on a preheated skillet on medium and they should pop. On the internet I read different ‘recipes’ with low to medium heat and up to 7 minutes toasting.
Does anyone here have experience with it?
What happens for me, either they are not toasted enough and quite hard, or they start popping but then they seem to be toasted too much, are quite brown and have a mild burned flavour. Also for me it definitely takes more than 1 minute until the popping starts, I would say 5-10 minutes.
Maybe I am stirring too little? Maybe I am not using the right varieties, because I have not sorted the seeds and just put a mix on the pan, with often white or blue kernels? Are they also meant to brown? Or is that a sign of too much toasting? Maybe I am not stirring enough? Is it best to stir them constantly?
If someone can give more insight then I would really appreciate that.
Are you growing a flour corn selected for parching?
I had excellent results with Lavender Parching, a Mandan cultivar. I parched just as Carol describes, and taste was wonderful.
I have grown a few different ones, lavender parching was one of them, but very few survived (had some critters eating a lot of seedlings), so all the lavender I want to keep for growing out next year. The same with the striped red parching ones. Most I have are either painted mountain, or some I got from a seed saver from Fyn, which remind me a lot of pinated mountain. I also have a reasonable amount of mandan speckled it seems (Deaflora - Röstmais Mandan Speckled (Samen))
But I started to sort them by colour and actually have a decent amount of pure red kernels (most of the came from purely red cobs actually). So going to try just with those next.
I’ve used a skillet. Except when doing small samples in the microwave. Both methods work. This year I grew Christinas hobbymajs, sorted for colour and type, and microwave parced small batches. I wasn’t satisfied, but then I realised. Even if I appears similar to Painted Mountain, it is much more diverse. I find flour, dent and flint. Tiny kernels and huge ones. And all the colours and speckling I could imagine.
I’m actually happy, as most of them grow well in my shaded garden. Now I just have to select for the types we enjoy eating. I want a parching corn.
But the rest of this year’s harvest I plan to nixtamalise, as that should work for all colours.
Sounds very exciting and sounds like we have some similar goals. I also want a parching corn first, but also want to make some of it to flour (pancakes, cornbread) and nixtamalize some. We do find that nixtamalized corn is very delicious. I bought a cookbook called Masa from Jorge Gaviria which I can very much recommend.
But last questions in regards to parching on a pan, so you do it on medium heat? And how long does it roughly take until they pop? And do you stir a lot?
I don’t remember the heat level, but probably fairly hot, as I would do it with popcorn. I didn’t stir, until the first craking started, then I stirred a little. The all (Mandan Lavender) parched in less than two minutes after first cracking.
And taste was very satisfying
Thank you markus for this thread, and Soren for the answers
I have been looking for possible uses of corn
Popcorn requires a very dry grain and a specific lineage not hybridized with other types.
Flour requires a strong grinder that I don’t have so far.
Nixtamalization is something I tried last year and did not work (don’t know why)
The parching technique is new to me, it seems easier in many aspects , so I am going to try that. Can you parch all non-sweet corn types ?
You can parch most corn that isn’t popping. Even some sweet corn. But parching is only useful, if the product is delicious. The deficated varieties are the obvious choice, but why not experiment a little. Try parching small samples of the corn you grow already. If they are multicoloured, I suggest you sort by colour before testing, as colour seem to influence the taste. Generally white, red and lavender colours are preferred to yellow, blue, purple and green. But important is your personal preference.
