Gurupriya's Creamed Corn Surprise

Many RVC members have been asking for recipes involving canned food, for the simple reason that it's much more convenient to make and involves less time spent in the kitchen. Naturally, college students have a tendency to use cans in all their cooking adventures.

Gurupriya, the wife of our good friend and full-time cook Krishna Kripa, has many great ideas in this respect and came up with the following recipe for jazzed-up creamed corn.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil
1/8 tsp. each mustard seeds, cumin seeds, hing
a small amount of chopped ginger
1 jalapeno pepper
1 14 oz. can creamed corn
5 tsp. lemon juice
2 tsp sugar
dash salt
a small amount of chopped cilantro

Preparation

Put 1 tablespoon oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Once it's warm, add in the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. This is called making a chawnk (goes by other names in other parts of India). Wait for a while and listen to the seeds start popping. Now add in the hing (you can get this at any Indian grocery store; the English name is asafoetida). Then add in the ginger and jalapeno. Let the spices all roast for a while.

Add in the can of creamed corn. Bring it to a boil, stirring.

Now add in the lemon juice and sugar (aka white death!). Add in the salt and cilantro too. Stir over some heat for a little while.

Now it's ready to serve. This goes great with dark brown toast, but we at veggie club had it with upma, another specialty whose recipe may come up on this list soon enough.

Variations

You can leave out any of the spices you don't like or can't get. You can also add any others that you do like. This is a simple recipe and can take lots of variations.