Pimento Cheese Hush Puppies at the Roadhouse
One more week to score some of these super-tasty appetizers
Hush Puppies are one of those Southern classics most folks have heard of, but not many around here have actually tried—and even fewer have had a truly great one. All of which inspired me to write about them here. You’ve got one more week to catch these Pimento Cheese Hush Puppies on the Roadhouse specials!
If you aren’t familiar with them, hush puppies are deep-fried balls of cornmeal batter that are typically served alongside everything from ketchup to catfish. The name, legend has it, comes from cooks tossing bits of cornbread dough to their barking dogs to keep them quiet. Whether that story is true or not, they’re an epically Southern tradition. One friend of mine, who has spent years in the South, put it perfectly: “I love hush puppies. They’re comforty, they’re fried, and they taste good—like what you make in big old Southern kitchens.”
Hush puppies here at the Roadhouse start out with exceptionally delicious cornmeal from Anson Mills in South Carolina. Anson Mills raises the old varieties of heirloom corn (low-yield, high flavor), field-dries it (as opposed to the far faster machine drying) to protect its natural flavors, then stone-mills it at very low temperatures—downright cold, actually. They leave in the germ, aka the natural oil in the corn kernel, from whence so much of the flavor comes. All of which is why Anson Mills’ cornmeal really taste like corn, not just fried, slightly sweet dough. To make them even tastier still, in this case, the Roadhouse kitchen crew has mixed in some of our super popular Pimento Cheese, which makes them slightly spicy as well!
Although it doesn’t say it on the menu, the Pimento Cheese Hush Puppies are particularly delicious dipped into some hot bacon fat! The connection to pork fat like that came about courtesy of a very nice couple from South Carolina who stopped in at the Roadhouse one spring evening many years ago with their son and his girlfriend, both students at Michigan. Toward the end of the evening, the father gently inquired if I was up for one suggestion. “Of course!” I answered. “Your hush puppies are really good,” he said in a slightly conspiratorial tone. “But you’re missing one thing that would really put them over the top. You need to put a little bacon fat in them.” Sure enough, the bacon fat takes the already excellent hush puppies to the next level. We don’t add it to the hush puppy mix (to keep them vegetarian), but we can easily serve you some on the side if we have some on hand when you ask. It’s a compelling combo—a little like eating amazing cornbread with applewood-smoked bacon!
I got so jazzed about the Pimento Cheese Hush Puppies and the bacon fat that when I did the first draft of this piece, I almost forgot to mention what is probably for many the highlight on the plate—the Pamlico Bay Crab Cakes that are on an appetizer plate with the hush puppies! They’re terrific! Made with crab caught off the North Carolina Coast by our friends at Locals Seafood, they’re an East Coast classic that most everyone who loves shellfish loves to eat.
We are, of course, always happy to cook up either the hush puppies and/or the crab cakes on their own if that’s where your taste runs! And, although it’s not listed on the menu this way, I’d suggest getting hush puppies as your side for any fish or steak dish, too.
Swing by over the next week and order up!
