Native American Recipes

[Brenda Collins Dillon]

Indian Fry Bread
Servings: Five-Ten

Ingredients:

3 cups unbleached flour
1 Tbsp. baking power
1 Tsp salt
1 1/2 cups warm water

Preparation:
Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl. Sift or stir this together.
Add the "warm" water to this mixture and stir until all the dry ingredients are mixed well.
Put oil on your hands; remove dough from bowl and knead until the dough is smooth.
When the dough is smooth & soft, rub oil over the top of your dough.
Place back into the bowl, cover with a dry cloth & let rest for "30" minutes.
Begin heating your lard, oil, or grease so it is very hot.
Pull the dough at its edges until you have small circles.
Drop circles into the hot grease until golden brown, then turn over until golden brown on the other side as well.
Add enough grease/oil so the dough can deep fry.
Dip cooked fry bread into sugar, or spread butter, jam or jelly on top and eat.
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Baked Pumpkin:

1 small pumpkin, peeled and cut into cubes
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Cinnamon
Place pumpkin cubes in a baking dish and sprinkle with sugar and salt. Cover pan with foil and bake in 325-degree oven until soft. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

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Cornbread:

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
3/4 cup polenta or corneal
4 tablespoons sugar
5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons applesauce
1/2 cup low fat soy milk
1/2 cup water
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients in another bowl. Add wet to dry and stir well. Bake at 375° for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

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Indian Tacos:

Ingredients for Topping:
1 lb. Fried hamburger
2 cans tomatoes
1 large green pepper
1 large onion
Mushrooms
Cooked rice, about 1/2 cup
1 small can refried beans
1 large can of red kidney beans
1 tsp. Chili spice
A few shakes of Tabasco sauce (to your likeness)
Separate Toppings:
Shredded cheddar cheese
Shredded,1 head of lettuce
4 diced fresh tomatoes
Note: Use Fried Bread as the base.
Preparation:
Mix the first 10 ingredients in a large pot.
Simmer on low heat for about 2 hours.
While this is simmering make fried bread.
Place hot fried bread on a plate,
Top with sauce, add some shredded cheese on top,
Add lettuce and tomatoes

[Linda]

Well, you've made me hungry enough.

[Tom]

Hey All Here's something that we do up here,
Fried Greens, take what ever greens wild prefered, if not use kale because it's fairly tough, boil the greens until they get clear looking,( like steamed) , remove from water and put in a pan with bacon drippings wild onions or shallots, and fry until well coated and still rather coarse, it's great fibre and really good , up here this isn't to bad come 40 below zero, with a nice deer steak, some red kidney bean gravey , fry bread, biscuits , bannock or fresh bread,and finished with mint tea.
This will give any sinner some soul I gaurantee. All the best Tom

[Linda]

I don't get what you mean by boiling the greens till they're clear looking. Do you mean till they wilt? But not tender yet?

I've got lots of mustard greens growing wild in the yard. (Comes from neglecting the weed eating years on end.) Will that do? Come springtime we have lots of wild onion here. The first mowings around here smell so onion'y. I've tried cooking with them, they've very tough and a tad bitter. Maybe I need younger ones.

What is red kidney bean gravy? Kidney beans cooked till they're just mush? And what's bannock?

My mom used to make wilted lettuce salad. Just pouring bacon grease mixed with vinegar on leaf lettuce wilted it. It was great, but I have no business eating bacon grease anymore. It's like, what do I want, bacon, or to live long enough to know my own grandchildren?

[Tom]

Hello Linda,
The greens will look like they have been steamed, like broccoli or green peas. Any greens will work but wild greens have a quality that the garden varieties don't. If the grewens are too tough then change the water and boil a second time.
Wild onions are not the same as onions we grow you only use the inner heart ( atleast that all we've ever used), you have to lift the soil with a pitch fork and pull the onion up, sometimes they don't release well, but when you add them to a dish you put them in last just prior to serving and only till they are heated , never cook them because they will go bland., that is why I like the shallots they come out nicer and have a slight garlic flavor.
After the meat is cooked then add a can of red kidney beans into the pan and heat thro" add water if you want it; should lift the brown from the pan to make a gravey.
Bannock is fry bread that has been baked, not fried and if you add in some fat or oil into the mix prior to forming it helps give it a nice texture.
You can use bacon bits some good ham anything that has some flavor and adds to the dish(greens), even well seasoned hamburger will work.
All the best Tom

[Tom]

Well here's another goodie.
Recently I moved, not far from my house is a Buffalo Store, they sell only organic buffalo products.!
After my search this spring for Native crops, I have decided to make the following and do it up in metal cans.
Buffalo neck bones and marrow.
Wild rice, garlic, Arikara yellow beans, sweet corn and/ or hominy corn, Ponca squash, onions, tomatoes, seasoned with red peppers, bay leaf, and some file powder.
Sounds like a good stew, and since we have these professional kitchens near by that can do the canning.
Iam hoping to send some to friends in the USA , !
All the best Tom

[Brenda Collins Dillon]

Another Old Family Recipe~Enjoy.


Ingredients:
1/2 c Cornmeal, yellow
4 c Milk, whole; hot
1/2 c Maple syrup
1/4 c Molasses, light
2 Eggs; Slightly Beaten
2 tb Butter/Margarine; Melted
1/3 c Sugar, brown; packed
1 ts Salt
1/4 ts Cinnamon
3/4 ts Ginger
1/2 c Milk, whole; cold


Directions:
In top of double boiler, slowly stir cornmeal into hot milk. Cook over boiling water, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 300 F. Lightly grease 2-quart baking dish. (8 1/2" round).
In small bowl, combine rest of ingredients, except cold milk; stir into cornmeal mixture; mix well.
Turn into prepared dish; pour cold milk on top, without stirring. Bake uncovered, 2 hours, or just until set but quivery on top. Do not overbake.
Let stand 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm.
Can be served with vanilla ice cream or
light cream.



Number Of Servings:8

Preparation Time:Total: 3 hrs.

[Brenda Collins Dillon]

Title: Baked Acorn Squash



Ingredients:
4 Medium-sized acorn squash
8 tb Butter or margarine
16 ts Honey
Fresh ground pepper to Taste




Directions:
Slice the squash in half crosswise and scoop out the pulp and seeds.
Trim the bottoms, if necessary, so that the squash will stand hollow side up.
Place 2 teaspoons honey in the hollow of each squash, then add 1 tablespoon butter or margarine to each and a twist or two of fresh
ground pepper.
Place squash in a large, shallow baking pan and bake, uncovered, in a moderate oven, 350 degrees, for about 2 1/2 hours or until the squash
are tender.

Number Of Servings:8

Preparation Time:Total: 3 Hrs

[Linda]

That's the way my mom makes acorn squash.

Do you have a recipe for Fried Mush? That was my great grandfathers favorite dish. He had it the morning of the day he died. I've never been able to make it right. I can't get it to thicken up enough. My mush is a mess.

[Brenda Collins Dillon]

Linda,
Did you ever eat something so often that you can't stand the look at it to this day? Well, that is me and mush.

I did find this like and hopefully it will help:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~amidkiff/pudding/recipes.html

Hasty Pudding, or "Mush"
We place this first as the most common and most easily made. No one ever "took sick" from eating mush and milk, or fried mush in any suitable quantity. (We knew a student well, who left the active labors of the farm to pursue his studies in an Academy. The first term he used a variety of food, and was in poor health. The next term of 11 weeks he ate only mush and milk, for breakfast, dinner and supper, and actually grew fat on it, while he lost all headache, and though pursuing five heavy studies, he was first in his class, and went through the term strong and vigorous, without an hour of lost time, though he worked enough in the field and garden, at 8 cents an hour, to pay all his expenses.) "Mush and milk" is seldom relished, because few people know how to make the mush. The whole secret is in cooking it thoroughly. Rightly made it is not "hasty pudding." A well made "mush" is one that has boiled not less than a full hour. Two hours are better. the meal needs to be cooked; then it is both good and palatable. The rule is: Mix it very thin and boil it down, avoiding any burning or scorching, and salt it just right to suit the general taste. Prepare a good kettle full for supper, to be eaten with milk, sugar, molasses, syrup or sweetened cream, or sweetened milk. If a good supply be left to cook, and be cut in slices and fried well in the morning, plate of wheaten bread will be little in demand. It must be fried well, not crisped, or burned , or soaked in fat. If thoroughly soaked through in the kettle, it will only need to be heated through on the griddle. If not cooked well in the kettle, longer frying will be necessary.
The Nebraska Farmer & Western Educational Advocate, December, 1861.

[Linda]

That recipe makes sense. I've looked at some polenta recipes and they involve a long simmering in a double boiler. I've also thought of experimenting with an addition of corn starch. I think modern milling tends to leave too much of the starch out of corn meal, hence it's inability to thicken.

[Bill Childs]

HAH!! Mush.
Got that a lot as a kid. Still love it (second childhood?).
Thanks for the recipes. Printed them out and gave them to my wife Cony who wanted some NA stuff and she promptly made the Indian Tacos when some cousins came by. Took a lot of time. Man!! were they good. You could eat that taco crust as a dessert!!
Bill

[Mousini78]

I love acorn squash...never tried the honey, though...will have to do it this way. I have a recipe for Three Sister's Soup, if anyone is interested. It's one of Ken's fav dishes...well, beside the Indian Tacos I make. Will dig it out and post it. Very simple recipe adapted to today's lifestyle. We had some very good fish at the pow wow in Courtland, prepared by the Nottoway kitchen. Take care, Becky

[Tom]

Soon it will be fall! and that means goodies!
I made a soup once like some Cherokee friends did, we took chicken broth and added ginger, beans, pumpkin, carrots and beacuse that was all the ingrdients, we could add alot of them compared to the amount of liquid! the pumpkin comes out more like a turnip.
My friends said that wild ginger was originally used.

Also up at the Buffalo store the owner is saving blood and inerds! for traditional meals, blood soup is very common up here aswell as berry soup etc, tongue is an old favorite!
Sometimes the blood is saved and heated until it is past jelling, it looks like red tofu! cut in cubes it's added to soups and broths, sounds abit odd but is very old time!
One favorite thing I like is to make sweet corn and crawfish soup! the claws are boiled for broth and then sweet corn added, sometimes fresh green onions over the top! Add wild rice as a side dish or pour soup over parboiled rice, mmmmm good!

[Mousini78]

Three Sister's Soup

Chicken stock
2 cans hominy or equivalent of corn (I use 1 can of cream corn to thicken)
2-3 cans pinto beans(you can substitute any kind of bean)
2-3 pkgs. frozen yellow squash (or substitute pumpkin or winter squash)
1 onion, chopped
a dash of hot sauce
salt and pepper to taste


I combine all the ingredients and let it simmer on the stove for about 45 minutes, or until the squash is done and falling apart....or you can put it in the crockpot and let it simmer all day. This is good on a rainy day....it was served at the pow wow where Ken proposed to me....so I guess it has a special significance to me...kinda a comfort food.

[lynellarainhawk]

Brenda,

These recipes are really sounding good. Thank you for sharing them. The best Thing I thought I ever had was fry bread with honey. That was heaven. Then a couple a months ago I went to a pow wow and they were serving up some Indian Tacos with the fry bread. Those were just killer.

When I was little, we lived along the banks of the Platte River, near Brighton, CO. It was an old farm house built in the late 1800's. Anyway, I have many a fond memory walking the banks of the river gathering wild greens with my parents. My favorite though was the wild asparagrus. Ah, oh! Now I want some. Oh man, and the chokecherries were everywhere. Momma made the best chokecherry syrup and jelly. Well anyway, I guess I'd better go take out stock in some food companies cause I can just see a huge onslaught of us running out to get ingredients! Lovin' Ya', Lynella.

[Brenda Collins Dillon]

Lynella,

You are very welcome. Most of it is what I call comfort food. My mother was a good cook. She used to make a potatoe soup which was just potatoes and onions thickened and she served it with a big chunk of cornbread. She churned her own butter and I used to love a glass of buttermilk.

Pinto beans cooked all day on simmer with a big hunk of ham for flavor. I don't know why but they usually tasted better the second or third day heated up.

When we were sick mom always made a chicken soup. Now that I think of it I don't think that woman could have cooked without onions. She put onions in everything and I guess I do the same thing. Mom used to say that the onions would warn off or clear up a colds. Guess it worked as we were not sick very often.

[Patty]

My oldest sister said she'd been married for five years before it ever occurred to her that you didn't HAVE to put onions in every single thing you cooked!

Mom taught us all to cook with onions and she still adds them to just about everything.

Mom grew up on a farm and had to work in the fields with the farm hands, then head for the house ahead of them and cook meals on a wood burning stove using corn cobs for fuel. She cooks fast, and she cooks GOOD!

A few years ago Mom invited the whole family over for brunch and was cooking up steak, eggs and pancakes. My husband made the mistake of telling her to keep it coming, it was so good he could eat it as fast as she could cook it. Well, her modern range is a Cadillac compared to that old wood stove. He cried "Uncle" pretty fast when his plate started turning into a tower of steak 'n eggs!

Greens 'n beans 'n cornbread, sliced onion, tomatoes & cucumber, ..... chow-chow if you have any, all topped off with a big glass of sweet tea. Does it GET any better???

[Patty]

I could go for the crawfish soup.....but I'd have to pass on the blood and inerds.....I am simply not that brave!!

S'okay though, that'll just leave more for you!


Originally posted by Tom
Soon it will be fall! and that means goodies!
I made a soup once like some Cherokee friends did, we took chicken broth and added ginger, beans, pumpkin, carrots and beacuse that was all the ingrdients, we could add alot of them compared to the amount of liquid! the pumpkin comes out more like a turnip.
My friends said that wild ginger was originally used.

Also up at the Buffalo store the owner is saving blood and inerds! for traditional meals, blood soup is very common up here aswell as berry soup etc, tongue is an old favorite!
Sometimes the blood is saved and heated until it is past jelling, it looks like red tofu! cut in cubes it's added to soups and broths, sounds abit odd but is very old time!
One favorite thing I like is to make sweet corn and crawfish soup! the claws are boiled for broth and then sweet corn added, sometimes fresh green onions over the top! Add wild rice as a side dish or pour soup over parboiled rice, mmmmm good! :D

[lynellarainhawk]

You know, your mom and my mom might have been cut from the very same cloth! Everything you describe is my mom to a "T". And that potatoe soup, boy if you ad 2 cans of rinsed clams and a pint or two of heavy cream. The best New England Clam Chowder I've ever had! And yes, pinto beans and cornbread. I would get up in the morning at about the age of five and sneak into the left over beans in the fridge and I'd have cold bean sandwiches! We did our own milk/butter/buttermilk too. The best darn buttermilk I ever had! You know, I've been on this computer all day, I'm starved! Gotta go chow down! Thank you so much!! Love & Light, Lynella.:p

[Linda]

Hominy does make a rough equivalent to lyed corn used in Corn Soup. We had friends come down from Six Nations with a wonderful pot of real corn soup. But some idiot food inspector showed up for the pow wow and wouldn't let them sell it because it had not been frozen in transit. It was such a big pot, with a brick in the middle (part of the recipe) that it had stayed hot all the way to VA. I supposed technically, that did put it in that temperature at which bacteria can multiply, but in my experience, anything that's boiled for a very long time is not likely to spoil readily.

Anyway, I brought home a number of gallons of it, froze it, ate it all and found it perfectly digestible. Beans are also in the recipe, and some side meat. I love the texture of the lyed corn, and hominy is a close substitute. I believe onions were also in it, I don't know if garlic was inclided, but knowing me, if I made it, I'd throw some in.

[Bill Childs]

I'd vote for garlic EVERY time!

[Mousini78]

Man, ya'll are making me hungry. Yep, beans and greens and cornbread...good eatin'. I was raised on garden vegetables and so were my kids...they eat all kinds of stuff...even broccoli and spinach. And Brenda, you are right about the comfort food...that's kinda what the soup has become..and the Indian tacos, too...for when we can't get to a pow wow...we have them to celebrate what we have shared with our friends. And I am a big onion fanatic, too....raw or cooked..with everything. I had never eaten hominy until my SIL fixed it one night for supper..I love it.

[lynellarainhawk]

Hey! It doesn't get any better than that unless you're talking chocolate or cinnamon. I'd pass up a good man for choclate or cinnamon! I grew up on a farm too! 17 registered Morgan show horses, enough cows to live on, pigs, 18 dogs at one time, lots of cats, chickens, ducks geese and guinea hens. I watched my mom ring a chickens neck and pluck it one time from my bedroom window. I couldn't eat that night! And I refused to eat rabbit cause' thet're just too cute! Oh, but it was a wonderful way to grow up! What was your farm like? Lynella:p

[Mousini78]

LOL...our farm was a garden in the city.....I was raised in a city..or maybe you could call it a large town, but, went to the country cousins every summer. We had a large yard, so my mama raised vegetables to feed us on her small salary (she was a single parent) from the mill. She raised corn, tomatoes, okra, squash, cucumbers, onions, peas (all sorts), and anything else she wanted to try her hand at growing. We moved to the country 20 some years ago...and live on 18 acres now. No critters...well, except the wild life that already resided here....deer, fox, red tail hawk, beaver, crows, possum....you know that kind. I do have 2 cats....they are my babies now...since my kids are pretty much grown...LOL...Ken will never grow up....I hope.

[Tom]

Hey Folks, well Lynell has brought somethingh up, that is choke cherry syrup, I have heard that the choke cherry tree is the only native fruit tree that has such a wide range in north America.
Not only was this valued fruit made into jelly / surup etcv it was a souce of food, ground with the pits in, it was heated with fat and to form a mass that was stored, I have seen this food stuff almost turned turned to stone .
Pemmican is all meat with a bit of added berries, the choke cherry mass is made with very little meat. It also contains an anti parasitic chemical.
The way we made it last was to put the cherries through a meat grinder ( about 5 times) place into a hot frying pan and add bacon bits, and sugar to taste, placed into jars and left in the fridge, it is eaten with meat and boiled spuds, only a table spoon at a time (once every 6 weeks) since it takes some time to leave you and has a binding effect!
But cleans you out!

[lynellarainhawk]

Tom,

Hmm-m-m-m, that sounds really.....hm-m-m-m-.....yummy:eek:

Just Kidding! It's actually interesting. I think I read somewhere, I'll have to find it now, that the white stuff inside the pit in poisonous. I'm gonna' spend the rest of the evening looking for it now! I have to find out for sure before I try the recipe, right?

It sounds like your Grandma moved up there the year my dad was born. My wolf, Smokey, is trying to steal this computer's mouse from me. I guess it's time for dinner! Hope to hear more yummy stuff here! Love & Light, Lynella.

[lynellarainhawk]

Yummy! sounds like your folks had a good green thumb. Mine did too, I however, did not inherit that trait! Anything I do get to grow in our short growing season, gets eaten by the elk and all those other critters. I love feeding them, but.....I want some too!:p Love & Light, Lynella.

[lynellarainhawk]

Hey!

O.k. I have 3 books here, "The Wild Food Trail Guide" by Alan Hall, the "Edible Wild Plants, A North American Field Guide" by Elias & Dykeman and "American Indian Cooking, Recipes from the Southwest" by Carolyn Niethammer. They all say that the white stuff inside the pit contains Cyonide, but that when it is cooked the poison dissipates. Raw, the pits and leaves are poisonous. So, now that I know that, I'll consider that interesting recipe of yours. One of these books does have a recipe similar to yours. There is also a recipe for a chokecherry cornbread that sounds really good if any one wants it, please let me know. Speaking of cornbred.....I think I'll go see what I have for ingredients! Oh, also, I found a recipe for candied pumpkin if anyone wants that. I think come October, I'll try it. Take care and eat hardy, Lynella.

[spilleddi]

Good southern food like hominy and cornmeal is hard to get in Oregon, I have my grandpa send it to me from Virginia. But since I live in Oregon, I eat a lot of huckleberries and salmon. I'll be berry picking all weekend. And although they aren't native, I'm really into shad as well.

[lynellarainhawk]

I LOVE salmon! That's my most favorite fish, besides a native cutthroat trout cooked on a hot, flat rock in the middle of a campfire. M-m-m-m-m-m, yummy!

[spilleddi]

Just don't eat any of that farm raised Atlantic salmon. Besides tasting rather nasty, its chock full of chemicals. Most of it comes from Chile, also Canada. Local tribes here are trying to get a fish processing facility together to sell their fish caught in the Columbia river, some even do mail orders now. Thats the fish I eat. Even though wild fish has less poisons then farm raised, they have done studies on Indian caught fish along the river that show there are still chemicals in the fish. Won't hurt the average American, but Indians eat so much more fish than the average. Some Indians are trying to cut back consumption. I try not to think about it to much, I eat it almost every day.
Shad

[lynellarainhawk]

Just make sure all those chemicals don't make your eyes glow green in the dark!!

[Tom]

Hey Patty this one is for you!
Up here we have this stuff called Choke Cherries, wild cherries pin cherries etc. As you've read they have a very ancient use and so over time the use of them has changed from a survival staple to a rather gourmet cuisine.
I grew up on both the Saskatoon berry and these small wild Cherries.
In our home corn starch pudding was very common, in England they call it Bla Mange( blah maug) or something like that, also the girls from English boarding schools called it "dead baby" which tells you how much they liked it.
Anyway some folks up here have combined both, now you may not have these cherries in your area but any thing will work even blue berries , etc. When making your pudding leave out the milk and add fruit juice from the Cherries etc, it sets up really well and looks very nice, I have not put milk on it but go ahead and try it.
Oh up here grits are cooked and milk and sugar added to it , called corn meal cereal, etc. The difference between north and south in breakfast is that we use milk or cream on hot breakfast cereals with sugar. At forty below in the winter salt and butter on it really does not do it for you.