Substituting corn meal for maseca?

[ziggylu]

SHould work right?

I want to make pumpkinseed crusted fish. The recipe calls for maseca...tryign to save a trip to the store. I have Alber's cornmeal and some argentinean polenta on hand.

Any forseeable problems substituting one of these for the maseca? I'm leaning towards the polenta since ti's the "one minute cook" type.

[ziggylu]

thanks everyone. I had to run to the store for something else so went ahead and picked up the maseca. it's just in the crust with the seeds and some cornstarch.

[paulj]

How is the maseca being used? Like the flour that you initially coat an item with, followed by egg and a coarser crust? Cornmeal is used to crust fish, but retains its distinct texture. Maseca is as fine as wheat flour.

[MFalk]

Perhaps ziggylu could grind the cornmeal in a food processor to get the finer texture.

[paulj]

If you are going to grind something, corn tortillas or chips would be better than cornmeal. Maseca is a ground and dried form of the dough used to make these.

A link or summary of the recipe would be in order, since the use of Maseca (tortilla flour) in this way is not common.

[Caitlin McGrath]

If the masa is just part of the coating for the fish, I don't think it should be a problem at all. I would use whichever is more finely ground, as maseca is quite fine.