Hominy

Hominy is dried maize (Zea mays) that has been soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution — traditionally limewater or wood-ash lye — in a process called nixtamalization, which loosens and removes the tough outer hull and swells the kernels to two or three times their dry size. The plump, faintly nutty, distinctively "corn-tortilla" kernels are simmered whole for the Mexican stew pozole or ground into masa, the dough behind tortillas and tamales.