Cooking dried corn

There are different types of corn. Maybe you are using the corn for popcorn; that won't do it. You need the kind of dry corn for boiling: that won't take that long to cook.

Not really: popcorn is made from a special variety of corn which has very low moisture, and is very dry and hard. Corn meant to be eaten as whole kernels (as oppposed to ground into meal, or as popcorn) comes from sweet corn varieties, which are not suprisingly, higher in sugar, and harvested prior to their drying.

Instead, you want canned or frozen corn kernels.

You can do it. My family has done it before, and I like the outcome. The texture is not the same as with vegetable corn, it is mealier, and the outer skins are much tougher. It is up to you whether you like it.

And for substitution, I don't know what is available where you live, but around here canned corn kernels are really cheap and available all year round. They are just cooked kernels, maybe some salt, nothing more. Pour out from the can into the casserole (maybe drain first) and you are done.

Hard corns can be cooked the way native peoples cooked it. If it is dry then you must 'lye' it first. This is done by putting wood ash ( about 2 cups) from fully burned hard wood into a big pail of water . Strain the lye water into a cooking pot. Boil your corn kernels gently for about an hour. Thoroughly rinse the corn free of lye water. Now you can prepare the corn whatever way you want.

The corn must be freshly picked and undried to cook without 'lye-ing' it first.

Cook it in a pressure cooker for 40 to 50 minutes.

If you are trying to make Pennsylvania Dutch style dried corn, be aware that this is dried sweetcorn, and not a hard corn like maize, dent or popcorn. It was a popular method of preserving sweetcorn before the advent of freezing and canning, and the dish remains popular to this day because the reconstituted corn has a significantly different flavor, robust and nutty, that makes it suitable as a winter dish.

You can dry sweetcorn yourself in a dehydrator, warm oven, in the sun (pdf) or a smoke-house (for a New Mexican twist on the dish), or you could purchase it online from John Copes, which has been in the business of drying sweetcorn for more than a century.

Nixtamalization!

You can try doing it like the Native-Americans and use Lime (not the fruit).

I found this here: https://forums.egullet.org/topic/34584-any-substitutions-for-slaked-lime/?do=findComment&comment=1982183

People, people people! If you don't have slaked lime, or don't want to burn your arms off with slaked lime, then just substitute BAKING SODA.

All you need to make hominy is an alkaline solution, which you can make by mixing any alkaline powder (like baking soda, quicklime or slaked lime -- or "cal" in Spanish) in boiling water. The effect of an alkaline solution is to break down the cell wall in the cells of the dried corn (since those cell walls of plant cells are soluble in an alkaline solution), which makes the corn kernals soft and the husks loose so you can remove them.

To make hominy with baking soda, use proportions of 2 to 1 water to dried corn, and use 2 tablespoons of baking soda for every quart of water. I do the boil-and-wash thing twice to make sure they're good and soft and all the pieces of husk are off. Don't forget to prepare the dried corn before this process by soaking it in water overnight.

I cook dried corn with wood ashes at a 1:3 (One part ash and 3 parts corn) in a pressure cooker for about 40 minutes. It works great. Then thoroughly rinse.

I also cook the dried corn with wood ashes by boiling the corn for one minute and then keeping it in a insulated box for 12 hours. It's usually self cooked soft. If not boil it once more for one minute and return to the insulated box for a few more hours.