This is another in a very occasional series of "how to" posts relating to food.
There are many good ways to cook corn on the cob (for those to whom corn is a fairly generic term, please understand that I speak here of maize), including grilling the ears directly on a grill (whether a grill pan or a barbecue grill) and roasting the water-soaked ears over a fire or in an oven.
Still, one tends to come back to the tried and true methods that resonate from one's youth.
Of course, there's no reason not to update and improve those methods, and that is precisely what I've done here.
Husking corn is one of those activities that just mean "Summer" to those of us fortunate enough to have grown up with access to fresh ears of corn. I still find that I'd rather take off the husk and silk from the raw corn than from a cooked ear. So ...
Start with husked and silk-free ears of corn.
Bring a fairly large amount of salted water to the boil.
Here's the secret:
To the boiling, salted water, add some sugar and some powdered chipotle pepper, then add the ears.
Boil for a few minutes, then simply cover the pot with the heat turned off while waiting for whatever else you're cooking to finish. The corn will finish cooking without the burner, and will stay hot in the water for quite a long time.
Given that I don't know how big a pot you're using, I can't give you exact measures here, but here's about what I think I did:
It was around 5 quarts of water with about 1/4 C of sugar and about 1 t of the chipotle powder.
We just had the corn last night, and it was spectacular.
Try it, and enjoy!
There are many good ways to cook corn on the cob (for those to whom corn is a fairly generic term, please understand that I speak here of maize), including grilling the ears directly on a grill (whether a grill pan or a barbecue grill) and roasting the water-soaked ears over a fire or in an oven.
Still, one tends to come back to the tried and true methods that resonate from one's youth.
Of course, there's no reason not to update and improve those methods, and that is precisely what I've done here.
Husking corn is one of those activities that just mean "Summer" to those of us fortunate enough to have grown up with access to fresh ears of corn. I still find that I'd rather take off the husk and silk from the raw corn than from a cooked ear. So ...
Start with husked and silk-free ears of corn.
Bring a fairly large amount of salted water to the boil.
Here's the secret:
To the boiling, salted water, add some sugar and some powdered chipotle pepper, then add the ears.
Boil for a few minutes, then simply cover the pot with the heat turned off while waiting for whatever else you're cooking to finish. The corn will finish cooking without the burner, and will stay hot in the water for quite a long time.
Given that I don't know how big a pot you're using, I can't give you exact measures here, but here's about what I think I did:
It was around 5 quarts of water with about 1/4 C of sugar and about 1 t of the chipotle powder.
We just had the corn last night, and it was spectacular.
Try it, and enjoy!
