Asparagus Season is almost on top of us. Next, it will be Strawberries. And after that, the Sweet Corn will start coming in. No time to lose honing your Sweet Corn skills, and maybe even adding a few more to your inventory!
‘Fully-loaded’ Elotes: The Mexican street treat taken to the
max. And the ultimate expression of fresh corn on
the cob… Almost a main all on its own!
Tenets of the Faith…
If you were lucky enough to have female elders in your life, who were not only happy, but eager to pass down kitchen secrets, you probably already know some, if not all of the following tenets of the Sweet Corn faith:
- Use lots of water when boiling, allowing the cobs room to sort of dance a jig when cooking.
- Add the cobs to the water only after it’s developed a full, rolling boil and turn up the heat to make sure the water gets back up to cooking temperature ASAP.
- This is the first and only time you’ll get to season your corn. Add a fair amount of salt to the boiling water. This way, the salt will get right into he corn, and enhance its flavour the way salt is supposed to act on food. Diners can add more later if they want to. They can also add pepper to taste at that time.
- If possible, shuck the cobs and get them into the boiling water as quickly as possible after picking. It really does make a difference!
- You know your corn is ‘done’ when a fork easily pierces the skin of each individual kernel. The in-terior of each kernel should be fork-tender. And a drop of steamy water should escape each kernel when you perform the fork test.
Alternate cooking methods
Over the last half of the last century, several new corn cooking methods arose to challenge the clas-sic water boil. Some, experts say, work better than others. A few WAY better!
Steaming
A few sweet corn aficionados swear by steaming their choicest cobs in a large, heat-retaining cast iron cauldron. Others, insist the corn never really gets fully cooked. And the skins (especially) remain tough. I’ve found, the kernels are harder to bite or cut of the cob than their boiled brethren.
And steaming definitely takes longer. Who wants to wait even longer for their first buttery biyr than you have to with the Traditional boiling method?
Butter Bath
This picky method is mandated by folks who consider themselves ultimate sweet corn ‘experts’. It involves boiling the cobs as usual, but in a combination of boiling ears of corn in a combination of water, milk, butter, and salt to season the corn as it cooks. The additions to the boiling water sup-posedly enhance the flavour of the corn, driving both desirable flavours and seasoning right into every kernel.
Alas, some purists say the Butter Bath method toughens the kernels’ skins and leave diners with the perception that corn is under-done.
Oven-Roasting
This method is fast gaining ground on the traditional pot-boiling procedure. And it has myriad advan-tages when you want to add loads of flavour to your sweet corn. First and foremost, the stuff you put on your corn pre-cooking doesn’t all wash away!
You can wrap your ‘dressed’ cobs in foil for oven baking, or bake them ‘bare’ on a foil-lined sheet pan. If you ‘go bare’, you can baste the cobs with seasoned butter at intervals during cooking for what I consider the ultimate deep-infused finish…
Grilling
Never miss the opportunity to grill your corn on the cob when you have the grill fired up. This is, without question, the most effective way to develop intense Mexican Street Corn flavour and texture. Most folks simply dress their cobs and place them on the grill parallel to the bars or wires that make up the gridiron. Others prefer to wrap their cobs in foil to conserve as much of the flavour and moisture as possible.
But if you use foil, why not just go all the way, and optimize your seasonings for that method?
The difference between foil-wrapping and grilling is all in the finish: the incomparable, slightly char-red, lightly smoked coplex of flavours of the grill combined with the the traditional ensemble of Mexican flavours and spices that makes the culture’s famous corn treat – Elotes – so special!
Microwaving
Definitely the fastest way to drive moisture into your corn on the cob. And that’s the essence of cooking sweet corn, at its most fundamental.
Of all the ‘alternative’ methods for cooking your sweet corn, this is the only one which advocates leaving the husks on, unbreached, during cooking. Like microwaving a ‘baked’ potato, this method leverages the inside-out process by which microwaving works, heating the kernels from inside (where the veggie’s innate moisture resides).
Of course, you can’t take advantage of any of the touches that other alternative cooking methods – such as basting, bathing and roasting – offer. But when you’re hungry, and you don’t have an hour or more to prep and cook the corn, it’s a viable way to go.
Don’t overload the microwave. A couple of full-sized cobs at the same time is an ideal load to ensure that the corn will be fully cooked in a reasonable period of time.
And for love of the delicate nerves in your finger tips… Be careful when shucking the steaming cobs! Remember, the corn will continue cooking after it’s removed from the mic, as long as you don’t pop the husks. You can burn yourself badly if you rip right into a microwaved cob of corn, removing the husks with your bare hands!
My take
Give me bare-cob grilled Sweet Corn (Elotes) any day, over any of the other ways of cooking this beloved summer specialty.
But I’ll gladly accept a cob (or several) regardless of how it’s prepared. As long as it’s fully, properly cooked (to fork-tenderness) as soon as possible after picking…
Fresh Sweet Corn is one of a few special blessings we in the temperate zones enjoy every summer growing season. A little consideration respect when cooking it will be amply repaid with an incom-parable flavour and texture experience!
~ Maggie J.