Elevating fresh corn from simple to complex

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, September 6, 2016

It’s late summer and you know what that means: All over town, the household cube of butter is permanently indented from the heavy onslaught of corn cob roll-bys. Your bill for dental floss? Forget about it.

Which is to say that nobody needs help figuring out what to do with those first few cobs of the local corn harvest. But pretty soon you’ll all be looking for alternatives, and that’s where the following recipes come in. Simple preparations, as well as a recipe for my favorite flavored butter to provide a bit of variation on the corn on the cob theme.

Prepare your flavored butter soon. Then store it in the refrigerator to have on hand for the rest of the corn season. Last year, I even made up an extra big batch of my favorite — Kokanee Cafe’s Chipotle Butter — and gave it away to some fellow corn heads. You can just imagine my popularity.

Meanwhile, consider the opportunity fresh, local corn presents to you with your daily meals. Think corn kernels in pancake batters, muffins, cornbread, salads, stews and casseroles. Add texture to a cheese quiche, frittata and scrambled eggs with fresh kernels of corn. Your next stir-fry would welcome the bright yellow crunch of fresh corn.

And for a creamy corn dish, scrape some of the kernels rather than simply cutting them from the cob. Then, after sauteeing, add cream and reduce to a thick and creamy texture. I always add a dash of ground white pepper for a final boost in flavor.

And finally, remember that cooking local sweet corn takes only a few minutes. Some folks believe that means dropping the prepared ears into rapidly boiling water and whisking them from the water three to four minutes later. That’s definitely the high road. But I’m not quite that fanatical, and so, I will not send the corn police in your direction if you want to start the ears in cold water then start the cooking time when it’s reached a boil. And depending on the size and tenderness of the kernels, my time range varies from three to five minutes of cooking at a boil.

If you want to go the foil-roasted route, place shucked and rinsed ears (with a bit of water still clinging to the kernels) in squares of heavy-duty foil, brush with melted butter (or dollops of the Kokanee Cafe Chipotle Butter, which I’m providing a recipe for) and wrap well. Roast on a hot grill or in a 375-degree oven for about 15 minutes.

— Jan Roberts-Dominguez is a Corvallis food writer, artist and author of “Oregon Hazelnut Country, the Food, the Drink, the Spirit” and four other cookbooks. Readers can contact her by email at janrd@proaxis.com, or obtain additional recipes and food tips on her blog at www.janrd.com.