Corn pancakes, corn pudding, creamed corn etc

What are your favorite things to do with all the wonderful sweet corn that is out there right now?

We love these little corn pancakes. We serve them with a skillet of shrimp with garlic and lemon and we put a bottle of Tabasco or sriracha sauce on the table. Both dishes are in the "ridiculously easy" category of cooking. Two people devour the following with no leftovers:

Corn Pancakes
½ cup of flour
¾ teaspoon coarse salt
1 large egg
1/3 cup milk
2 cups fresh corn kernels, about 2 large ears
2 tablespoons canola oil

Whisk the first four ingredients together in a bowl, then add the corn kernels and stir until combined. Do not overmix.

Heat a large cast iron skillet until medium hot and add oil. Drop batter by ¼ cupfuls and flatten slightly. Cook until browned on one side, then flip and brown the other side, about 3 or 4 minutes on each side. Keep cooked pancakes warm while you cook a second batch, adding oil as needed.

Shrimp with Garlic and Lemon
4 tablespoons butter
3 minced garlic cloves
1-1/2 pounds raw large shrimp, peeled, deveined
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
Coarse salt
Ground pepper
Tabasco

Using a cast-iron pan over medium-high heat, melt butter and add garlic, stirring for one minute. Do not brown garlic. Add shrimp and cook until the shrimp turns pink and opaque, about 5 minutes. Add lemon juice and parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with Tabasco on the side.

The other day I got a real craving for creamed corn. I had made some simple ground beef tacos with monterrey pepper jack cheese and I just wanted something on the side that was not rice and beans. This recipe turned out slightly sweet but soooo rich and good. The corn tortillas of the tacos were beginning to disintegrate so we scooped them onto plates and put the creamed corn on top. A new favorite combination was born!

Creamed Corn
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
¼ teaspoon ground ginger (powdered)
¼ teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 small onion, cut into ¼ inch dice
4 cups fresh corn kernels (maybe 4-5 large ears)
1-1/2 cups half-n-half

Put first five ingredients into a small bowl and stir to mix.

Melt butter in a medium skillet. Add onion and cook until tender without browning (3 to 4 minutes). Keeping heat up, add corn and cook about two minutes. Add the flour-spice mixture and cook, stirring, about another minute. Add the half-n-half and cook gently until the mixture thickens.

And don’t forget GWiv’s Captain Nancy Powers Salvation Army Corn Pudding recipe! If you don’t mind turning on your oven, I think it would be a great addition to a barbeque menu.

Anyone have a way to take a can of black beans, some sweet corn and turn it into the delicious hot side dish I think it could be? I have never been successful coming up with a combination that tastes as good as I think it has the potential to taste. What is the secret? Red peppers, a couple of spoons of jarred salsa, onion? Any ideas are appreciated.

Anoyone have a recipe they like for a sweet relish with corn that does not have to be canned?

Any favorites at your house for corn chowder, corn bread, corn custard, corn fritters or corn relishes?

--Joy

A friend and former student has ok'd my posting this recipe. He's a fine cook, and has refined this recipe over the last few years. Enjoy!

Geo



Matthew's Corn Chowder Soup


Serves 8 – 12



6 cups of corn (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup of chopped white onion
1/2 cup of copped green onion
1/4 cup of copped green stem of green onion
1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley
1 cup of chopped green bell pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil
35 ounces of chicken broth
2 cups of cubed potatoes (peeled or unpeeled)
2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
4 strips of crisp-cooked bacon crumbled
2 cups of heavy whipping cream
one large crock-pot



Sauté white onion, green bell pepper, and 1/2 cup of chopped green onion in olive oil until browned. In large crock-pot add: corn, chopped green stem of green onion, olive oil, chicken broth, potatoes, flour, salt, pepper, bacon, and parsley. Add sautéed onion and pepper. Cook on low heat for 6 hours. Add whole cream. Cook for 1/2 – 1 hour more. Use pieces of remaining parsley as garnish.

Joy wrote:Anyone have a way to take a can of black beans, some sweet corn and turn it into the delicious hot side dish I think it could be? I have never been successful coming up with a combination that tastes as good as I think it has the potential to taste. What is the secret? Red peppers, a couple of spoons of jarred salsa, onion? Any ideas are appreciated.

Adding sweet corn to Mhays' terrific Moros y Cristianos would be delicious. I'd just stir in cooked corn at the end.

And this is a salad, not a hot dish, but it would work just as well with black beans and you could do something hot with the same flavor profiles. As it is, it's a nice dish for summer barbecues and potlucks.

Corn and black-eyed pea salad with ham and tomato dressing
Adapted from "Cheap. Fast. Good!" by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross (lots of very good recipes in this book). I've punched up the dressing and added extra corn.

Tomato dressing:

1/2 medium onion, peeled and cut up
1/3 cup vegetable juice, such as V-8
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper or to taste
Red hot sauce to taste

Salad:

4 ears sweet corn, grilled or roasted in the husk, cooled and kernels cut from the cob, or 2 cups frozen corn, thawed under cold running water and drained
2 15-ounce cans black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained, or 1 cup dry-packaged black-eyes, cooked and drained
1 medium green bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced
2 ribs celery, diced
1 cup cubed ham (about 6 ounces)

Make the dressing: With the machine running, drop the onion into a blender or a food processor with a steel blade and process till finely chopped, about 30 seconds. Stop, scrape down the sides and add the remaining dressing ingredients. Whirl till well mixed, about 30 seconds. (Makes 2/3 cup.)

Make the salad: Mix the corn with the remaining ingredients in a 2-quart or larger bowl. Add the dressing and toss. Serve at once or refrigerate up to 3 days in an airtight container.

8 servings as a side dish, 4 as a main course.

I love these Mark Bittman recipes for pan-grilled corn. (Registration may be required.)

I saw a very intriguing recipe on "The Victory Garden" on Create earlier today, for a sope-esque sort of thing. You mix masa harina with some water and grapeseed oil to make a workable dough, then add fresh corn kernels and a big pinch of sea salt. A golf ball-sized piece of the masa is then flattened between sheets of plastic wrap, drizzled lightly with a bit more oiled, and toasted on a comal (or a skillet).

The salsa they made to serve with the sopes incorporated green beans and bell peppers, an instant deal-breaker for purist me, but this, served with a fresh pico de gallo and some sliced avocado (and maybe some shrimp!) would be divine. I have a nice project for this weekend, though I think I'll use fresh masa and olive oil. I'll let you all know how they turn out!

Bill/SFNM from here in town (Santa Fe) tells me this is basically a Patricia Quintana recipe, which he likes to serve with a poblano cream sauce, though my copy of the recipe (not posted here verbatim, and with tweaks) was given to me by a chef at Pasqual's, also here in Santa Fe. It's like cake (hence the sugar)--small slices with pork really make a meal though, and I think Bill's cream sauce would do good to cut the sweetness. It's really, really good, and I'm pretty against corn in general (though I'm from the Midwest, I don't like what it's done to our food economy, that it's a principal food of animals that shouldn't eat corn in general--cows, dogs, pigs.) Anyways, this is an exception I'll make; it's good.

Fresh Corn Torta
Serves 8
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
About 9 ears corn, cut from cob (totaling 8 cups)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup whole milk
5 eggs, large, separated
3/4 cup rice flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon Kosher salt

1. Oven to 350.
2. Butter 9-inch round cake pan.
3. Electric Mixer: beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat
another 3 minutes. Set aside.
4. Scald milk and heavy cream together. Puree milk, cream, and corn
in blender. Let cool.
5. Separate egg yolks and white, reserving whites. Beat yolks thoroughly.
6. Add corn puree to butter and sugar mixture, adding yolks in one at a time.
7. Sift flours, baking powder, and salt, and add to above mixture by hand.
8. Beat egg whites until peaking, then fold them into above batter.
9. Spoon into pan and bake for about 45 minutes (golden brown--torta
should be set in middle, knife come clean, etc.). Let cool. Knife
edges and flip over to retrieve torta. Heat to serve.
10. Eat.

Joy wrote:We love these little corn pancakes.

Joy,

Corn pancakes rang a bell with me so, having all the ingredients on hand, they accompanied my brides couple of day late B-day dinner this evening.

Very simple to make, with a big flavor payoff, though I could not resist adding both black pepper and cayenne to Joy's recipe.

Corn Pancakes






Joy, thanks for posting the corn pancake recipe!

Enjoy,
Gary

Although corn pancakes certainly can be taken in a savory direction as above (either in the mix, per G Wiv, or the toppings, per Joy), there is nothing wrong with simply adding sliced-off kernels (especially from an extra ear roasted on the grill with the ones you ate the previous night) to a standard pancake batter, much as you might do with blueberries, and eating corn pancakes with maple syrup. I make that a few times each summer and the kids like it just fine, and me too.

a quick note about the beauty of corn pancakes, a batch of which I just made: while the recipes above are excellent ones, the best thing about this is that one really need not measure anything. Just get some really great, fresh corn and some flour/egg/milk/salt/spice/whatever until it's a consistency you like, then fry it in hot oil. It's gonna be delicious no matter what you do.

I served mine with fresh-made pico de gallo and sour cream.

I've recently made the Corn and Okra Pudding from the Leee Bros. Southern Cookbook (p. 237). Sorry, no pictures, but it turned out great. However, the recipe (essentially the ingredients for a crust-less quiche) calls for a little more balance between the corn and okra and wanting to feature the corn a little bit more (oh, and I could only find a little more than a 1/2 pound of fresh okra), I slightly increased the amount of corn and slightly decreased the amount of okra. In any event, a great use of corn.

Gary, your corn pancakes look wonderful. I’m glad to send a recipe to YOUR house for a change, what with all the good recipes our house has adopted from you: everything from grilled Cornish hens to Pad Thai!

Geo and ParkerS, Matthew’s Corn Chowder and Bill/SFNM’s fresh corn torta recipes have been carefully filed for a little cooler weather, although this Sunday, we could probably go for a bowl and firing up the oven, with how nice and cool it is outside. Thanks very much for sending.

LAZ, thanks for pointing out MHays’ Moros y Cristianos. This is inspiring, as you say. I am thinking about those “flavor notes”. And grilling the corn like in the black-eyed pea salad is a good idea for punching up the flavor.

Chgoeditor, sundevilpeg, MikeG, KennyZ, BR, thanks for all the ideas everyone!

Just putting them on the grill, or in the smoker, when I'm cooking something else and eating them

All these recipes are making me ravenous!

My favorite fresh corn recipe is from the days of The Two Hot Tamales:

Cut corn from the cob. Saute corn (along with any milk you can scrape off the cob) with onion and a little garlic. Add butter and cream, cooking slowly until corn is done and cream is reduced and thick. Add a little grated cheese -- we like queso blanco.

Meanwhile blacken poblano peppers on a burner or grill. Cool and carefully (they're a little fragile) slit open. You can remove seeds and membranes here if you don't want too much heat. Stuff the corn mixture in the peppers and top with a little more cheese. From here they just need to be heated thru until the cheese melts.

These are really good with grilled beef or chicken.

Sorry for my dumb question, is the corn used in the corn pancakes above boiled first or do the kernels cook while frying?

not stupid at all! I opened this thread and read all the way through thinking the same thing!

can't speak for the other posters, but I ran my raw cobs through the coarsest part of a box grater, and fried them without pre-cooking.

Blown Z wrote:Sorry for my dumb question, is the corn used in the corn pancakes above boiled first or do the kernels cook while frying?

BZ,

I used the corn kernels raw right off the cob.

Enjoy,
Gary 'No such thing as a dumb question' Wiviott

Inspired by Joy and Gary, I used some leftover grilled corn from my CSA to make pancakes this morning. I followed Joy's recipe + Gary's addition of peppers and added a little sour cream to the batter. I roasted and pureed Italian sweet peppers (I think Kenny and I have been hitting the same stand--Genesis Growers?--at the Green City Market). I made a sauce out of the peppers mixed with leftover blender mayo (a la Julia Child--just dug up my mom's old copy of Mastering the Art... after seeing the movie). I topped everything with some grated Saxon Green Fields cheese and chives. Great breakfast--I'm always on the lookout for savory, non-egg breakfast dishes and this fit the bill. Thanks for the tips.

HI,

I made those same corn pancakes twice this week, too. I used self-rising flour instead of plain flour. My family likes texture in their food, which this preparation delivers very well.

These were served with peach jam simply because I had just made it.

Regards,

I love that this thread has resurfaced. Just tonight we made a pan of Gary's Salvation Army corn pudding. And a crock pot with pork country ribs that simmered slowly until they just fell apart. Delish. It was such a nice cool day that my oven and crock pot were calling for some action.

The peach jam corn pancake combo sounds really inspired. --J

Another entry in the not-hot-dish-but-salad interior thread:

I love to make a 'confetti' salad for summer grilled meals dicing everything to be as close as possible to the size of a corn kernal or black bean.

I can't give precise proportions because I always just improvise, but the basic idea is:

* Fresh great corn.
* Black beans
* Northern beans
* Yellow, red, and orange pepper (either roasted for char flavor or raw for crunch contrast, or a combo)
* Tomato
* Sometimes: marinated artichoke hearts, cucumber, a bit of smoked ham or something similar
Everything in about equal proportion so you get a great multi-colored mass that sits easily on a fork.

Most often I make a lime/garlic/cumin/jalepeno vinagraitte for this. Everything combined to taste. Obviously you could go any number of ways with lemon, or regular vinegar. Swap lots of fresh cilantro or even dill for the cumin, use different chiles, etc.

Given the choice, I use a peppery Tuscan oil, and I keep the proportions on the acidy side.