Raw Corn

[scrinch]

Mmmm. Raw sweet corn straight out of the garden! Or boiled. Or microwaved. It's all great!

But I guess those varieties haven't made it over here. All we get are the bland, starchy varieties. We still buy them, but it's not nearly the same. And I would never eat it raw here.

[JOHNNIE36]

I don't think I could ever get into eating fresh uncooked corn. We generally steam the corn in a special "cooker" the wife found on the internet years ago. Have never found another one anywhere but would like to just as a standby. I guess it's similar to a rice cooker. This one has a lower chamber about 2" deep for the water, maybe 1/2" of water. Center chamber is about 3" deep with slits on the bottom for the steam to enter. Top is just a lid with one slot in the top as a vent. The whole cooker is about 10-12" in diameter. Has anyone seen one of these? Where did you get it? Ours has no markings on it at all as to the manufacturer.

[veremchuka]

I don't understand boiling corn. You have to wait a long time for all that water to get to boiling then toss the nutrients away in the water. I always steam it (shucked of course) in a 6 or 8 qt pot using a plain old vegetable steamer. I use very little water and either freeze it for soup stock or drink it. Takes just a few minutes to get 4 or 5 oz of water boiling.

I have tried silver queen and other white corn varieties and they never have the flavor of pure yellow or yellow and white (generically called butter and sugar) corn. While taste is subjective I think the flavor compounds in white are lacking.

[HFWR]

Grilled, husks on.

As we'd say in the south (of Indiana...), "Roshin ears"

That's "roasting ears", if anyone needed a translation into English...

[poorcarver]

Put them in my smoker, husks on, about 40 minutes or so. No muss, no fuss, no boiling water. I grew up in S. Indiana and had not heard of "roasting ears" in a long time.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by veremchuka I don't understand boiling corn. You have to wait a long time for all that water to get to boiling ...

Just tradition I guess. That's the way I've always seen it done. It does seem like a waste to heat all that water for a few minutes of cooking. I'll try steaming sometime.

Roasting is good too, we do it once in a while.

-ERD50

[HFWR]

Another way of prepping fresh sweet corn is to cut from the cob and "fry" in butter.

[Chuckanut]

Raw sweet corn, fresh blue berries, a bit of green onion, a few chopped nuts and a dash of rice vinegar - Just Wonderful!

[JOHNNIE36]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HFWR Grilled, husks on. As we'd say in the south (of Indiana...), "Roshin ears" That's "roasting ears", if anyone needed a translation into English...

We were almost from Indiana and my dad always pronounced that differently. He'd say "roastneers".

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JOHNNIE36 We were almost from Indiana and my dad always pronounced that differently. He'd say "roastneers".

Yep, same.

[Dimsumkid]

We got a chance to try fresh raw Mirai corn from Twin Garden Farms in Harvard,IL. They sell it at the local Farmers Market, $4 for 6 ears and had some samples. This stuff is so sweet, it's like eating dessert! Makes the grocery store bought stuff seem like cattle feed. Only problem is it'll be really hard to switch back to the cheap stuff!

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dimsumkid We got a chance to try fresh raw Mirai corn from Twin Garden Farms in Harvard,IL. They sell it at the local Farmers Market, $4 for 6 ears and had some samples. This stuff is so sweet, it's like eating dessert! Makes the grocery store bought stuff seem like cattle feed. Only problem is it'll be really hard to switch back to the cheap stuff!

Funny, I mentioned this to DW, and she said 'Mirai' was the corn we had this past week, from our local farmer's market. Grown by The Red Barn in Woodstock, rather than TGF in Harvard, but the same variety.

Yep, that was gooooood corn, the real deal!

Those farms are in the general area I grew up, real corn country.

-ERD50

[JOHNNIE36]

I'd still like to hear from anyone that has a corn/veggie steamer, If you like it how about letting us know the name of it, who makes it and/or where can I get one. Ours is going to get trashed one of these days because we've had it for over 12 years.

[Sue J]

DH has had a garden every year since he retired in 2010. This years yield was really poor due to bunnies and weather in NE Ohio. Our cool nights started in mid August.

This year he tried growing corn for the first time, just a couple of plants, just to see what would happen. The plants were nice looking and we got some ears of corn! Being new at this, he didn't harvest them at the right time and they must have gone a few days past prime picking. They were small and looked good enough but they were starchy and bland.

image-3963016016.jpg

I hope he'll try corn again next year and learn when to harvest. We've always boiled but I'd like to try raw and roasted or steamed.

[MooreBonds]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sue J This year he tried growing corn for the first time, just a couple of plants, just to see what would happen.

Those ears look fairly good for a first-time.

I tried planting corn a number of years ago (back in my early 20s, when I lived at my parents place). I found out the hard way that when you plant corn, you have to plant a lot of it, and in rows, because they fertilize each other by wind/gravity. So if you have them in a single file, you'll get a lot of ears that have missing kernels.

Looks like your DH did a good job locating them for "just a few plants"! Hope he does better next year (and maybe tries a better variety?)

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MooreBonds Those ears look fairly good for a first-time. I tried planting corn a number of years ago (back in my early 20s, when I lived at my parents place). I found out the hard way that when you plant corn, you have to plant a lot of it, and in rows, because they fertilize each other by wind/gravity. So if you have them in a single file, you'll get a lot of ears that have missing kernels. ...

True. Corn really needs to be planted in blocks for that reason. Outside of planting on a farm scale, I've not had luck, but that is because raccoons would find them and strip them bare just as they were ready to pick. I needed a big enough area to feed the racoons and the family.

On the farm the racoons had no problem finding 20 rows of sweet corn in the middle of hundreds of rows of field corn.

If those ears were starchy, probably just picked too late. It's a bit of an art, but if you can pull back some husk and see that it is yellow near the end and whiter at the tip you are probably close. Those ears look to be pretty yellow all the way to the end.

BTW, DW didn't make it to the farmer's market yesterday and just got grocery store corn for tonight's dinner. If I would have known, I would have gone to the FM. But it was still quite good. Years ago, I would never touch grocery store corn, it was terrible. The bar has been raised though.

Costco only has corn that is pre-husked. I won't buy it, w/o the husk, I can't judge freshness. And it just seems wrong.


-ERD50

[Nemo2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RockyMtn Here we call multicolored ears Peaches and Cream

Ditto Canada.

[Badger]

A few years back when my garden was larger I would grow corn but only early spring sweet corn. It never made it to the kitchen. Eating it in the garden while it was ambient temperature and as fresh as possible made sure it was SWEET, JUICY, and exceptionally TENDER. It was my "candy" fix. Cooking did nothing to improve the flavor or tenderness. Any corn varieties planted later were not acceptable and would produce corn that was starchy and tough like grocery store corn that has to survive shipping and a long time from harvest to table that only negatively changes the corn characteristics (think winter grocery store "cardboard" tomatos). Even what the grocery store calls sweet corn is not even close.

Find a neighbor or a "U-Pick" farm that grows EARLY SPRING SWEET CORN and try it yourself.

Cheers!

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Badger Find a neighbor or a "U-Pick" farm that grows EARLY SPRING SWEET CORN and try it yourself. Cheers!

Can you name a specific variety? EARLY SPRING SWEET CORN seems like just a generic description.

List of sweetcorn varieties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

-ERD50

[Badger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Can you name a specific variety? EARLY SPRING SWEET CORN seems like just a generic description. List of sweetcorn varieties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -ERD50

Your link should give you a good idea and it rates varieties by degree of sweetness. Varieties like Kandy Korn, Peaches and Cream, and Honey and Pearl would make nice selections. I don't recall the varieties I planted. It was more than a decade ago. If you are growing in a small home garden I would suggest growing them in a block at least 5 X 5 (25) plants square. More is better and you will find yourself planting 3-4 times that the next season. Pick and use immediately. If you go to a U-pick then ask the farmer for the variety, do a google search, and then decide if you want to make the trip to the farm. If you cook them only keep in the water for enough time to warm them up for butter but no more. Letting them sit in the refrigerator more than 24 hours results in them going to more starch and lose the sweetness.

Cheers!