Corn soup
This is one of those magic recipes. There appears to be nothing to it -- until you eat it and taste how sweet and creamy the result is. I told a dinner guest this week how I made it and she didn't believe me.
Ingredients
10 ears of corn, kernels cut from the cob
2 yellow onions, diced
2 tbsp butter
8 cups water
How to
In a large pot, saute the onion in butter until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the corn and saute for another 2-3 minutes. Add the water and bring to a boil; cover and cook for now more than 5 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool, then blend it in a blender or food processor and strain the liquid through a medium mesh. The solid left behind should look like damp polenta; just throw it out.
Serve warm or cold, optionally garnished with herbs or pesto.
Papardelle, creamy bacon corn pesto
This is one of my favorite recipes in a long, long time. It's easy. It's fresh. It's cheap. It's fantastic.
Grilled vegetable ratatouille
2 tomatoes, halves
2 red peppers, halved
2 ears of corn
2 zucchini, cut into quarter-inch rounds
1 medium onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
Basil, roughly torn
How to
It was Alice Waters night in the Bartholomew-Pitoniak household. Alongside her grilled fish recipe I decided to try out grilled vegetable ratatouille from The Art of Simple Food.
First, pick your veggies. Go with what's fresh and looks good; don't be too particular about what follows here or in the Waters Bible. Tonight it was corn, tomatoes, zucchini, red peppers and onions. Trim them and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.
In a vegetable grilling contraption over medium heat on the grill, I place the two halved tomatoes flat side down alongside the halved peppers. After they began to brown I added the zucchini and onions. The corn went on the grill still on the cob. There's very little to add here in terms of guidance -- just keep an eye on things, allow them to develop a nice char, and remove them. Strip the kernels from the ears of corn, cut the vegetables into half-inch pieces, and toss the whole thing with salt, pepper, olive oil, a clove or two of minced garlic and a few leaves of roughly torn basil. Anna even went into the backyard to pick the basil from our struggling little plant, a detail that made us feel like a couple of little Bay Area Alice Waters acolytes.
Balsamic chicken, tomato jam, corn salsa
Corn salsa
2 ears corn, kernels stripped
1 red pepper, diced
Handful cilantro, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1 lime
How to
Sautee the red pepper and corn for 2-3 minutes in a hot skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the scallions and garlic and sautee for another minute or two. Remove from heat and toss with the cilantro and lime's juice.
The tomato jam is a fantastic accompaniment. Times are sad when we don't have a jar of this stuff on hand. For now, I'll just send you to the recipe, though a full-fledged post on the stuff is definitely in order.