Ah, sweet corn season in Illinois.
Delicious ears of corn, bred to be tender and sugar sweet. This is one of my favorite summer vegetables.
Since it takes a lot of space to grow enough sweet corn to make it worthwhile, we purchase from local farmers at markets or roadside stands. One such stand near us, pile stacks of corn, still in the husk, high on a flatbed wagon. The method is to bring your own bag, load it up with ears and leave cash in the box on the stand. It’s an honor system that works.
Sometimes in the season’s height, a summer meal may consist of three or four ears of corn, a plate of fresh tomato slices and a mound of cottage cheese. Naturally, I want sweet corn year round, so to make that happen, I buy extra to preserve.
Putting up, sometimes called putting by sweet corn, is a time-honored ritual in my family. By putting up, we mean processing the corn and preparing it for storage. Then, in the dark days of winter, we will have a taste of summer in our pantry or freezer.
My Grandma used to pressure can most of the sweet corn she stored. It was shelf stable and not dependent on electricity to keep the food safe. While that is a great method, and I pressure can many foods, I freeze sweet corn. I like the flavor better and it is much faster to process.
Here’s my step-by-step method, developed through many hours of experience with an eye to efficiency.
First remove leaves or husks, or as we call it shucks and silk. This is best done outside and with helpers if you are going to process a lot of corn.
When shucking corn, have a line of buckets to work with and get a comfortable chair. I am right-handed, so I tend to work this chore from left to right. The corn to be shucked is in a basket on my left, a bucket to catch the shucks positioned in front of me, and a large pan or dish on my right for the bare ears. I pull down the top of the shuck from two sides at once, somewhat like peeling a banana. I try to get all the silks off, but this is not always easy. My trick is to keep my hands as dry as possible and use a twisting motion to loosen the silks, picking off as many as I can.
Next into the kitchen. For corn to stay fresh in the freezer, it must be blanched to stop the enzymatic actions that lead to spoilage. Blanching is a process of heating, then rapidly cooling. This year, I used my corn scientist friend’s method. Drop the ears into boiling water for three minutes, transfer to an ice bath, then cut the kernels from the cob.
Again seeking efficiency, I put the raw corn next to the pan of boiling water with the ice bath bowl next to the boiling water. I can do ten ears at a time in the boiling pot and also in the ice bath.
After the ice bath, I moved that bowl to a place on my left, my work bowl, more about this later, in front of me and a cob bucket on the floor on my left.
My work bowl is a bundt cake pan set on a rimmed baking sheet. A bundt pan may seem like an odd work bowl for this task, but it is actually perfect. Each ear of corn is placed on its narrow end in the middle of the cake pan and, using an electric carving knife, I cut rows from the cob. The kernels fall into the well of the pan. After all kernels are removed, I can drop the cob into the bucket on the floor in the same motion as I am reaching for the next cob from the ice bath. After cutting the kernels from each ear, I start the next batch of ten in the boiling water bath. I leave the water boiling the entire time I am working and refresh the ice in the ice bath as necessary.
While the next batch is boiling, I have just enough time to label four freezer bags and load each with 2 cups of corn. I use this amount as most of my recipes or serving needs can adapt to this amount of corn. To fill the bags, first label while the bag is flat, then open it up in a tall plastic cup and fold the edge down around the rim of the cup. This allows me to easily fill the bag with minimal mess. Press out as much air as possible, seal and toss on a cookie sheet for transport to the freezer when all is done.
Even with this efficient method and trying to keep the mess contained, processing corn is a messy job. But in only one morning of work, I have all I need for the winter ahead. Meals of soups and chowders, fried corn and simply buttered corn as a side dish will be welcomed throughout the cold weather. And on Super Bowl Sunday we will have sweet tamale corn cakes like the appetizer at Cheesecake Factory.
Delicious.