The Next Best Thing To Ranting About Tomatoes

By Kevin Grzyb in Food on Jul 11, 2005 7:08PM

While the east coast loves to flaunt its ocean proximity and access to fresh lobster & seafood and the west coast lavishly praises its bountiful wine regions, here we sit in the middle of the country and what do we have? Well first off we have both of the coasts covered. And, oh yeah, we have CORN. Tasty, super sweet, fresh from the stalk, buy it on the side of the road while driving down state corn. The first of the good stuff is starting to come through and show up in town. We loves us some corn in Illinois. FYI-we HATE it when you prononce the 's' in Illinois, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard, seriously, stop.

The sweet corn showing up is a relief, because the heat and drought have started really looking desperate for farmers and the corn crops. April, May and June were dismally dry months and parts of Illinois are 5-6 inches short on average rainfall. Just a little background to explain why you will be paying more for the sweet golden kernels this year.

But since its coming and you’re gonna be dropping some extra nickels to get it, Chicagoist is going to show you our favorite way to cook corn on the cob (and just about anything else) on the grill.

First thing to do is to clean off the corn silk (sometimes called styles). Peel back the leaves of the husk without tearing them off. Then pull off the silk.

Next fold the husk leaves back over the corn, it doesn’t need to be perfect, but you want to cover the corn back up. Then take the ears of corn and toss them into a pot of water that covers them completely and let them soak for at least ten minutes.

Get the grill fired up and when it’s ready, take the corn out of the water and shake out the excess. Toss the corn on the grill for 10-15 minute (more or less depending on the temperature, the size of the corn and how you like it) turning every few minutes. The water in the husk will cook out steaming the corn and the outer leaves will char giving the sweet corn a mellow, slightly smoky flavor.

Pull the corn off the grill, pull back the husk and go to town. The corn we had this weekend was so sweet, it didn’t need any dressing, but if you must butter and salt are key. Some people shake on superfluous flavors, which is fine, but the really sweet corn that we get here doesn’t even need it. So watch as the corn starts coming into the farmers markets and stores over the next couple of weeks and…enjoy one of summer’s great treats.
-
-
-