notes about corn 2

Preparation:

When faced with a bounty of corn, what should you do? Enjoy all you can right away and freeze the rest, of course.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as throwing those ears of corn in the freezer as is. Corn, like most fruits and vegetables, needs to be blanched before freezing. Blanching can be done by either boiling or steaming, and it destroys the enzymes that would break down the texture of your corn as it sits in the freezer. Fortunately, it’s easy to do and doesn’t take too long.

Here’s my method. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While the water is heating, shuck your corn and remove all the silks. When the water comes to a boil, drop in the ears of corn and cover the pot. You should only be adding enough corn so that the water returns to a boil within a minute.

Once the water is boiling again, time it. You want to cook the corn for about 4 minutes. When the time’s up, remove the corn from the hot water and cool it in an ice bath.

When the corn is cool, cut the kernels from the cobs and store them in freezer containers in amounts that work for recipes you normally use. I like to freeze my corn in 2-cup and 4-cup batches.

Now when those field peas start arriving, you’ll have corn in the freezer ready to join the field peas in a big bowl of succotash. Yum.

Need directions for cutting the corn off the cob? The biggest problems folks seem to have are kernels flying all over the place and cobs slipping around. Try this method.

Place a large bowl on a damp towel. Fold a paper towel or dish towel into fourths and place it inside the container. Stand one ear of corn on the paper towel, using the stem as a handle. Using a paring knife, slice downward, letting the kernels fall into the container. Rotate the cob and continue until all the kernels have been removed; discard the cob. Did that work better for you?