The following “CHEW THIS!” column originally appeared in “The Courier-Times” and / or “The Shelbyville News”. Check their websites for further information.
Getting Summer Sweet Corn Ready For Winter
A few weeks ago I had a conversation with several people about taking summer sweet corn and “processing” it to get it ready for the winter. They were intrigued by the process. I admit that I had never really done it myself until this year and let me tell you, it is work but it is fun! My friend and fellow columnist, Kevin Vickery, said that his family used to have something called “Corn Day” with his Uncle Charlie. They would go over and between everyone, process, prepare and put up close to 200 dozen ears of corn or more! Can you imagine? Kevin and I, once it was all said and done, over the course of a few days, put up around 50 dozen. It was labor intensive but really worth it!
The process is pretty easy. First, you buy the sweet corn. Then you shuck it, removing the outer husks and all of the little corn hair and fibers that are attached. Kevin told me that his Uncle Charlie, every year, would make sure and tell the same fact to everyone and that fact is that there is a single corn hair, or fiber, for every corn kernel that is there growing on the cob. Can you believe that? I thought that was pretty cool really. Fascinating.
Anyways, after you clean the cob of the husks and fibers, you place them into a large pot of boiling water and boil them until tender which takes about 10-15 minutes. Then you remove them and place them immediately into an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Once cool, you remove the corn cobs, one at a time, and strip them using a device called a corn stripper. This takes the corn and literally strips the kernels off the cob. Then you take those, search through to make sure no hairs or fibers have found their way through to that process, then bag them up as desired. We used quart bags, filled with 4 cups, let the air out, froze them laying down and then once frozen, moved them into a cardboard box in the freezer and labeled it “corn”. You do this process over and over until everything is done. Then the clean up begins!
You must really clean up right away after the corn day is over. Even if you are going to continue the next day. You must clean up the same day because of the stickiness of the corn milk.
What are your experiences with this? Any? What type of recipes would you use this corn for? Visit my website and drop me a line in my “Contact” section.