Simple Oven Roasted Corn Recipe

This is an easy peasy recipe that I am keeping in my files for corn season as it hits its stride in the Northeast. Since I live in an apartment in New York without access to a a grill, boiling corn in salted water used to be my favorite method. Also, I try to avoid using the microwave whenever possible. Oven roasting ears in the husk is so easy with less clean-up that I've decided this will be how I will cook corn on the cob going forward.  

Simple Oven Roasted Corn Recipe

Ingredients
(from Tyler Florence)

• 4 ears fresh corn

Method

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place corn husks directly on the oven rack and roast for 30-45 minutes or until corn kernels are soft. Peel down the husks and use as a handle when eating.

You may also consider brushing the corn with melted butter, sprinkling with chili powder or lime juice.  This recipe also lends well to apartment dwellers without access to a grill, but desire that charred flavor. Simply pull off the husk from the roasted corn, brush olive oil, and place directly under the broiler for a few minutes on each side, watching to make sure the corn browns but doesn't blacken. 

Zested Lime Cilantro Quinoa Salad

My 2010 New Year's resolution was to eat more grains. Now that it's close to the mid-year mark, my assessment of personal success is somewhat mixed. Have I been trying out new grains? Yes, from red quinoa, millet, wheat berries, buckwheat to amaranth, check, check and check. But eating a variety of grains consistently, well I'm afraid that's one criteria that I haven't fulfilled. I do have another half year ahead of me, don't I?

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CORN TORTILLA RECIPE

There was a time when I would lug home a foot-long package of corn tortillas from Costco, storing leftovers in the freezer for months on end. The result were rubberlike corn flakes. So I started making fresh corn tortillas from scratch, without a tortilla press. The result was a wonderfully delicious and aromatic tortilla with taste and texture so superior that there's no going back to the packaged stuff.

The base of corn tortilla is masa harina, which is corn flour derived from corn and lime. This item can typically be found in the flour section or the international section of a grocery store.

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CORN

No other vegetable tells me that summer has arrived better than freshly picked corn.

How to pick: Hold the corn from the bottom of the ear and feel how well the kernals are developed along the way to the top of the ear. A ripe corn should have a feel of uniformity across the length of the ear and roundness on the top to indicate developed kernals.

How to store: Corn loses its sweetness quickly, so it is best to prepare corn on the same day you pick them up, in order to capture the full intensity of its sugars. However, if you are not ready to use them, wrap the ears in plastic to prevent them from drying, and store them in your refrigerator's crisper up to 3 days.

How to prepare: Best steamed, grilled and sauteed.