Growing up in New England, my family never knew how to properly cook corn. My mother used the time honored tradition of husking the corn, then putting it in a pot of water, bringing the water to a boil and the boiling it until what she considered done.
This was usually somewhere between soggy and sodden with the added bonus of having the majority of flavor and nutrients removed for health reasons. Ms Cocktail also grew up in New England and she also suffered from this time honored tradition. It took Ms Cocktail working with a wonderful lady from Iowa who was kind enough to teach us that you brought the water to a boil first, you added the corn and then no longer than 5 minutes in the boiling water. Voila! Perfect boiled corn every time.
I then discovered that you can cook corn on the grill. This adds a wonderful roasted flavor to the corn, unlike anything you can possibly get from boiling it. There are two approaches to grilling corn, either in the husk or shucked. If you grill it in the husk, you should soak the whole ear of corn in water for about a half an hour to an hour prior to placing on the grill. Then grill over indirect medium heat for about 25 minutes, turning two or three times to keep the husk from burning. This essentially steams the corn within its own husk and adds a touch of that roasted flavor to it. The other way to do it is to shuck the corn, spray the ear down with olive oil, then grill over direct medium heat for ten to twelve minutes, turning frequently. This gives the corn a nice roasted flavor with some browning of the kernals to help compliment that flavor.
Now, we started today's journey in New England, then stopped in Iowa, but we are going to finish it in New Mexico, Santa Fe to be specific. In Santa Fe, there is a wonderful restaurant named the Coyote Cafe. It was started by renouned chef Mark Miller (it has since been sold). In addition to his restaurant, Chef Miller found the time to produce a wonderful tome on peppers titled The Great Chile Book. This book is a complete reference to just about any question you may have concerning a fresh or dried chile pepper. The best part about this book though may be the handfull of recipes tucked away in the back. While sometimes confusing and often complicated, they do yield some fantastic results. Here is a recipe for a grilled corn salsa (we were going to get back to the corn eventually) inspired by one of the recipes in Mark Miller's book. This is a dry salsa, not at all juicy, but it has a unique flavor from the corn with just a bit of heat from the poblanos. The earthy taste from the mushrooms and truffle oil round out the flavors of this salsa quite nicely.
Grilled Corn Salsa
5 ears fresh corn
2 large poblano chiles
1/4 cup mushrooms (I used brown button mushrooms, but white buttons, morels, porcinis, baby bellas or a combination of any or all can be used)
1/4 cup diced sun dried tomatoes packed in oil
1 tsp oil from sun dried tomatoes
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp black truffle oil
2 tsp dried marjoram
1 clove garlic
1 tsp adobo sauce from chipotles in adobo sauce
1/2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp lime juice
1/2 tsp kosher salt
To prepare the corn: Husk and clean the corn. Lightly spray with olive oil. Grill over direct medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes turning frequently until lightly browned everywhere. Remove from grill and let cool. With a sharp knife, cut the kernals from the cob.
To prepare the mushrooms: Clean and dice the mushrooms into pieces about the same size as a corn kernal. Measure a healthy (this means overfilled) 1/4 cup of the mushrooms and saute them in the truffle oil for about 10 minutes.
To prepare the sun dried tomatoes: Remove tomatoes from oil and dice to about the size of a corn kernal.
To prepare the poblanos: Grill the poblanos over direct medium heat until well blistered and blackened, about 10 minutes. Remove from grill and place in a covered container until cool enough to work with. Remove the outer skin that loosened during grilling, then remove the stem and seeds. Dice into pieces about the size of a corn kernal.
To prepare the garlic: In a small saute pan, place the unpeeled garlic clove in the pan over medium heat until it begins to soften. Move the garlic in the pan occasionally so that it doesn't burn only in one spot. It's ok if the peel gets brown or black though. When the garlic clove is cool enough to work with, remove the peel and dice finely.
Combine all the ingredients together in a pan while warming over medium low heat. Serve warm or room temperature.
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