Sweet Corn
Sweet Corn
Au Revoir to Summer: Pasta with Sweet Corn and Fresh Tomatoes
With summer coming to a close, it's time to say goodbye to the beautiful fresh produce that comes with it. Some find it to be an easy goodbye—especially those with gardens or those who receive CSA boxes (Community Shared Agriculture—basically you pay for a season or so of a particular farm's produce. That means a lot of corn, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, etc in the summer).
Not having either, I wanted to get in the last of two of my summer favorites—sweet corn and heirloom tomatoes, before their tasteless, out-of-season counterparts replace them.
Though corn and pasta aren't necessarily common together, when thinking of what to do with the corn I purchased from the farmers market, for some reason, it's a pairing that I couldn't get out of my head, and it came out better than I imagined. Though the corn and tomatoes are sweet, the dish overall is perfectly balanced, and the sauce created by the broth, corn, butter, and cheese has a lot of great flavor.
Since the sauce is so simple, I decided to go out of my way and make fresh pasta along with it. Since I'm slightly scared of anything that involves working with dough, I took the easy way out and used a food processor to form the dough, and a pasta machine to roll it out. Even with my fear of working with dough, the fool-proof method I used resulted in perfect fresh pasta. My pasta machine does have attachments to make spaghetti and fettuccini, but by the time I got all my dough rolled out I had enough of the pasta machine and just cut it into rough rag shapes, which actually seemed to work very well for the sauce I had made.
Feel free to use dried pasta or good fresh pasta here instead of homemade, though there are plenty of reliable recipes for fresh pasta on the internet.
Pasta with Sweet Corn and Fresh Tomatoes
Ingredients - Serves 4:
1 lb pasta, dried or fresh
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
Pinch of red pepper flakes
4 ears of corn, shucked, kernels cut off the cob
1 ½ cups chicken or vegetable broth
½ cup freshly grated parmesan
2 tbsp butter, separated
2 medium heirloom tomatoes cut in large chunks
¼ cup fresh basil, chiffonade
Directions:
1. Cook pasta (for dried, according to package directions; for fresh, until al dente-which should only taken 2 or 3 minutes)
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add in minced garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for 2 minutes. Add in corn and sauté for 3-5 minutes. Add broth, then parmesan, stirring so it doesn't clump, then 1 tbsp butter and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until thickened.
3. Add in tomatoes and sauté until just heated through, then add in cooked pasta and remaining butter.
4. Serve immediately, topped with fresh basil.
By: Jessica Verderame
Read more recipes at www.allmediany.com!
About the Author
Jessica Verderame is a staff writer at AllMediaNY.com.
Where can i get WHOLE kernel sweet corn in UK ?
Hi Friends, I want to buy Whole kernel sweet corn in UK, could you let me know where can i get them ? I checked in all supermarkets but kernel is not whole its chipped on edges.
thanks in advance.
Are you after the cobs or kernels? The kernels are what come in tins and you can get them almost anywhere.
The cobs are seasonal but most major supermarkets have them most of the year. Just look in the veg section.
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An Unlikely Health Food: Corn Smut
Many people are always looking for the next healthy food obsession. It appears that the latest health food craze might come from an unlikely source: corn smut.
Huitlacoche, a gray-black fungus that grows in Mexico and is affectionately referred to as "corn smut," is now believe to have a wide range of nutritional benefits due to the minerals and unique proteins that it offers. Farmers refer to it as "devil's corn," since it has the ability to eliminate five to ten percent of a corn crop. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate what was once believed to be a fungus with no positive benefits.
While huitlacoche is bad for corn protection, however, it is good for nutrition. It attacks corn and forces the husks to explode, but this process creates new nutrients such as lysine, an essential amino acid that is needed to fight infections in the body and to strengthen bones. Corn does not contain any lysine, but huitlacoche contains a high amount of it. In addition, huitlacoche also contains a great amount of beta glucans, soluble fiber that is known for cutting cholesterol. In fact, it contains more beta glucans than those found in oatmeal.
Due to these new findings, chefs around the world are quickly learning how to incorporate huitlacoche into healthy meals. Some popular preparations of huitlacoche include chopped with onions and corn kernels and then placed on a steaming corn patty; stuffed into chicken breasts; added to a quesadilla; or blended into a tamale masa and then stuffed into a roasted chili. Huitlacoche is more expensive to produce and to sell than sweet corn. An ear of huitlacoche costs about 40 cents to produce, while an ear of corn costs less than ten cents to produce.
It remains to be seen whether huitlacoche or corn smut will turn into the next big health craze in the United States.
About the Author
Along with trying to eat healthy, Sammi enjoys working in her lawn and gardens. Garden Harvest Supply is one of her favorite garden sites which offer rubber mulch tree rings and heirloom tomato plants for sale.
Sweet Corn