Corny favourites

It's sweetcorn season, so ditch the tins and get shucking, writes DOMINI KEMP

CORN IS ONE of those grains we can’t but help associate with America. A firm favourite of Native Americans, corn has been transformed from a wondrous grain of ancient times into something quite ubiquitous in modern-day food processing. A whopping 40 per cent of all processed food is made with corn. One of the nastiest is high-fructose corn syrup, a cheap form of sugar that is used by fast-food manufacturers and soft-drink makers.

In some ways, this may have tarnished the reputation of regular old corn. And rather unfairly. Corn is in fact one of the super grains, full of anti-oxidants, B vitamins and fibre, which does wonders for your intestines.

September seems to be the month when fresh corn is most widely available, and one of my favourite cheap and handy midweek suppers is corn on the cob with a knob of butter, a baked spud and a green salad. As regular readers of this column will know, I am in no way snobbish about most tinned things, such as beans (cannellini, flageolet, chick peas) or chopped tomatoes. But eating tinned sweetcorn is just not the same as munching your way through just-boiled and buttered corn on the cob, with a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt and big chunks of freshly ground black pepper.

So, where to find some good sweetcorn recipes that do not involve fritters? Simon Hopkinson’s crab and sweetcorn soup looked gorgeous in the picture in The Good Cook, but requires you to make a crab-flavoured stock and so on. So, needless to say, I tweaked my way through it, ditching the bacon and star anise and fast forwarding to a very tasty broth, which has a great flavour, with lots of fresh corn bobbing around.

The grilled salmon and corn dish is pretty straightforward and comes from Barefoot Contessa Parties by Ina Garten. Sometimes I have issues with Garten’s quantities. Or maybe it’s my efforts at US to European measurement conversion that are questionable. Anyway, both recipes require you to remove the corn from the cobs, which if you’ve ever had braces – or have a child with braces – you’ll be a pro at. So much so that you’ll even have a bowl with just the right amount of slant on it to capture every kernel that leaps through the air, as soon as you start slicing them away from the mother ship.

Crab and sweetcorn broth

Serves four as a main course

Good glug of olive oil

1 onion, peeled and chopped

200ml Chinese rice wine

1 x 20g pack dried mushrooms

4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

1 big knob ginger, peeled and very thinly sliced

1.5 litres chicken or vegetable stock

2 fresh corn on the cob

1 bunch spring onions

Splash of fish sauce

Juice of 1 lime

Approx 500g cooked crabmeat

Splash of sesame oil

Bunch of coriander, roughly chopped

Heat the olive oil in a decent-sized saucepan and sweat the onions until they are soft. Meanwhile, heat up the rice wine and dried mushrooms for about five minutes until they are simmering away. Remove from the heat and strain through a sieve. Keep the rice wine. Roughly slice the mushrooms and throw them back into the rice wine to continue to soak.

Add the garlic and ginger to the onions and continue to sweat. Peel the husks away from the corn and discard it. Remove the kernels from the cob, using a sharp knife, and add to the sweating onions. Put the sliced mushrooms and rice wine into the saucepan along with the stock. Bring up to a simmer and taste. Add the spring onions, fish sauce, lime juice and drained crab meat.

Add a splash of sesame oil and taste again. It should have a deep and satisfying taste, but feel free to ramp up the seasoning, adding some more fish sauce or sliced chillies. Garnish with some chopped coriander and serve in big bowls.

Grilled salmon with sautéed corn

4 salmon fillets, skinned

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

3 tbsp soy sauce

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

2 tbsp honey

50ml olive oil

Salt and pepper

4 corn on the cob

1 big knob of butter

Put the salmon fillets in a gratin dish that is also able to go under the grill. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees/gas mark three. Mix the marinade ingredients together, that is the mustard, soy sauce, garlic and honey. Slowly whisk in the olive oil; it should emulsify.

Pour the marinade over the salmon and if you can do this a few hours in advance, that’s even better. But even if you only have 10-15 minutes, that will be fine.

Meanwhile, remove the kernels from the corn using a sharp knife. Heat up the butter in a saucepan with a lid. Sweat the corn and add a splash of hot water. Season lightly and cover with the lid. It will sort of steam/sauté and will be cooked in about 10 minutes, maybe even less.

Cook the salmon in an oven for about 10 minutes and then grill for the final five minutes to get some colour on it.

Or do it the other way round, get some colour on it first, and then finish it off in the oven for about eight minutes. It’s easy to tell if it’s cooked (just pull it apart in the middle and have a peek if you’re unsure) and if you like it a bit rare, just cook it for less time. Serve with the corn, and a big green salad.

DOMINI RECOMMENDS:

Smoked oyster pâté (€7.49 for 100g tub), from fishoutofwater.ie. This must surely be Ireland’s version of caviar. It is absolutely delicious, and one of the many products this company includes in its hampers