You know I have piles of sweetcorn. Actually a patch about 200 feet long (about 60 metres) and 8 rows wide. I think that should do us. As you know I feed a fair bit of fresh sweetcorn and all the stalks to the cows, sheep, pigs and chickens but I still have plenty to eat and preserve. This enormous patch of corn is not unusual in these parts. All the farmers here grow piles of sweetcorn. In a land where all the little farms are dying, and the cows and pigs are gone and the barns are full of old cars and rusty tools, still the corn growers will set aside a large patch close to the house to grow the sweetcorn. Like a tendril from the past when preserved and saved food in the root cellar for the winter was all about staying alive. Literally.
I have been wondering how the women preserved all this corn in the past before the advent of freezers. These are enormous patches with hundreds of ears. This is an old tradition. The Matriarch remembers the old women in her family making piles of sweetcorn relish and in the winter this was served out of crocks with every supper. Whereas I have always thought of relish as a complement – in the old days it was The VEGETABLE. So I am going to be filling many many jars with garden relish this year.
My research has directed me even further back to dried sweetcorn or parched corn. The children would help pick and shuck these huge patches of sweetcorn and some of the best ears would be scraped from the cob, dried spread on roasting dishes in the range oven, then put into paper bags and hung behind the fire (shaking occasionally) until quite dry, then stored in the cellar or basement in jars or covered bins. This was a winter staple.
I am going to start some in the oven today. It might take days though. I will let you know.
Also I will leave a portion to dry in the field on the stalk and if the deer do not get it first I will knock off the kernels, jar them and compare them with the oven dried method.
Evidently rehydrated and cooked dry sweetcorn was a traditional thanksgiving dish of the Midwest. The dried sweetcorn can also be made into cornmeal.
Anyway come and see what I was up to in the kitchen yesterday. These are my three favourite ways with sweetcorn.
Sweetcorn Relish. Every time I make this relish it is slightly different because as well as the corn I add other vegetables from the garden.
My goal is to make a relish from the gardens every day to spice up the stews and casseroles that I will be making on the woodstove in the winter. I have previously avoided making too much relish because no-one else loves it with cheese and apples or cold meat like I do. It is not an American taste.I have only ever seen it used on hot dogs. But now that I see it as a side dish it makes perfect sense. Also if I add it TO the winter stews by the jar full it is more likely to be eaten and enjoyed. The relish of the day is Sweetcorn Relish.
This relish is an adaptation of Eloise’s Sweetcorn Relish over at Simple Recipes so if you would like the original proportions do pop over and see. Yesterday I replaced the cucumbers with zuchinni, and added coriander seeds from the garden. Who knows what I will do today. I always use the water bath method at the end too.
During sweetcorn season we eat Sweetcorn straight off the cob and dripping with butter and in my case pepper and salt every single day. Sometimes more than once.
To make life very easy we Microwave the Corn on the cob and IN the Leaves.
This is too easy – you will love it. Pull off only the very outer leaves, leave the corn wrapped in its leafy blanket and leave the silks. Pop the whole corn in the microwave for Four minutes. When you pull it out, lay it on the chopping board and slice the lower part of the fat end and stalk. About an inch and a half. Then pick the corn up by the silky end and give it a shake and watch the the clean corn cob slide right out.
Lovely.
Now to Freeze corn on the cob. I don’t like frozen corn so I make individual cobs for other members of the family. Freezing corn is all about speed.
Here are the secrets. Freeze your corn as fast after picking as possible. Mine is ten minutes from the field to the freezer. Peel and blanch for 6 minutes in rolling boiling water, in batches of three or four, you want the water to maintain the boiling temperature so you can start timing immediately, when cooked drop the corn cobs immediately into water loaded with ice cubes. Cool it fast. Dry, roll in cling film, (saran wrap, glad wrap whatever it is called in your country) and into the freezer straight away. Straight away.
The other thing to remember is that you corn is already cooked. So you only need to reheat! A long cooking time will result in mushy corn.
Good morning. Let me show you my most favourite thing in the kitchen.
It is this big metal tray. It make clean up amazingly easy. I use it for everything from rolling out pastry, kneading bread, to making pizzas to chopping greens and making salsa. I can pile vegetables and my chopping board in it and nothing rolls anywhere! It is perfect for my very tiny kitchen.
Well we all know what I am doing today!
You all have a lovely day too.
love your friend, celi.
The Kitchen's Garden 
60 responses to “How to cook and preserve sweetcorn”
How about a corn crib? Are they a mid west thing? I don’t really know what they are except I have read about them in trashy historical romances (segueing nicely into yesterdays post) anyway the hero often has to sleep in one as he is not allowed in the house so the heroines chastity is not called into queston but I think it also holds whole drying corn cobs. My only knowledge of root cellers comes from same source, the hero and heroine are required to hide in there when a tornado hits, I assume at other times the spuds are kept there!
Corn cribs are a mid west thing, i shall go and find one and take a photo for you. There are not many left they were constructed with wood, not treated timber in those days. I don’t have one. Evidently it fell down years before I came. I believe the corn was stored in there -dried and on the cob- for feed for the animals in the winter as a supplement to their hay and silage. A silo is for silage and no hero would want to sleep in one of those. And you have seen our root cellar in the rat house paddock! Perfect for when a tornado hits as long as you are close by. You have given me an idea though, maybe I will do a wee tour and show you some of the old farm buildings. I meant to tell you yesterday but I am sure you know, that a wallow for the pigs is a very good skin restorative. Mine got the itches in the winter when everything was frozen solid. c
We tore down our corn crib years ago. Like you say it was falling down so it had to go. Also, they were perfect places for mice to live …a building made of open spaced boards with a floor and a roof. Then filed with FIELD Corn…sweet corn doesn’t dry well in our part of the world. Or Hard-flint corn. This corn was used shelled to for the animals. But you can grind it into corn meal to cook with.
We store the shelled corn (combined corn) in huge metal bins now, some of ours have floor dryers in it so if the moisture content is too high we can dry it if we need too. Our bins are Butler bins. (The Company that made them).
Most of the time we try to sell right from the field as cleaning out the metal bin is a HUGE chore.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
John had a big round metal bin when i first came here that he rented to a farmer. I sold it to another farmer who came and dismantled it and took the smelly rat infested thing away. I used the money to fly to london and back to see my daughter! I smiled to myself all the way so glad was I to get the eyesore out of my way. It sat right in the sunset! Imagine putting a building right in the way of the sunset from the kitchen window! I hope mine will dry in the field, it is a bit of an adventure. I can always finish it in paper bags.. Morning Linda! c
Yes I do have a well used and well loved wallow, but its winter here too so although its not frozen over it is too chilly to use. Perhaps it is the lack of using the wallow that causes the itchy skin if it is happening in the winter for both of us?
Would love to see all of the agricultural history around you, I know you and our John are trying to preserve as much of it as you can. Your barn is so much more beautiful than your average galvanised iron three bay shed and aesthetics are so important when you look at things everyday. Everybody around here builds an ugly galvanised shed as the temporary home to live in whilst the main home is being built, but the shed then remialns like an ugly blot on the landscape.
Hmm. blots on the landscape.. hopefully they fill them with animals. At least they are farming though. yes winter is hard on our piggies.. but they don’t seem to mind the cold at all.. as long as they can burrow into the straw.. your piglets must be due soon? c
It’s always interesting to hear how resourceful people had to be to preserve food. We take it for granted going down to the grocery store. I wish we had enough space to grow a bit of corn. Nothing like fresh picked corn on the grill.
Absolutely! good morning c
Dried sweetcorn, eh? Might have to give that some thought…I like to have some bags of frozen kernals (freeze them on a sheet pan, then pop them into bags) for winter side dishes, but I’ll bet that dehydrated would be a better way to go for making chowders…got to clean the trays on the food dryer – corn should start coming in in a week or so!
(Not that I grow corn – there are too many other folks on the island who do, and I’ll just support my neighbors by buying theirs 🙂 )
I don’t have a dehydrator, the noise annoys me.. but i think you need to make sure the kernels will not fall through.. c
60 metres!! WOW Cecilia, you are a busy bee indeed! I do love your metal tray. I have a similar one and completely agree on its versatility
I discovered the “cooking in the husk in the microwave” method last year—-why did I never know how to do that before??? The silk just slides off –no fuss no muss. I learned by watching Ken here( http://youtu.be/YnBF6bv4Oe4). He did really well on the first ear!!! Now I am going to have to go get some sweet corn—tis the season!
how wonderful to have all that corn. i have been buying local corn the last few days..heaven! i bake mine in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minuted. the husks come right off with the silk. perfectly cleaned cooked corn!
That is a new one to me, i will try that tonight when I have the oven on.. anything that promises less mess goes to the top of the line for me!!
So envious of all that corn! I love it. May I make a book recommendation? The Story of Corn by Betty Fussell is an exhaustive, but fun, history of corn from its origin as the God of All Things in South America to its ubiquity in the modern supermarket…it is an amazing book for the food obsessed….I have actually interviewed her and she is terrific!
Thank you Natalia, i am always thrilled to have a book recommended. I have written that on my list .. John will enjoy reading that too I am sure.. It must have been rather marvellous to have interviewed her..c
It was a terrific experience…it was for Latina magazine on indigenous foods of the Americas that still mean everything to Latin cuisine. I had already owned and read the book, so it was a terrific opportunity to actually speak to the author!
LOVE corn in all forms!
Your sweetcorn relish sounds wonderful. The Americans don’t know what they’re missing.
We grew up on sweetcorn and sweetcorn relish, but alas I can no longer eat it as it aggravates my IBS symptoms. Same with lentils, figs and small seeds (like roasted pumpkin seeds which I have to grind to a powder if I want to eat them).
I don’t think we ever ate corn from the freezer though. When I had gall stones I used to drink cornsilk tea.
I think the early settlers would have eaten what was available & seasonal. Modern families eat whatever they like and shy away from some of the old world vegetables & methods of preserving.
So glad to hear you are living such a natural life. I wouldn’t mind betting you & your family live to a ripe old age free from modern diseases.
(Although I grew up in a family who grew almost everything they ate and I have inherited every disorder from both sides of the family plus a whole lot more modern diseases).
It s true that we expect to have tomatoes and eggs in the deep winter! Not something that happened in the old days. Here nothing grows for about 5 months of the year so being able to preserve the food must have been a critical knowledge. A useless housewife would have a malnourished sick family. I have heard of people now who cannot even cook let alone preserve. That seems extraordinary to me. Such a shame that you had all that good food as a child and now you have illness in your life.. My biggest problem is eating too much in this season. I keep telling myself that I am fattening a steer on this sweetcorn, what am I doing eating it too! I hope you are having a well day. I know they come and go. Lets hope today is a goodie.. c
Very industrious! I like your tray, though it’s got me wondering about making a giant Catalan Coca 🙂
excellent, I did some research and I most definitely want to make that soon, esp the savoury one! YUM! c
I wish I had enough sweet corn to preserve. Love the big tray idea – genius. Just found your blog (somehow?- 10 days ago). Thanks for taking the time to share in very busy season. – CM
Good morning Claudia and welcome! I am always grateful when new readers introduce themselves, it is great to know who is out there.. have a lovely day.. c
Corn on the cob.. one of the ways we like to do it here is.. straight off the stalk and as is onto a fire or in the coals of a fire, turning often…. when well and truly heated, peal the leaves off and with a sharp knife cut the corn off onto a plate… plenty of salt, pepper and butter (not marg) and away you go, eat to live… then add salt, pepper and butter to cob and suck away to your hearts content… decadent but lovely…
oo no NEVER the gicky marg!! Corn on the grill is divine. Do you soak it in water first so the leaves don’t burn? c
Oh yes that’s a must…
Corn relish is the best, we found a jar we thought we had lost the other day, it was call for celebration. I love the idea for freezing corn, I’ll have to try it out this season.
It sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t but when it does it is great.. welcome to the comments lounge!! c
Ooo, I also want a metal tray like yours – so very clever you are.
Love sweetcorn any which way you want to serve it to me.
Have a lovely day C.
😉 Mandy xo
I got this big tray in one of those big stores that cater to caterers and restaurants if that is any help. It is bigger than an oven tray so it is incredibly useful for a messy cook like me!
Reblogged this on My Blog paul.
Thank you!! c