will roasted corn work as soup croutons?

Question

I was wondering if I can use roasted corn to make a soup more interesting. If so, how do I go about it?

boil then heat-blast?

thanks,

Answer

Yes, toasted corn works great as a soup topper, especially for "American" soups, like chili, tortilla soup, or cream-of-tomato.

The difficulty is that, as you surmised, the corn needs to be first cooked and then dried and toasted in the oven. Also, small corn kernels don't work very well since they become almost microscopic when toasted and dried. Here's how I've done it:

1. Bought dried "giant corn", or hominy of some variety from a Mexican market.

2. Soaked corn overnight in cold water, then boiled it for 20 minutes.

3. Drained corn and then roasted it on a cookie sheet at 200F for an hour or so.

This is a lot of effort, and for that reason I never did it again even though it turned out well. My easier effort suggestions would be:

• Start with canned hominy (have not tried this to see if it toasts well)
• Find a natural foods store which will sell you unsalted "corn nuts" in bulk, then toast them briefly in the oven.

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How can I make posole “pop” faster?

Question

I have run into this a few times. I soak dry posole overnight, and then add it to my sweated/sauteed vegetables, add water, and stir it regularly, and it still takes over 4 hours for the kernels to pop. Is there a part of the process I am missing or doing wrong, or could I just be dealing with old posole?

Posole is essentially Nixtamalized Corn.

Answer

Use a pressure cooker. Try for example this recipe:

http://ljcny.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/chicken-pozole/

where dried hominy is cooked in a pressure cooker.

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Is It Possible to Make Corn Tortillas At Home Without A Press?

Question

I don't own a tortilla press and until I have more cabinet space, one is not in my future. However I value making as much as I can from scratch and love using tortillas in my cooking. I have made whole wheat tortillas using a variation on this recipe, subbing oil and butter in for the shortening to try and get a bit more flavor out of the tortillas.

I'd like to move to homemade corn tortillas, but every recipe that I have seen instructs one to use a press. With flour I was able to roll my tortillas as thin as required, but will I have trouble when moving to masa trying to do it with a rolling pin, or will I be able to get thin corn tortillas without a press?

Answer

Yes, you can do it without a press. Place a ball of dough between two layers of plastic wrap. Use at least twice the area of wrap that you think the final tortilla will be. Squish the ball flat with a pan, book, or your hand. Now use a rolling pin to roll the dough between the sheets of plastic. Make sure the thickness is even, and don't get it too thin or it will break when you cook it. Bonus: you can store the uncooked tortillas in the plastic until using and they won't dry out.

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What is the most efficient way to remove kernels from a corn cob?

Question

I have access to as much sweet corn as I want, so I would like to remove the kernels and store them in the freezer.

What is the most efficient (low time, high recovery) way to remove the kernels from the cob? I would prefer to get whole kernels if possible.

I have been using a paring knife, slicing down the sides of the cob onto a cutting board but I find that this slices through most of the kernels, leaving a good bit on the cob and allowing the liquid to escape.

Answer

What's wrong with letting the liquid escape? The liquid is good! When I freeze sweetcorn, I slice through just the outer part of the kernels, and then turn the knife sideways and scrape to release the rest of the delicious gooey liquid inside them... I'm not particularly fond of the flavor or texture of the cob-side anyway, and the creamy result can be packed and frozen with a minimal amount of air.

I highly recommend using a chef's knife instead of a paring knife though. A big cutting board and a bench scraper also come in handy. If you're doing a lot of corn at once, a baking sheet works well to catch the juice.

Growing up, we'd get a bunch of people together and do bushels of the stuff in an afternoon - cooking, icing, cutting, scraping, and packing simultaneously. With a bit of practice, you become quite fast at it.

But, if you're simply looking for a quick way to process the ears alone, there are specialized tools made for this job: search for corn creamer or corn cutter.

You could probably use a mandoline as well, provided you're able to adjust the depth of the blade. Frankly though, this seems cumbersome. Practice with the knife...

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Tips for Removing Silk from Corn?

Question

Does anyone have any tips for how to easily and quickly remove silk from ears of corn? I find that it takes a long time to pick it all out.

Answer

If you're cooking it on the cob, remove the silk after you've cooked it. I typically microwave my corn in the inner husk, when you pull it out the silk just slides right off.

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What is the ratio for soft polenta?

Question

I want to cook a soft polenta. I would like the consistency to be like pudding - just firm enough to hold a shape (it doesn't flow out of the spoon if you take a heaped spoonful), but not firm enough to be cut into pieces. My ingredients will be cornmeal (not cornflour; it seems to be ~600 µm grain size), milk and olive oil. I am looking for the correct ratio by weight to achieve this consistency.

If you don't have a ratio for this case, but know a ratio for a similar polenta (e.g. cornmeal + stock) which gives this consistency, I'd be glad to know this one too, I think I can get the tweaking right by myself.

Answer

Yes, it depends on brand, humidity, etc. My local variety is 1:4 to 1:4.5 (polenta:water) to get to that softness level

Add nothing else until you have the polenta at the desired consistency and softness

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Would ground “popcorn meal” differ from regular corn meal?

Question

Purely a theoretical question I'm afraid - I haven't experimented (yet). If you take popped popcorn and grind it to a flour, would the result be similar to cornmeal? One difference, I imagine, is that it is in principle ready to eat, as opposed to regular cornmeal which still needs to be cooked to denature the proteins.

Are there things you could achieve with this "popcorn meal" that don't work with regular cornmeal? For example, what would you get if you used this for making polenta? Could you make a "raw polenta" that doesn't require much cooking?

Answer

Interesting question. so I pulled out a hot air popper (you wouldn't want to use a oil popper to try this.) and put some popped dry corn into a food process and let-her-rip. I wouldn't call the results "masa" but it might be usable for an ingredient in a breading.

I call your attention to the book "POPCORN". It has a nice collection of recipes which include popcorn, and in no case does the author suggest reducing popcorn to corn meal, so I suspect the answer is, "Yes, ground popcorn meal would differ from ground corn."

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