Roast Your Corn for Amaizeing Results
Local sweet corn season has arrived. And if you want an easy way to make pretty perfect corn on the cob, here are two words for you: Roast it.
It could hardly be simpler, as you’ll see below. It takes a few more minutes that steaming or boiling, but I think you’ll love the results. The kernels remain firm, never mushy, but just burst with that sweet goodness when you bite into them.
The photo above is one of the ears I brought home from the Nichols Farm and Orchard (Marengo, Illinois) stand at Green City Market in Lincoln Park. A tip for picking corn: Instead of ripping open the husks to do quality control (which can subject the ears you don’t take to damage), run your thumbs up and down the length of the ear. If you don’t feel any rough spots or gaps, you almost certainly have a winner. if it feels funky, you probably want to choose another.
To prepare for roasting, strip off most of the husk leaves, leaving just a thin covering over the corn, and trim any visible corn silk (this is mostly to eliminate any chance of loose leaves and silk hitting the heating elements). Then put the ear into a pre-heated 400 degree oven. I find that 40 minutes is about right.
When you take it out of the oven, it will look about as pretty as the top photo… or maybe even prettier buttered, as in the photo immediately above.
Got some great corn season ideas of your own? Share ‘em and I’ll publish ‘em.
Have You Ever Seen Tofu Made? (It’s Pretty Cool)
I first learned about Chicago’s Phoenix Bean tofu at their farmers market stands after we moved to the city 12 years ago. I was wowed by the freshness and flavor of their products even before I had the pleasure of getting to know Jenny Yang, Phoenix Bean’s owner and president: This was when she participated in the first cohort (2014-15) of the Good Food Accelerator, part of the FamilyFarmed nonprofit where I worked at the time.
Jenny’s excellent products and her dedication to sourcing soybeans (many of them organic) from Illinois farmers has gained her some media attention. The latest example is an article published on the WTTW website, which provides lots of background about Jenny and her business. Click the button below to read it.
The rising demand for Jenny’s products, sold under the Phoenix Bean and Jenny’s Tofu labels, prompted a major expansion for the company’s production facilities in the Edgewater community on Chicago’s North Side. I tagged along with a crew from Illinois Farm Bureau’s FarmWeek on July 11 and took the following photos to illustrate the tofu-making process, using traditional methods from Taiwan where Jenny was born and raised.
There is a famous quote that says there are two things you do not want to witness being made: legislation and sausages. That’s not the case for tofu, which is produced in a clean (though very wet) process.
Here Jenny Yang is holding a handful of Illinois soybeans ready for processing.
The soybeans are transferred into water tanks that enable the soybeans to germinate.
The soybeans are then crushed and cooked in this machine.
The soy milk is drawn off to either be used as is or, in most cases, converted into tofu.
Soy solids are separated out and dried to become a product known as okara, which can be used for flour, animal feed or composting.
A coagulant is added to the soy milk and the mixture is poured into trays. Each tray is then placed on a rack and weighted down to remove excess water. One of the first things you’ll notice if you buy a Phoenix Bean/Jenny’s Tofu product is that it is packaged dry — unlike most commercial tofus that are packed in water for additional shelf life. Jenny’s tofus are intended to be eaten fresh, which also gives them a higher flavor profile than most tofu products.
A worker at the Phoenix Bean production facility sliced this batch of tofu for further preparation.
Phoenix Bean sells fried tofu puffs and also uses its fried tofu in several flavors of delicious salads.
Along with its grocery and farmers market sales under its own labels, Phoenix Bean sells prepared tofu to the Nestlé company for use in its Sweet Earth line of frozen plant-based meals.
Always, my friend. Let me say I heard the thing about judging by the silk's appearance, but I can't rermember the source. And the thing about heavier than it looks is my own extrapolation of this classic food purchase principle. It strikes me that the latter is indicating that the ear of corn, or garlic bulb, or whatever is starting to dry up.
So by all means share my "wisdom," but I must qualify it as anecdotal and from an ex-market salesman who, after explaining something to a customer while standing next to my farmer, Brent, was told (after the customer stepped away) that I had gotten the point completely backwards.
I think I'm correct here, but as I told many people over the years, "I just dress like a farmer."
Two more corn-pickin' tips. One is to look at the silk. If it looks old, dark and a little gross, the corn probably isn't freshly picked. The other think I find pretty reliable is the old, "it should be heavier than it looks" rubric that informs so many satisfactory purchases of grown products.
One slightly more forceful reminder. I worked for a decade and a half for a farmer who quit bringing corn to market because customers who respected every other fruit and vegetable thought nothing of ripping apart many, many ears of corn to select, like, 4 for purchase.. You are damaging the farmer's product as much as if you put a finger through a peach, but nobody ever thinks of paying for the privilege.