Summer corn - slathered, stir-fried or roasted; A glimpse of two great cookbooks: The Breath of a Wok (2004) and Double Awesome Chinese Food (2019); A potluck worthy riff on an Asian noodle salad with roasted summer vegetables and roast chicken.
Who doesn't love the hot crisp, sweet bite of corn on the cob? There are so many ways to cook it, boiled, grilled and, my personal favorite for ease, speed and guaranteed tenderness -- microwaved in wax paper with salt, pepper and butter.
Shortcut to the recipe for Love2Chow Summery Soy-ginger Noodle Salad
Some years ago, Mexican street corn, or elote, started appearing on upscale taco restaurants. The smoky blend of ancho chiles, salty cotija cheese and mayonnaise pops with the fresh greenness from the lime and cilantro, all in counterpoint to sweet, crisp corn kernels. A friend introduced me to Kenji Lopez-Alt's Serious Eats recipe for elote; she prepared the topping in advance and served it with freshly cooked corn cobs at one of our annual gourmet canoe/kayak camping weekends. The topping is so easy and delicious! We made it as a dip to go with corn, veggies and chips at a family event, and it was finger-licking good.

Elote dip from Serious Eats

While I love the browned, caramelized edges that grilled corn attains, it is too easy to cross the line into drying out the kernels. A recipe in Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok (2004), showcased with a two-page photo spread by Alan Richardson, opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities. Liang Nian Xiu's Moon Hill Corn and Beans involves cutting the raw kernels off the corn and stir-frying them with green beans and a tomato, fragrant with the triumvirate of minced garlic, ginger and mild fresh chilies. Absolutely delicious and fresh and simple! The heat of the wok lends perfectly to caramelizing the edges of the corn kernels without risk of drying out the little golden nuggets.

Liang Nian Xiu's Moon Hill Corn and Beans

Among the great things about Grace's recipes is that they almost always work out perfectly the first time you try them, they come with free troubleshooting and advice from the entire Wok Wednesdays Facebook community including the author herself, and they serve as great starting points for variation. What I like to call "clean-out-the-fridge" cooking. Today, I was caught without garlic or tomato, but with two cobs of corn that had been sitting in the fridge all week. The husks were all dried out, but the kernels were still plump. There were also two handfuls of past-their-prime green beans (it had been a busy week), a carrot stump, and a half of a jalapeño pepper. So I adapted Liang Nian's recipe to what I had on hand, sprinkling with brown sugar and omitting the water at the end to augment that rich, browned Maillard flavor.

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Corn cut off the cob also served as the starting point for my riff on a delicious Chinese-American noodle salad from the Li siblings' Double Awesome Chinese Food (2019). I was lucky enough to win this wonderful cookbook through an Eat Your Books giveaway. This is a fun, inventive cookbook less concerned about tradition than with showcasing new combinations that elevate Asian-inspired flavors to a new level. When I tried the Summer Noodle Salad with Ginger Garlic Dressing, I knew this recipe had to be the starting point for our contribution to this year's river camping trip.

I substituted roasted zucchini for spiralized and added roast chicken

There were three of us responsible for feeding 18 hungry people. To accommodate extra prep time for the chosen dessert, Lemon Lust Bars from Joanne Chang's Flour (2010)-the subject of a future post, we decided we needed to adapt this delicious summer recipe into a one-dish meal. Thus, we needed to add sufficient protein to satisfy a group of hungry kayakers.  We quadrupled the dressing recipe, oven-roasting 6-8 pounds of chicken thighs, seasoned generously with Penzey's Galena Street Rib & Chicken Rub, while we were at it roasting the tomatoes and corn. For the vegetarians in the group, we provided Trader Joe's Organic Baked Tofu (teriyaki and sriracha flavors). We cooked the noodles in advance, tossed in olive oil to prevent sticking, and mixed everything on site, cutting up the avocados fresh. While the spaghetti held up perfectly cooked al dente, I recommend soaking the gluten-free rice noodles on site for improved texture -- the flavors were fantastic!

Sheet pans of roasted tomatoes and corn cut off the cob

Oven roasted chicken thighs with Penzey's Galena Street Rub

Summery Soy-Ginger Noodle Salad with Roast Chicken & Vegetables

While canned and frozen corn often work out just fine, I have taken to adding fresh corn cut off the cob to all sorts of dishes, from salads and pizzas to quiches and stews. I've even started tossing cut cobs into the freezer along with frozen bones, onion ends and mushroom stalks. I hear that the cobs add another level of flavor to homemade stocks and soups...


Love2Chow Summery Soy-Ginger Noodle Salad with Roast Chicken & Vegetables