Recipes from Cooking with Doyle Moore on Focus 580
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Looking for the recipes discussed on Focus 580 with Doyle Moore? You've found them. Here's a list of all the shows by date, with some keywords to help you find recipes of interest.
Cooking on Focus 580: Recipes for August 2008
August 6, 2008: Cooking with Corn
People look forward to the sweet corn season all year. At David’s house, they prepare it the simplest way, just putting it in boiling water. But it’s a very versatile food, there’s lots you can do with it.
CREAM OF CHOCLO SOUP
A caller from Sidney has been looking through cookbooks from South America, because she remembers “choclo,” which is mature corn used in soups as chunks; you have to nibble around the cob to eat it. You include inch-long or so segments of the cob right in the soup. Doyle says the corn cob has a lot of nutrients in it; pioneers used to make a corn cob jelly – the cobs gave off a sweetish liquid. The caller says you can still buy that at a farmer’s market in North Carolina. In a cookbook from Ecuador the caller found a couple of recipes for cream of choclo soup, one of which uses ground pork and the other uses:
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1 cup of white wine
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4 ounces of ground up nuts
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2 liters of stock
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6 ears of corn taken off the cob and put through a strainer to make the “cream”
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¼ cup cream
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salt and pepper.
Is there anything else you can do with the cob, after you’ve cut the corn off? It maintains an amount of sugar which you can extract by boiling, but it’s not worth hanging onto for a stock. Of course, you can make a pipe of it!
A caller from Downs has been reading a lot of corn soup recipes that put the fresh cobs into the stock to cook it. That will extract the residual sugar. But after cooking you take it out and throw it away.
Another recipe the caller from Sidney came across is “pastelitos” (sp?)
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2 ears corn
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2 eggs
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4 ounces olives
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Salt to taste
Beat the eggs, add the corn (taken off the cob) and the olives. Deep-fry in small spoonfuls and float atop soup (like dumplings). The corn used should be very starchy.
CORN RAVIOLI WITH BASIL CREAM SAUCE
Doyle’s offers a corn recipe that is not only good, but he can make a quantity to keep in the refrigerator and then make up the things as wanted. It’s a ravioli using corn and cream and basil. The recipe he has uses a lot of butter, cream, and other high-cholesterol ingredients, so Doyle has modified it with some lower-fat items and cut back on the butter, and he cannot tell the difference.
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2 ears corn, removed from the cob
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3 Tbsp. chopped red bell pepper
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3 Tbsp. chopped green onions (regular onion okay)
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a lot of pepper, to taste
Sauté those in oil until they just start cooking, then toss in some basil and mix around and let it cook down a bit.
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½ package (4 oz.) of Neufchâtel cheese (orig. recipe: 6 oz. cream cheese)
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½ cup low-fat ricotta (orig. recipe: 6 oz. ricotta)
Mix the cheeses in with the sautéed vegetables and heat and add
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some no-fat half-and-half (orig. recipe: ¼ cup heavy cream)
Let it cook down and set aside.
Use wonton wrappers to make a light, delicate ravioli. To make it easier, put three pieces down and with a brush wet the outside of those three pieces; put an amount of the vegetable-cheese mixture on it and place another wrapper on top and pinch the edges. Then use a cookie cutter of the right size to cut it out, so that each ravioli is round and pretty.
Cook slowly: bring the water to a boil and then turn it to a simmer before adding the ravioli. They only need to cook 2 minutes. Scoop out onto paper towel to drain.
In a new clean saucepan, melt 1 Tbsp. butter (orig. recipe: 3 Tbsp. butter). Throw the drained wontons back in and sauté them a little bit. Add more basil and pour some cream over that. The original recipe says to cook the sauce separately, but Doyle likes to cook it with the ravioli this way. He usually makes about nine of the ravioli at a time, which is a little more than you want to eat a time. Any more than those he holds out from the cooking and keeps in the refrigerator for another day.
It tastes so good probably because of the butter at the end, but the cheeses are mellow, and the corn and the red pepper. You can’t go wrong if you use all these ingredients.
David has never used the wonton skins to make ravioli pasta. He has laboriously made pasta using one of those pasta machines with a crank. Then he has a kind of mold into which you place a sheet of the rolled-out pasta, with pockets into which you put the filling. Then you put another sheet of pasta over that, and you go over it with a rolling pin. The mold has a crinkle edge so it pops out these little ravioli. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work. Doyle says you’ll be surprised at the wonton skin, because it’s terribly light and delicate, not like a pasta.
FRESH GARDEN RECIPE
A caller from Urbana offers his favorite recipe, where everything comes right out of the garden. The key to this recipe is fresh lime juice. Start with a black iron skillet.
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1 Tbsp. butter and olive oil
Sauté:
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1 onion (green onion, red onion, white onion, whatever you have on hand)
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1-2 jalapeños
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½ red pepper
Once that is softened, add
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6-12 ears of corn that is fresh cut from the cob
Cook only a minute or two. Add
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fresh lime juice, and
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any fresh herb you have on hand: mint, basil, parsley, whatever.
And then it’s on your plate!
CORN ON THE GRILL
David is really curious about roasting corn on the barbecue grill. Doyle has been wary of cooking corn on the grill, though he knows many people do it. David has thought for years that he wants to try it, but somehow never gets around to it. It can’t be that hard, but you have to be careful not to burn it too much, but you do want to burn/scorch it a little. One way is to not shuck the corn, just pull down a little to get the silks out and then pull the husks back up and maybe use string to tie them on; then soak in cold water for 10-15 minutes. Then put all of that with the husk and everything on the grill. Burning the husk gives a nice smoky flavor to it. And it’s nice if the kernels themselves get a little bit blackened. Because of the sugar in the corn, this results in some caramelization that is good.
Leaving the husk on provides some flavor from the burning of the husk, but because it traps moisture in, you’re really steam-cooking the kernels. If you remove the husks, the corn itself will get grilled.
Would you oil that before placing them on the grill? Some people brush with butter while it’s cooking. And some people rub the corn with a chili rub before putting it on the grill. Doyle thinks he’s seen Paula Deen do that. [See, for example, http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cooking/msg0710475112218.html].
Perhaps the reason that Doyle and David don’t do this is that no one else in the family ever did it before and so they weren’t taught how to do it. But there are regions where corn has been roasted for a long time, “always.”
The caller from Sidney sometimes cooks corn on the grill, and she personally doesn’t like it charred. When they cook it in the husks, they don’t bother to remove the silks, they just soak the ears in water 10-15 minutes and put them on the grill. And then after cooking all the husk and silks come off very easily. She likes the steam flavor and you don’t get all that extra water in the corn.
CORN IN THE MICROWAVE
A caller from Urbana would like to hear people say what they do about microwaving corn on the cob in the husk. Do you soak it in water? How long do you cook it? She has heard that by microwaving you don’t get that watery taste in the corn. Doyle says four minutes in the microwave. You don’t need to soak it. The only preparation is to remove the silks (but not the husk). With the husks on, it will steam itself. You could remove the husks and soak in ice water beforehand; and if you put a lot of ears in, it will take a bit longer before the corn with absorb the cooking waves. It’s a very efficient way to cook vegetables.
The caller from Sidney reports that her mother cooks corn in the microwave. She peels it all the way and then wraps it in wax paper. She doesn’t soak it. It still steams because of the wax paper. She cooks it either 2 or 4 minutes (can’t remember), but not very long.
A caller from SW of Champaign says that they often eat one person at a time. She just cleans the corn, takes the silks and husks off and rinses it under water, wraps it in a paper towel, and cooks it in the microwave for two minutes (for a single ear). This way, there is a fresh ear whenever someone wants it.
PRE-BUTTERED CORN
The caller from Sidney’s mother went to a corn-boiling in northern Wisconsin, where they had big pots of water in which they cooked the corn. But they also melted the butter right in the pots, so when you remove a cooked ear, it gets coated in the butter and is all set to eat, “pre-buttered.” It’s not necessarily good for a small batch, but if you’re cooking a lot in a big pot, it works well.
CORN CHOWDER
The caller from SW of Champaign also loves corn chowder. She makes it with a few carrots and onions and green peppers and potatoes and cheese. She puts the cheese in at the end; she uses a mix of cheddar and mozzarella.
CHICKEN TACOS WITH CORN AND AVOCADO
The caller from Downs offers an easy versatile corn recipe. All this is made with cooked stuff, it’s a great thing to make if you have leftovers. The ingredients are all cooked and easy to put together for a hot day. The proportions of the ingredients are really variable so you can do what you want.
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4 ears of corn
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2 cups of cooked chicken
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1 small avocado
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4-5 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
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1 large tomato
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whatever kind of chilis you would like if you like them (serranos, jalapeños, or a little bit of chipotle in adobo sauce which she prepares in the food processor and keeps handy in a jar in the refrigerator)
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chopped fresh cilantro
Chop all these ingredients up and put them (cold) in tortillas. You can add salsa, lettuce, cheese, whatever you might like. This is a recipe she will make homemade corn tortillas for. It came from a cookbook called Mexican Light by Martha Rose Shulman. She looks for authentic recipes and then cuts the fat in them. These ingredients have nice strong tastes.
David asks how long the chipotle with adobo sauce puree lasts in the refrigerator? Just about forever. She uses it also with hoisin sauce for a marinade for pork tenderloin.
TOMATILLOS
A caller from Champaign has been growing tomatillos and doesn’t know what to do with them. They are used in making a green sauce. They act like green tomatoes. Doyle has never felt that they have an identifiable flavor, just an extra green stock to add to sauces with chilis. You peel the paper husks off them and then you boil them. Later they are mashed up and made into a green sauce which would accompany meats. David suggests looking on the Epicurious web site (http://www.epicurious.com/) for hundreds of recipe ideas.
HUITLACOCHE
A caller from Urbana read something in a newspaper review about a Mexican restaurant that has a dish made with a corn fungus that is supposed to be a great delicacy. What is the name of that? It’s huitlacoche (or cuitlacoche), corn smut, you can buy it in a can.
He also recommends the tomatillo sauce made by the local restaurant chain El Toro. It is extremely nice and very hot.
Doyle’s last thought. So many dishes are related to others. He recalls “Mock Shoe” from creole country, a mixture of corn and peppers and onions, with a lot of black pepper, that is so different from the Pennsylvania Dutch way of cooking the same ingredients. Here is a recipe for it: http://heart.kumu.org/mockshoe.html.
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