Creamy Corn, Hold the Cream

Corn: looks like a vegetable and tastes like dessert.

Enjoying summer corn is probably the easiest thing you do all year. To date, we’ve never met a person who doesn’t like it. It can be eaten raw, but even if you cook it, it takes less than five minutes. It’s amazing with just a sprinkle of salt (and better with butter!) but can hold up to big, bold flavors. It can be cooked into breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.

Seriously, is there anything corn can’t do?

Unfortunately, corn can’t clean your kitchen, which is actually extra unfortunate considering preparing corn can be a little messy. You end up with silk in all the nooks and crannies or your kitchen, and cutting the kernels from the cob is like trying to trim water balloons with a chain saw, which is probably not tidy.

Since that’s really the only dark side to our favorite summer vegetable, we’re going to give it a pass. And we hope you can, too, because things are about to get a little messy.

Consider creamed corn. It’s objectively amazing, combining sweet corn with cream, butter, salt, and, if you like to party, maybe even a little cheese. Sadly, cream corn is officially not that great for our bodies—but, BREAKING NEWS! You can enjoy cream-like corn without any of the savory unsavoriness.

This is a quick tip that requires exactly 2 ingredients: corn and salt. Here’s what you’re going to do:

1. Shuck your corn, removing as much of the silk as possible.
2. With the largest hole on a box grater (the kind you would use to grate Cheddar cheese for chili), grate your corn over a big bowl. The bigger the bowl, the smaller your mess. Grate down to the cob, releasing all of that sweet corn milk.
3. Transfer the grated corn to a saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt, and simmer gently until the corn no longer tastes starchy, just about 5 minutes.
4. Eat it, thinking, “Man, corn is so versatile and delicious.”

We like serving the creamy corn with blackened white fish and some lightly dressed tomatoes (for the acidity), but there is no end to what this corn will expertly accompany. Pulled pork, grilled shrimp, chicken cacciatore, braised short ribs, stewed beans, charred octopus, meatloaf, BLTs (summer fantasy meal).

Feel free to make this fancy with some sautéed shallots or fresh herbs, but really truly, it’s perfect just the way it is.