The best way to Use Leftover Corn Cobs

Come late summer season, recent corn is tough to withstand. While you discover ears with tight, vivid inexperienced husks and moist, golden silks, it is best to seize up as a lot as you’ll be able to. After consuming your fill of scrumptious corn dishes — creamed corn, grilled corn on the cob, salads and chowders and pastas and risottos — there’s nonetheless extra to get pleasure from.

Spent corn cobs, these stripped of their kernels, nonetheless have a lot to offer, providing their candy, grain-rich goodness in distinctive methods. To scale back meals waste and eke essentially the most out of corn, put these cobs to make use of in considered one of these simple methods. And for those who don’t have the time or power to take action instantly, merely freeze your spent cobs in a zip-top freezer bag till you do.

Milk the cobs

After you chop the kernels off an ear of corn, the cob nonetheless holds onto plenty of milk and pulp that you could extract by milking it. Merely maintain the cob vertically on a piece floor, and scrape down the size of the cob with a spoon or the boring aspect of a chef’s knife to launch the milk and pulp. This candy, starchy goodness helps to thicken and taste creamed corn and chowders, infuses polenta or pasta with extra grain goodness, and elevates a summery lasagna.

Make corn inventory

Even for those who’ve milked your cobs (and definitely for those who haven’t), you may make a scrumptious golden corn inventory. Use it in chowders or different summery soups, instead of rooster inventory in a corn risotto, or on this tackle creamed corn. It’s simple to make following this straightforward recipe:

Place 6 to eight spent corn cobs and 1 halved candy onion (sear the lower sides to deepen the colour of the inventory) in a Dutch oven and canopy with 2 quarts water. Convey to a boil, then cowl and simmer till the inventory has a refined corn taste and golden shade, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (For extra intense corn taste, make it in a strain cooker, cooking on excessive strain for 25 minutes after which permitting the strain to launch naturally.) Pressure the inventory and use it instantly, or cool to room temperature and refrigerate for as much as 5 days or freeze for as much as 2 months.

Infuse custards

Break these spent cobs in half and toss them into the custard base for ice cream or panna cotta. Enable the corn to infuse into the liquid in a single day or for as much as a day or two. You’ll get a dessert deal with with added richness and a refined wink of corn taste. Enjoyable reality: I did this very factor for a pal’s going-away dinner, infusing the bottom of a summery panna cotta. Company gushed over the dessert, and though they couldn’t fairly title the additional taste they detected, they mentioned the custard tasted richer and extra intriguing than every other panna cotta they’d ever had.

Smoke meat

No wooden chips or chunks? No drawback. You should use your spent corn cobs as an alternative; they’ll create a candy smoke that may improve rooster, pork, or beef with refined taste. You’ll want to make use of recent or frozen cobs that haven’t had an opportunity to dry out. If they’re dry, soak them in water for a few hours so that they don’t instantly incinerate. Use them as you’d wooden chips, tossing them straight onto scorching coals and permitting them to supply smoke. 

Make jelly

Do a Google seek for “corn cob jelly” and also you’ll discover of us who swear by the deliciousness of this old style recipe. Redditors report that it tastes like honey and level out that it’s a terrific vegan various to the bee-derived syrup. You make it by boiling spent corn cobs in water and including sugar and pectin.

However don’t give these cobs to pets

Though you’ll discover plenty of of us who say their canines and cats like to chew on spent corn cobs, specialists advise towards giving them to your pets. The cobs are indigestible and, if eaten in even small items, might trigger hurt (resembling an intestinal blockage) for each canines and cats.