Come late summer time, recent corn is tough to withstand. Whenever you discover ears with tight, brilliant 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 provide, providing their candy, grain-rich goodness in distinctive methods. To cut back meals waste and eke essentially the most out of corn, put these cobs to make use of in one in all these simple methods. And should you don’t have the time or power to take action straight away, merely freeze your spent cobs in a zip-top freezer bag till you do.

Milk the cobs

After you narrow the kernels off an ear of corn, the cob nonetheless holds onto numerous milk and pulp that you may 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 uninteresting facet 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 should you’ve milked your cobs (and definitely should you haven’t), you can also make a scrumptious golden corn inventory. Use it in chowders or different summery soups, rather than hen inventory in a corn risotto, or on this tackle creamed corn. It’s simple to make following this easy 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. Carry to a boil, then cowl and simmer till the inventory has a delicate corn taste and golden colour, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (For extra intense corn taste, make it in a stress cooker, cooking on excessive stress for 25 minutes after which permitting the stress to launch naturally.) Pressure the inventory and use it straight away, 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. Permit 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 delicate wink of corn taste. Enjoyable reality: I did this very factor for a good friend’s going-away dinner, infusing the bottom of a summery panna cotta. Friends gushed over the dessert, and though they couldn’t fairly identify the additional taste they detected, they stated the custard tasted richer and extra intriguing than another panna cotta they’d ever had.

Smoke meat

No wooden chips or chunks? No drawback. You should utilize your spent corn cobs as a substitute; they’ll create a candy smoke that may improve hen, pork, or beef with delicate 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’ll wooden chips, tossing them straight onto sizzling coals and permitting them to supply smoke. 

Make jelly

Do a Google seek for “corn cob jelly” and also you’ll discover people who swear by the deliciousness of this old school recipe. Redditors report that it tastes like honey and level out that it’s an incredible vegan different 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 numerous people who say their canine 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, may trigger hurt (corresponding to an intestinal blockage) for each canine and cats.