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Creamed Corn
Cut the corn from the cob; put it into a saucepan, covering it with milk. Put in one tablespoonful of sugar, and let it boil slowly for ten minutes; add an even teaspoonful of salt, of white pepper one-quarter teaspoonful; and add it to the dish with 1 tablespoonful of butter mixed with one-half tablespoonful of flour. Cook for a few minutes; stirring constantly. If not seasoned sufficiently the taste may be regulated by adding salt. Dried corn soaked overnight may be treated in the above manner.
A plain milk-braised corn thickened at the end with kneaded butter and flour. The whole dish takes about fifteen minutes once the kernels are off the cob.
- Quantity is left to the cookNo amount of corn is given. Six to eight ears yields roughly four cups of kernels and serves four to six; add milk only until the kernels are just submerged, as the recipe directs.
- Scrape the cobsThe recipe does not say to, but after cutting the kernels off you can run the back of the knife down each cob to press out the milky pulp, which adds starch and body.
- The butter and flour"One tablespoonful of butter mixed with one-half tablespoonful of flour" is beurre manié — soft butter kneaded to a paste with the flour and dropped in raw at the end. Stir until it melts and the milk thickens, a minute or two; do not add it dry or it will lump.
- Keep the heat lowMilk with sugar in it scorches on the bottom of the pan and will catch before you smell it. A heavy saucepan and a slow simmer, stirring now and then, are the point of "boil slowly."
- Ten minutes is for older cornTen minutes suits starchier corn -- Older sweet corn varieties were less sugary than modern supersweet hybrids, which are tender in a few minutes; long boiling will soften the kernels considerably.
- The sugarA tablespoon of sugar is called for; with very fresh sweet corn, taste before adding any at all.
- Dried cornSoak it overnight as directed, then simmer until the kernels are plump and no longer chewy before thickening; this will take considerably longer than the ten minutes given for fresh corn.