Microwave Summer Cream Corn ♥ A Reader Recipe!

Fresh 'plain' sweet corn cooked in the microwave, the results are hardly 'plain'. So easy, so summery.
Today's "plain" corn recipe with "hardly plain" results: Just fresh sweet corn cooked in the microwave, tossed with butter, a little milk or cream and seasoning. So easy, so summmery! Real food. Paleo.

I was thrilled to see this easy recipe for cooking fresh sweet corn in the microwave pop up in my InBox. Thank you, Janet! I love it when readers share their favorite recipes! Let's let Janet herself tell the story.

"Summer Cream Corn was my mother's recipe. I've never written it down until now but I've been making it for forty years. Yesterday my granddaughters ate two helpings – they love grandma's corn! You can tweak it the way you would like it – it's just too easy."

"Take twelve ears of white delish summer corn (or more for a larger amount). Cut the corn off the ears, then scrape down the ears to get all the milk out. Put in a microwave for 6 minutes, then add a little water, stir and cook another 6 minutes. Do this until the corn is tender but not over cooked. Add a tablespoon of butter (optional) and milk (I don't like it runny so add the milk a little at a time). Stir and cook 3 more minutes. Taste for salt and pepper (I use white pepper). Make sure you cook the corn with water before you add the milk – it just works better."

"Thanks for all your recipes and help."

Thank you, Janet! Maybe it was the first-of-the-summer sweet corn but I was kinda knocked over at how easy it was to cook sweet corn in the microwave – but not just easy but good, too!

This recipe is so quick and easy that I'm adding it to a growing collection of easy summer recipes published all summer long at Kitchen Parade, my food column. With a free Kitchen Parade e-mail subscription, you'll never miss a one!

NOT A FAN OF MICROWAVES? Okay, fine, I get that some people have strong views against microwaves. You are welcome to politely and thoughtfully express them here but please respect that others, including me, don't share that view. Hateful comments or unnecessary rants will be microwaved for an hour deleted.

RECIPE for MICROWAVE SUMMER CREAM CORN

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 30 minutes
Serves 4

1 pound fresh corn kernels from about three to four ears of corn
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons whole milk or cream
Salt to taste
White pepper to taste

Cook corn kernels in a microwave-safe dish on high for six minutes. Stir well, add the water, then cook for another six minutes. Continue cooking, three minutes at a time and stirring after each session, until corn is tender but still has some good crunch. Stir in butter until it melts, then milk or cream. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.

ALANNA's TIPS & KITCHEN NOTES
FRESH CORN You definitely want to use fresh sweet corn for this recipe, that's what makes it so special. It does take a little time to scrape the corn kernels off the corn ears but it's not hard, see How to Cut Corn Off the Cob, Keeping All Ten Fingers, Capturing Every Delicious Kernel and Every Drop of Sweet Corn 'Milk'. I am finding my new tomato knife really handy for this! You can do the cutting a few hours ahead of time, then cook the corn right before serving.
MILK vs CREAM Janet uses milk. But I thought, Hey, she calls her recipe "Summer Cream Corn". No deceptive advertising here, I'll use real cream. It's very good with whole milk but dreamy with cream ... your call.
BLACK PEPPER vs WHITE PEPPER Don't buy white pepper just for this, black pepper works fine, the white is just a little prettier and hotter.
MICROWAVES & TIMING Different microwaves have different powers, this makes predicting exactly how long to cook the corn problematic. Just taste as you go along, you'll know!
FOR EVERYDAY I think this is a fine way to cook fresh sweet corn, so simple. Even without the butter and cream, it makes for very tasty sweet corn! I've now cooked corn this way three times in a couple of weeks!
MAKE-AHEAD While cooking corn like this is easy-easy to do at the last minute, my own "summer-easy" when having people over is to do as much as I can ahead of time, minimizing all last-minute kitchen time. For this corn, I do the first two six-minute stints an hour or two or three ahead of time and then either leave on the counter or put into the fridge, depending on how long it's going to be. Then just before serving, I start the last cooking and then add the milk, butter and seasoning. So good!



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MORE FAVORITE CORN RECIPES

~ Raw Corn Chowder ~
~ Cooler Corn - How to Cook Corn in a Beer Cooler ~
~ Grilled Sweet Corn (in the Husks) with Spiced Lime Butter ~
~ Warm Tomato, Corn & Okra Salad ~
~ more corn recipes ~
from A Veggie Venture

~ Fresh Creamed Corn ~
~ Creamy Ricotta with Tomato-Cucumber-Corn Salad ~
~ Sweet-Corn Soup with Shrimp ~
~ more corn recipes ~
from Kitchen Parade

A Veggie Venture is home of 'veggie evangelist' Alanna Kellogg and the
famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.
© Copyright Kitchen Parade 2014


Alanna Kellogg
Alanna Kellogg

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

Comments

  1. Will try it this way, but being basically lazy, the way I eat corn is to put 2 ears of corn, husks n all into microwave for 4 minutes (they steam in their husks) pull 'em out with a clean dish towel, yank all the inedibles off, and cut the kernels off ... butter, S.P. Heaven!

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  2. Patricia ~ I’m “basically lazy” too. :-) I cook corn in the microwave too, it’s here -- http://kitchen-parade-veggieventure.blogspot.com/2005/08/day-119-quick-corn.html -- though I do take the husks off first. Another reader who wrote a couple of days ago says that she wraps the corn (still in their husks) in newspaper and then puts them in the microwave. I need to try all these variations! PS I’m pretty smitten with this particular technique, in part, because I find it so easy to prep in advance, cook just before serving -- maybe that’s because I tend to cook corn when people are coming over vs just for the two of us. Thanks for writing!

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  3. AnonymousJuly 15, 2014

    I'm Curious If You Were To Cook This On The Stovetop -How Would The Cooking Times Change? And What Other Changes Would Need To Be Made?

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  4. Anonymous ~ Good question! If it were me, I would cook it in a quite-large saucepan, one with quite a bit of surface area so that the corn is only an inch or two deep. I’d probably add a tablespoon or two of water to start, just to keep the sugars in the corn from burning in close contact with the heat from the stove. I’d stir it often -- to watch how it’s going, again, not to burn -- and cook just until barely done, maybe five minutes? I also hope that by this time, the liquid has cooked off, so that when I add the butter and milk/cream, it doesn’t get watered down. Hope this helps! Let me know if you try it this way --

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  5. AnonymousJuly 15, 2014

    Sounds great! Can't wait to try it. If I'm only making a couple of ears of corn, I do them in the microwave now (in the husks, wrapped in damp paper towels).

    I'm not usually one to buy a lot of kitchen gadgets, but I bought the Zyliss Corn Stripper (impulse buy at my grocery store), and it's one of my favorite gadgets ever! It's the easiest way ever to get kernels off the cob. I cook corn on the cob for my husband because he likes to eat it that way, but after it's cooked I strip mine to eat it, so I don't get all of the fiber in my teeth.

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  6. CabledSheep - Thanks for the tip! I just look up the Zyliss Corn Stripper -- here, on Amazon, sorry, the comment system won’t accept a hyperlink, http://www.amazon.com/Zyliss-71890-Corn-Stripper/dp/B006GDRD9G -- and have to laugh because it’s got a serrated edge, as does my new tomato knife that works so beautifully on corn!

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  7. AnonymousJuly 16, 2014

    Hello, I just printed this corn recipe and got 12 pages, How do I just print the recipe and not all the other pages?

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  8. Anonymous ~ Ack, so sorry! Do you see the little orange box below the recipe that says “printer friendly recipe”? That’s the print button, it’ll take you to an abbreviated page that’s just the recipe, no photo, no commentary, no printing ads or sidebars. But -- the link was broken. :-( I’ve fixed it now. So sorry for the wasted paper, I do appreciate your letting me know you had trouble.

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  9. AnonymousJuly 16, 2014

    Thank you so much for the info on the little orange box. It worked perfectly

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  10. You’re so welcome, I was glad to be given the chance to fix it! Enjoy the corn!

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  11. AnonymousJuly 19, 2014

    This is the same as my Mother and my Aunts recipe. Neither had a microwave they did it on stove top just as you described on July 15. Start in the pot with a couple tbsp. water, sometimes you need to add a little more (less than a tbsp.) at a time till cooked. We always did lots of corn this way and froze it in bags for winter

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  12. Anonymous ~ That’s so great to know, thanks for taking the time to write! I especially like the “freezer” tip!

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Thank you for taking a moment to write! I read each and every comment, for each and every recipe, whether a current recipe or a long-ago favorite. If you have a specific question, it's nearly always answered quick-quick. ~ Alanna