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ffwd: corn pancakes
True confessions! I haven’t been totally excited about most of June’s recipes for French Fridays with Dorie. When I reviewed the list, I was completely uninspired by June’s finale, Corn Pancakes. I’ll admit that I like, but do not love, corn. When I read the recipe and saw that it called for canned corn, my ambivalence dropped a notch. We are on the cusp of local corn season, after all, not mid-winter. However, I’m in this group for the long haul, so I felt compelled to play along.
I’ll be the first to admit that I very wrong about this one! Fresh corn from the south is available in stores, so I couldn’t do the canned corn. I wasn’t sure how much to substitute, but two ears, cooked, and then stripped of their kernels, yielded just under two cups, which seemed about the same as a one pound can. There weren’t many ingredients, just the corn, eggs, a bit of flour, and salt.
The batter was a snap to mix up in the blender.
Then, the pancakes cooked in hot oil for just a few minutes.
I got about 18 little silver-dollar pancakes. The first night, we each had a few to accompany burgers.
Even better were the leftovers, reheated and topped with a dollop of crème fraîche and a piece of smoked salmon, the way that Jean-Georges Vongerichten served these for Dorie.
In the end, I really liked these and would definitely make them again, more likely as an appetizer served the “Jean-Georges” way.
If you want to see what the other bloggers thought about their corn pancakes, follow the links posted under the Leave Your Link post for Corn Pancakes. We don’t publish the recipes, but consider getting your own copy of the book, Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
French Fridays with Dorie: Corn Soup
It’s a new month with a new schedule of recipes for French Fridays with Dorie, and the first recipe on deck for September is Corn Soup. I don’t know what the rest of the month will bring, but I’d say we started off with a winner!
It doesn’t hurt that corn is in its prime right now. To be honest, at my house, corn doesn’t usually get any special treatment. It just gets eaten as steamed corn on the cob, no butter. My husband Howard is in his glory. He’s been eating two or three ears of corn every day since some time in August. I don’t have quite the same passion, but I eat one ear most days.
This is the second corn soup I made this week. I made chicken corn chowder during Tropical Storm Irene last weekend, before I knew Corn Soup was this week’s FFwD assignment. The two soups were completely different so it didn’t seem repetitive. Plus it was fun to compare them. My chowder was a hearty meal soup with chunks of chicken, corn and potatoes. Dorie’s Corn Soup was lighter and smoother, more of a starter, and tasted purely of corn.
The recipe starts with cutting the kernels off of the corn cobs. Then, the corn cobs steep in hot milk (I used 1%, not whole) to extract every last bit of corny flavor from the corn. A sweet onion is sautéed in butter along with some sliced carrots and celery and the corn kernels. Finally, the corny milk (with the cobs) and some herbs are added to the pot, and it simmers for a while. After extracting the cobs and herb stems and bay leaf, I pureed the soup in the blender.
A taste told me the soup was delicious, but I didn’t like the texture of the pureed corn kernels. It felt a little fussy, but I strained the soup. It was worth the effort. The result was a pot of silken gold.
Dorie suggested a variety of garnishes to choose from. I topped our steaming bowls with chopped bacon, scallions, sliced jalapenos, and a few slow-roasted tomatoes. All the contrasting flavors made a party in our mouths.
We followed the soup with a tomato tart. More on that later this weekend.
We’re asked not to post the recipes for the French Fridays selections. You can find them all in Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. The Summer Corn Soup recipe is already available here on Epicurious. You can also read about the other FFwD blogger’s experience with this recipe here.
Next week we’ll be making. Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice with Spinach. Stop by again next Friday to see how it came out.
A Plateful of Happiness 