Across the Kitchen Table:

Sweet Corn Heaven

Don’t Just Smell the Lavender — Cook With It!

Equipment.
For everything but the largest and sturdiest fish and vegetables, a perforated grill basket (available at hardware stores) will make life much easier. Some models are hinged to clamp the food between layers of mesh, like a campfire toaster, so you can turn everything over at once. Other designs are shaped like flat-bottomed woks, making it easy to stir and turn the food with a spatula. In a pinch, you can make your own grill basket by poking holes in an aluminum pie plate.

Be sure to oil the cold grill basket and the cleaned grill before starting the charcoal or gas fire. Spray cans of olive or canola oil are great for this (don’t spray onto a hot grill, unless you want an extra thrill).

A basting brush (a new 1" or 2" paintbrush works fine) is handy for glazing seafood or vegetables with marinade or sauce while they are cooking.

Heavy aluminum foil can be folded into packets, which can cook directly on the grill. Remember the "hobo bundles" of hamburger meat, sliced potatoes, and onions you made long ago in Scouts? It’s the same principle, and the combinations can be as creative as you like. Experiment! For inspiration, see the recipes that accompany this story.

Thin bamboo skewers hold restless shrimp or cherry tomatoes in place and look good on the serving platter. Soak the skewers in water beforehand to keep them from burning.

Timing, Temperature, and Technique
A reliable rule of thumb for cooking fish fillets or steaks over medium heat is to allow about 5 minutes for each 1/2" of thickness, or 10 minutes per inch. (This holds true for oven or stovetop as well.) For individual items like shrimp or scallops, subtract a minute or two from the time, depending on size. Well-cooked fish will flake easily; shrimp will be firm and opaque clear through; scallops should also be opaque, but softer than shrimp. Like a good steak, fish can go from perfect to overcooked in a matter of seconds, so be vigilant.

Temperature for direct grilling should be medium: on a charcoal grill, this means that the briquettes have a covering of fine ash and the grill rack is 4 to 6 inches above the coals. To test the temperature with your hand, hold your palm just above the rack and count the number of seconds you can comfortably keep it there. Two seconds signifies a hot fire; 4 seconds, medium; 6 seconds, slow.

To grill vegetables, cut or slice them to a uniform size. Dense vegetables like potatoes, fennel, leeks, and carrots should be precooked or parboiled for a few minutes. Eggplant, mushrooms, summer squash and zucchini, peppers, and the like can go directly on the grill. Brush the vegetables generously with olive oil or butter and grill uncovered over medium to medium-hot coals until tender and slightly charred.

Taste
Marinating fish is a good way to add moistness and flavor and keep it from drying out on the grill. Don’t marinate seafood for more than 2 hours, however, or it will toughen.

To infuse vegetables and seafood with herbal flavors, soak bundles of fresh rosemary, oregano, marjoram, tarragon, or other herbs in water and lay them on the coals while the food is cooking.

The vast array of prepared salad dressings, sauces, and marinades on the grocery shelves is a boon to any cook who has limited time (isn’t that all of us?). Add the exotic notes of Thai, Indian, Mexican, or other ethnic flavor by brushing one of them over grilled food in the last few minutes of cooking. For vegetables, I especially love Newman’s Own Caesar Dressing, tossed with vegetables before grilling.

Seafood and citrus are always compatible. Try reducing orange or grapefruit juice and stirring in a bit of butter and seasonings to make a glossy sauce that may well add a saucy gloss to your presentation!

Grilling Recipes:

Grilled Swordfish with Tapenade

Tapenade:

In a blender or food processor, blend the olives, garlic, anchovies, capers, 1/4 olive oil, and mustard, adding ingredients slowly until mixture is finely chopped. Transfer to a bowl and cover surface with remaining 2 teaspoons olive oil to seal. Refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Swordfish:

Rub swordfish with olive oil and basil. When coals are medium, place swordfish on grill and cook for about 10 minutes for each 1" of thickness, or until fish flakes easily with a fork. Turn fish once during cooking. Place on a platter and top each serving with a generous dollop of tapenade. Sprinkle with parsley. Makes 4 servings.

Skewered Shrimp with Soy and Ginger Dipping Sauce

2 pounds medium shrimp
1/4 cup peanut oil
salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Peel shrimp and keep cool until ready to grill. Soak skewers in water. When coals are medium, combine peanut oil, salt and pepper, and cayenne pepper in a bowl. Add raw shrimp to bowl and toss with your hands until shrimp are coated. Place shrimp on skewers and grill until done, about 5 minutes in all. Serve with a dipping sauce made from soy sauce, garlic, ginger root, and lemon juice, whisked together. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Scallop and Shrimp Kabobs with Orange-Pineapple Glaze

12 fresh sea scallops (about 3/4 pound, depending on size)
12 fresh large shrimp (about 3/4 pound, depending on size)
1 20-ounce can pineapple chunks in unsweetened juice
1 cup fresh orange juice
2 teaspoons butter
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
salt and pepper
1 red sweet pepper, cut into 12 chunks

Thread scallops and shrimp onto 4 long skewers. Clean and oil the grill, and light it. Drain pineapple chunks, placing juice (about 3/4 cup) in a medium saucepan. Add orange juice to the saucepan and simmer until juices are reduced by half (about 10 minutes). Whisk in butter, ginger, and salt and pepper and set aside. Thread pineapple chunks and pepper chunks onto 4 skewers, alternating colors if desired.

Grill scallops and shrimp on the grill, uncovered, for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once. Brush with some sauce during last 2 minutes of cooking. Grill pineapple and peppers during the last 5 minutes of cooking, turning once and brushing with some sauce during last 2 minutes of cooking. Drizzle as desired with remaining sauce to serve. Makes 4 servings.

Seafood Hobo Bundles

Cut 4 pieces of foil, each 18" x 12", and spray with cooking oil. On each piece of foil, place 1 cup of potatoes in a thin layer; top with a piece of fish, a dusting of Old Bay or other seasoning, 1/4 cup peas, salt and pepper; and dot with 1/2 tablespoon butter. Seal foil into bundles using double folds (you remember how to do this, right?), allowing room for steam expansion.

Place bundles seam-side up on the grill over medium coals. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, rearranging bundles occasionally to be sure they cook uniformly. Open bundles carefully so steam can escape. Makes 4 servings.

Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches

Grilled Tomatoes

Sweet Corn Heaven

Pull the corn out of the hot water and pile it in a bowl. If you are eating alone, cover the bowl with foil to keep it warm as you gradually devour the fresh, crisply tender sweet corn.

For those without their own corn patch (i.e., most of us), the key to good eating is to get the freshest, most local corn possible. For standard sweet corn, flavor starts to deteriorate after a day (more quickly than that if the corn isn’t kept cool) as the sugars turn to starch. Supersweet varieties (which are not actually sweeter, but retain their sweetness longer after picking) will last two days under good conditions before flavor begins to wane.

How to Tell When Corn Is Ripe
Harvest when the husk is still green, the silks are dry and brown (an average of 20 days after the first silks appear), the cob has filled out to the tip, and a punctured kernel contains a milky liquid. (If the liquid is clear, the corn is immature; if it’s absent, you’re too late.

If you are buying corn at a farmer’s market or grocery store, you can still look for these qualities. Ask the manager when the corn was picked and if it has been kept cool.

Corn Culture
Columbus may have been hoping for gold when he stumbled across the New World, but the real yellow treasure was in the form of a native grain that the Spanish called maíz, from the Caribbean Taino Indians’ name for their staple, "mahis". Native Mesoamericans started cultivating corn about 8000 years ago. Today, corn is grown on every continent except Antarctica. It is by far the major feed grain grown by U.S. farmers, most of whom live in the "Corn Belt," which extends from Ohio and Kentucky in the east to Nebraska and South Dakota in the west (the latter state home of a fabulous baroque edifice called the Corn Palace in downtown Mitchell).

American farmers cultivate 71 million acres of field or dent corn. Sweet corn, at 120,000 acres, is just a tiny percentage of the crop. If you are tempted to raid a few ears of corn from a vast field in the Corn Belt, not only are you stealing — you may be in for a gustatory disappointment. Field corn is distinguished by its hard outer shell and soft and floury inner kernel. Raccoons might not mind, but you will.

For many curious facts about corn, go to the source: Web sites out of Iowa. The Maize Page from Iowa State University is a favorite: http://maize.agron.iastate.edu/general.html. Then there’s www.iowafarmer.com, with its corn camera and links to other corn-y sites, www.iowasweetcorn.com (they ship vacuum-packed sweet corn overnight), and others. Virginia Cooperative Extension (www.ext.vt.edu) and the State of Ohio’s Corn Marketing Program (www.ohiocorn.org) have good tidbits — or they might be niblets — of information and recipes.

Sweet Corn Recipes

Roasted Sweet Corn on the Cob

Soak unhusked corn in cold water for about 30 minutes. Remove and gently pull back the husks without detaching them. Pull out the silks, brush the corn with the butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and wrap the husks back around the kernels. Grill over medium coals for about 15 minutes, turning often and checking for doneness. Serves 2 hungry or 4 polite people.

Chile-Lime Butter

Try this slathered on cooked sweet corn, whether grilled or boiled.

Place butter in bowl and add remaining ingredients, blending until smooth. Serve with hot corn. Makes enough for 6 to 8 ears of corn.

Oven-Roasted Corn with Herbs

Husk corn. Rub with butter, about 1 tablespoon per ear. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Place sprigs of herbs on buttered corn, wrap ears in foil, and roast at 350°F for about 20 minutes, turning occasionally. Serve hot. Makes 2 to 4 servings.

Corn Salsa

Drop ears of corn in boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes to parboil. Let cool, then slice kernels off cobs, and place corn and juices in a bowl. Combine with remaining ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate, covered, for at least one hour. Makes about 2-1/2 cups salsa.

Sweet Corn Fritters

Add beaten eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and baking powder to corn and mix thoroughly. Stir in cream. Melt the fat in a frying pan and drop corn mixture by spoonfuls into the hot fat. Brown on both sides. Makes 16-18 fritters.

Fresh Corn and Ginger Soup

Shuck the corn and cut the kernels off the cobs (don’t cut too deeply). In a heavy soup pot, combine the corn kernels and juice, onion, zucchini, red pepper, ginger, and butter. Cook gently over low heat until the vegetables are crisp-tender. Add the chicken broth and cumin and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, stir in the cream (do not let cream boil). Makes 4 servings.

Don’t Just Smell the Lavender — Cook With It!

Lavender is "hot" in the world of aromatherapy, and world production is up. Some of the finest quality lavender comes from Tasmania, rivaling the famous lavender fields of England and France. We have the ancient Romans to thank for this. They loved to use the herb in their bath water (in fact, the word lavender is derived from the Latin lava, "to wash"). The Romans brought the sun-loving Mediterranean plant to Britain, where it was cultivated in monastic gardens.

Medieval herbalists used lavender in oils and teas to ease stiff joints and relieve tiredness. People believed that nosegays of lavender would ward off the plague and pestilence (lavender does indeed have certain antibiotic properties), and by the 17th century huge fields of lavender in the south of France supplied the perfume and essential oil makers of Europe. You may associate the smell with your grandmother’s handerchief box, but lavender is also an underlying note in many modern perfumes and cosmetics.

In the garden, lavender loves sun and thrives in well-drained soils. It appreciates a "haircut" each spring and autumn, as long as you don’t cut down into the woody stems. Hardy lavenders will live for years in Zone 4 and warmer (I have a plant that is close to 20 years old). Cultivars of Lavandula angustifolia tend to have the best-smelling flowers and leaves. Avoid the types called lavandin (L. x. intermedia), which have an overtone of camphor.

And don’t just smell the lavender — you can eat it too! Use it to flavor vinegar, bury sprigs in sugar the way you would a vanilla bean, toss it with salad greens, or try one of the recipes that follow. For more information, go to www.lavendergrowers.com, www.lavenderfarms.com, or look for Jekka McVicar’s book Herbs for the Home.

Lavender Chutney

Combine all ingredients in a large pot and add 1 cup water. Simmer until the mixture thickens. Pour into sterilized jars and process in a boiling-water bath; or pour into freezer containers and store in the freezer. Serve with cream cheese and crackers or to accompany pork or chicken.

Lavender Shortbread

Cream the butter with the brown sugar and vanilla until light. Add the lavender flowers and mix until blended. Gradually add flour until dough forms. Chill dough for about 30 minutes and divide in half. On an ungreased cookie sheet, pat out each half into a 7" diameter circle. Prick dough with a fork in a decorative pattern. Cover dough with plastic wrap and chill for an hour. Bake at 325°F for 25 to 30 minutes, until firm but still pale. Cool on cookie sheets on a rack. Remove carefully and cut into wedges. Makes 16 to 20 wedges.

Chilled Blueberry Lavender Buttermilk Soup

Pick through and wash blueberries. In a soup pot combine the berries, maple syrup, and lemon juice. Simmer the mixture for 30 minutes. Puree the soup in a blender until smooth. Chill. Soak the lavender sprigs in the buttermilk and cream for an hour, then strain. Combine the chilled soup base with the perfumed cream mixture. Chill the soup 4 hours before serving to allow flavors to develop. Serve in chilled bowls garnished with blueberry lavender ice cubes. For the ice cubes, fill an ice cube tray with lavender blossoms and blueberry juice, then freeze. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

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