Saturday, September 25, 2010

The last of the very good stuff: corn

A week or two ago, on twitter, I bragged that the corn zucchini pancakes I'd made the night before were equally good, eaten cold the next day for lunch. Then I promised I'd write up the recipe. As time dragged on, I worried that I was missing the window for a post about corn to be relevant, but it looks like the last dribs and drabs of corn are still showing up at the market (and last night I had an amazing corn dish at Momofuku noodle bar--with miso butter. Yowza).

So here goes--I grabbed this easy little recipe off the internets because it didn't require buttermilk. The first time I made it I even substituted water for the milk (didn't have milk either, sad to say). Even without milk they were tasty, but they improved when I added milk the second time. Also I had some zucchini in the fridge and had just recently discovered how easy they are to grate on a box grater (oh yeah I should blog that raw zucchini salad I made up).

And so, here you have 'em, corn zucchini pancakes. Can I get a hallelujah?

1 cup all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar (scant or less)
1 tsp kosher salt
4 ears corn
1 small or medium zucchini, skin on, grated and drained
3/4 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, and 1 tsp salt in a medium bowl.

Cut kernels from cobs and use the back of a knife to scrape the pulp from the cobs--this is a marvelous technique that I can't believe I only started doing this summer. Add grated zucchini. Whisk in eggs, oil, and butter. Add to flour mixture.

Heat a griddle over medium heat until hot, then melt butter to grease the pan. And then make pancakes, you know what I'm saying? Wait until you see bubbles in the batter, that's how you know you're ready to flip them.