I love corn. Corn on the cob, corn in a bowl, popcorn, corn bread, corn chili, corn on pizza, you name it. The only problem is, cooking a fresh ear of corn on the cob can be cumbersome. Corn.
In the past six months, the Internet has learned a lot of silently ground breaking tricks about the food around us, including how to eat a cupcake, how to eat an apple, how to dispense a Tic Tac, how to use ketchup cups, how to shuck a strawberry, and even how to eat out of Chinese takeout boxes correctly. Even with all our newfound food hacking however, as of last week, I absolutely failed at cooking corn.
This story starts early last week, when my other office desk-mate Phil and I were down in the Foodbeast dungeon cooking steaks for a long night at the office. My role in the kitchen that night was to handle all the vegetables. Onions, cool -- chop 'em up, throw 'em in the skillet. Same with the mushrooms. But when my eyes met the bag of ain't-no-one-got-time-for-that ears of corn, Phil must have spotted the dread in my voice when I suggested we forego that part of the meal.
"Do we really have time for the corn?" I asked, imagining having to fetch a pot big enough to house all the ears, getting the water to a boil, shucking the corn of their husks, and then watching them bob in water as the heat makes them edible.
Without batting an eye, Phil looked up from seasoning the steaks and walked over to the bag of corn. "Quit being a bitch -- just throw them in the microwave."
He grabbed two ears of corn out of the bag, husk-on, threw them in the nuke box, and went back to tending to the steaks. Seven or so minutes later (five-minute base, add a minute or so for every additional ear), he pulled them out of the microwave (they're hot, use a glove!), cut the stalk-end off with a sharp knife, an inch-or-so above where the kernels start. Once that was done, he grabbed the other end and squeezed a perfectly cooked ear of corn out of the husk, with all the silk strings left sticking out of the husky-exoskeleton:
Thanks: Phil. Microwave.
Not Thanking: Mom, WTF, again.