(Inspired by “Corn’s On!” p. 75, Cornfields to Codfish)
Over many years, and through Iowa and Illinois and finally to Massachusetts, I’ve moved from boiling vegetables to more often roasting, sautéing, or steaming them. It’s taken a while to find the sweet spot for cooking corn on the cob, but I’ve finally found it. I consider this a bit of a cross between boiling and steaming.
Husk corn and place it in a pan big enough so that the ears can be mostly covered by water. Cover and bring the water to a boil, then turn off the heat and leave the pan covered on the burner for 10 minutes.
With tongs, remove ears from water to a plate. To butter hot corn on the cob, put a big pat of softened butter on a piece of bread and roll the ear of corn back and forth in the bread.
“In the corn patch, which was probably a hundred yards long and twenty rows deep, Dad picked corn and filled five-gallon buckets while I carried full buckets to the little Chevy S-10 pickup and emptied them into the truck bed. The cornstalks shot way over our heads and were thick enough to hide Dad among them.” (p. 75, Cornfields to Codfish)