Cheesy Corn

Where I live, there is corn on the cob all year long. After a while, you start to get a little bored and look for other ways to eat it. Corn cooked in sweetened butter is popular, but I prefer it with cheese. So I came up with this recipe for Cheesy Corn, or kernel corn stir-fry with cheese sauce. It's rich and cheesy - I hope you love it, too!

Serves: 2-3 people

Takes: about 10 minutes

Equipment

Knife and cutting board

Pot or saucepan (about 1 L / 1 quart)

Whisk (if you don't have a whisk, you can use 2 forks held back-to-back)

Large frying pan or wok

Ingredients

For the corn stir-fry:

1 tsp butter

1 Tablespoon cooking oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 chilies, finely chopped (optional)

2-3 cobs worth of cooked corn cut in kernels, about 3 cups (you could also use canned corn, but drain it first)

herbs and spices (optional - I used thyme and chipotle powder)

2 green onions, finely chopped

For the cheesy sauce:

1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon butter

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp garlic powder

3/4 cup (175ml) milk

1 1/2 cups (350ml) grated cheese (sharp cheddar gives a great flavour, mozzarella makes it goey - I used a 2:1 mix of cheddar to mozza)

Heat a pan or wok on medium heat and add 1 Tbsp of oil and melt 1 tsp of butter into it.

When melted, add garlic and optional chilies.

Let garlic just start to brown, then add corn and any herbs and spices you've chosen.

Stir-fry the corn for about 2-3 minutes, just to let the flavours mix since the corn is already cooked.

Add the green onions and cook one more minute, then turn off heat and cover to keep hot.

It's done!

This sauce is basically a French roux with milk and cheese added. It's not hard to make, but you have to be careful not to burn it. It's also really hard to make this sauce in a small quantity, so here I'm making a cup of the sauce. But you'll really only need half of it for this much corn (2-3 cobs). You can double the corn stir-fry recipe, or just have a great cheese sauce left over!

First, warm your pot on medium heat, then add in the flour dry. Whisk it around and cook it until you start to notice a nice smell, but don't let it burn. If it turns a bit brown, you're still OK.

Add the butter and whisk it with the flour to mix it all together. (Remember, if you don't have a whisk, you can hold 2 forks back to back instead. I actually prefer this for getting in the corners of the pot.)

This will only take a few seconds. That's a roux.

Now add the milk, whisking constantly. Heat the mixture up for a couple of minutes, whisking slowly the whole time. Or you can whisk a few seconds and stop for a few seconds. You want this mixture to boil and get really thick and sticky. It should coat your whisk like in my picture.

Finally, turn off the heat and toss in all the grated cheese and mix it together to melt. If it's too hot, you can ruin the cheese and make it clumpy, so make sure the heat is off. This will make the sauce so deliciously thick and gooey!

Look at the cheese stretch!

Now all that's left is to get this dish on a plate. You could pour the sauce into the pan with the corn stir-fry and mix it together. However, I think it's prettier to plate the corn and then pour the cheese sauce over top.

A little black pepper. Something green.

That's it - delicious, cheesy corn!

This dish feeds 2-3 people as a side dish or a nice part of dinner. It has a great flavour profile, with the sweet crunchiness of the corn complemented by the salty-sour taste of cheese. And of course, don't be afraid to make it spicy!

I hope you love this dish as much as I do!!