RecipesCharles Sieg

Corn on the Cob

Whole ears of corn on a hot grill, turned often, for about forty minutes.

Corn on the Cob: Grilled ears of corn in charred, blistered husks, one ear with the husk pulled back to show bright yellow kernels, lined up on a dark wooden board
Grill
450°F
Total time
55min
servings
6

Method

A line, step, tool, or note tagged Filled in was added by the editor because the original left it out.

  1. Preheat grill to 450-500.
  2. Place corn.
  3. Rotate frequently and pull after 40 minutes or so.

Notes

Tips

  • The original doesn’t say whether the husks stay on. Forty minutes at this heat points to corn left in its husk, which steams inside while the outside chars. Shucked ears brown much sooner, so watch them and pull them when the kernels are tender.
    Filled in

Commentary

The whole cookout

So preheat smoker and grill.

  1. Put lamb in the smoker and the corn on the grill.

  2. After 40 minutes, pull the corn. Put the steaks on, sear each side 2 minutes.

  3. At 45 minutes, sear the lamb chops.

  4. Remove the corn. Finish the steak.

The same plan is laid out as a timeline on the Cookout page.

Nutrition Facts

6 servings per recipe

Serving size1 ear

Amount per serving

Calories90

% Daily Value*

  • Total Fat 1.5g2%
  • Saturated Fat 0g0%
  • Trans Fat 0g
  • Cholesterol 0mg0%
  • Sodium 15mg1%
  • Total Carbohydrate 19g7%
  • Dietary Fiber 2g7%
  • Total Sugars 6g
  • Includes 0g Added Sugars0%
  • Protein 3g
  • Vitamin D 0mcg0%
  • Calcium 0mg0%
  • Iron 0.5mg2%
  • Potassium 280mg6%

* The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

How this label was figured
Ingredient lineCountedUSDA foodNote
6 ears of corn612 gCorn, sweet, yellow, raw
Butter and salt, for servingnot countedOptional, so it is not counted.
  • Each ear is figured as a medium ear, which the USDA says yields 102 grams of kernels.
  • Butter and salt at the table are not counted.

Nine thousand years on the cob

Corn was domesticated in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago, and the sweet corn that goes on the grill is a small, sugary corner of the crop.

Every ear of corn traces back to one place. A 2002 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that “all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago.”

The corn on a grill is not the corn in most fields. Mississippi State University Extension says sweet corn makes up only one percent of the corn grown in the United States each year. Illinois Extension explains the difference: sweet corn is sweeter because of a “sugary (su) gene,” and it is picked at the “milk stage,” when the kernels are fully formed but not completely mature.

That sugar does not last. New Mexico State University notes that after harvest the sucrose in standard sweet corn “is rapidly converted to starch,” which is the reason to cook corn soon after you buy it.

Grilling it in the husk is street food in Mexico, where an ear of corn is an elote, from a Nahuatl word for “tender cob.” Vendors there sell elotes asados, splashed with salt water and grilled in the coals until the husks start to burn.

Sources

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