Sweet-Corn Variations

One advantage of this year’s cold summer is that, barring an early blizzard, we may have sweet corn around as late as Halloween. Scott Pampuch, owner and chef of one of Minneapolis’s leading farm-driven restaurants, Corner Table, says this makes 2009 the perfect year to better your understanding of sweet corn. “Lots of people think sweet corn is just sweet,” says Pampuch, “but after five years of getting ours from farms in Plano, Delano, Dover, and a couple of places in Wisconsin, I can tell you, it all tastes slightly different. We get some that’s so sweet, we soak it in milk and use the sweetened milk in desserts or flan. Other sweet corn is so starchy it just blooms in the pan into the silkiest, richest sauce.” Report to Corner Table this month to taste for yourself in this three-part sweet-corn appetizer featuring, top to bottom, sweet-corn polenta topped with a charred heirloom tomato and smoked corn relish, fried green tomatoes in a local cornmeal crust, and sweet-corn flan topped with housemade pancetta. 

Corner Table, 4257 Nicollet Ave. S., Mpls., 612-823-0011, cornertablerestaurant.com