Corn Meets Grill – Tips for Grilled Corn

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Planet Barbecue

By Steven Raichlen

July 5, 2024

Grilled Corn

Journey the world’s barbecue path and also you’ll discover a lot of constants. Each tradition has its model of grilled floor meat, for instance, from Center Japanese kofta to Pakistani chapli kebab to the basic American hamburger.

Meat on a stick is one other fixed, morphing from Peruvian anticuchos to French brochettes to Azeri lula, Indonesian sate, and Turkish shish kebab.

Summertime, with its farmers markets and roadside produce stands, will get me fascinated with one other dish that turns up on each nook of Planet Barbecue: grilled corn.

The brief record of memorable grilled corn I’ve eaten round Planet Barbecue contains:

Oaxaca, Mexico, where corn is grilled over a charcoal fire, slathered with mayonnaise (sure, mayonnaise), sprinkled with piquant grated cotija cheese, chili powder, and lime juice.
Port of Spain, Trinidad, the place grilled corn comes smeared with garlic-culantro butter.
Mumbai, India, the place they electrify grilled corn with recent lime juice and cayenne pepper.
Bogota, Colombia, the place road distributors grill corn over transportable charcoal braziers to be brushed with margarine, sprinkled with grating cheese, and served to you on a stick.
Hokaido, Japan, the place the corn is so supernaturally candy it requires nothing greater than a fast char over a binchotan charcoal fueled hibachi. (Elsewhere, Japanese grill masters baste much less candy varieties with a combination of melted butter and soy sauce, sprinkling on sesame seeds for crunch.

Individuals grill corn, too, however we’re riven by debate. On one facet: advocates of grilling corn within the husk, who argue that the husk retains the corn moist, defending the fragile kernels from scorching.

The opposite camp insists on grilling the corn bare (with husk off). This caramelizes the sugars within the kernels, producing candy, smoky caramel flavors. Grilling is all about hearth: You gained’t get massive flavors until the kernels are available direct contact with the flames. Husk on grilling steams the corn, these partisans argue, which provides you no extra additional taste than boiling.

For those who’ve watched Primal Grill or Barbecue College, you already know the place I stand on the controversy: I at all times grill my corn with the husk off. Or extra exactly, with husk stripped again (a way moderately like peeling a banana) and tied collectively beneath the ear to kind a type of deal with. This makes it straightforward to munch the flame-charred kernels proper off the cob. To maintain the husk handles from burning, slide a grill defend below them (pictured at high) or a sheet of folded aluminum foil.

Truly, there’s an exception to my husk off rule: corn grilled “caveman” model (pictured above). Right here you lay the ears, husk, silk and all, instantly on the embers and grill till the husk and silk burn off. A splash of butter, a grind of pepper, and a sprinkle of sea salt, and you might be the perfect corn on the planet.

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