cooking @ home

I needed a side for my oven BBQ brisket. Yeah I had little baked potatoes and some fresh coleslaw, but I still wanted something warm and flavorful and that was (for lack of better words) very “veggie”. I also wanted something more “regional” … in this case, southern or western or southwestern. It just seemed like that would go right with my indoor BBQ meal.

Now last week there were quite a few things I had bought for my BBQ party that I never made it out to the table. Why is that, you may ask? A combination of my being too ambitious, wanting to make too much food than was necessary, as well as for various reasons six people, three couples basically, had to bale out because of sickness or previous commitments. So there just wasn’t the impetuous to cook twice the amount of food for half the amount of people.

In short, I had these wonderful sweet yellow corn cobs in the freezer (Now, don’t knock frozen. When the Iron Chef makes Frozen Peas a secret ingredient, and various other frozen veggies are used by even five star chefs, frozen doesn’t deserve a bad knock, necessarily.) Ok, so here I was doing a Texas-style BBQ dish and I had corn. Only natural thing to do was stay in the same general area and go Southwestern.

Just as I had made my brisket in the oven. Here I was going to treat my frying pan more like a grill and “grill” (obviously the technical term here is actually in the title, pan roast) some corn and toss in some more regional ingredients and spices. I never tried this one before and I was happy with the success, the taste of it, this one is definitely going to be a oft-cooked dish in this house from now on!

Two thangs (yes, I said thangs), one, if you think this meal based on the ingredients is going to be hot, you’re wrong. It’s spiced but not spicy and actually a tad sweet. So no reason to be faint of heart, try it out. And secondly, considering this recipe I’ll jump right over giving any kind of “bon appetites” and just say instead: pull up a seat and chow down, amigos!

Southwestern Pan-Roasted Corn Vegetable Medley
©2007 Harry Kenney

ingredients:

4 small cobs or 2 large ones, kernels cut off
14 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup of diced tomatoes, drained (no can juice)
1/2 of a medium red onion, chunks, (or one whole small one)

season to taste:

cilantro
chilli powder
garlic powder
onion powder
salt
pepper
half-lime, juice

Roast the kernels in a pan on medium-high heat with a little vegetable or peanut oil. Don’t make it too oily as you want more of a “grill” thing than a “fry” thing going here. That said you do want a lot of movement of the food in the pan (like a stir-fry). Do though add oil now and then as needed as pan will burn it off and corn may soak some up. Add seasonings. Do want to see darkening of the yellow. A touch of brown. You do not ever want to see black or “burn” on your corn. If you do, it’s either too hot, or more than likely you are not moving the pan around enough or moving the corn with a spoon enough.

After a few minutes add the onion. And a little more oil. After another couple minutes, constantly stirring or flipping the pan, add the beans and tomatoes, more oil, a second helping of all the seasonings. Turn down to medium heat. After a few minutes, juice of half a lime. Wait another half minute for that to mix in and burn a little off. Serve. Makes enough for about four people.