Pickled Corn on the Cob
When you grow your own sweet corn, you can have plenty of fresh, tender ears to eat, can, freeze, and make yummy pickled corn on the cob. But the first order of business is to choose the right variety for your gardening situation and your personal taste.
Who Gets Kissed?
After trying numerous different sweet corn cultivars over the years, I discovered Who Gets Kissed? It’s an early variety that tolerates cold soil. It stays sweet longer than other varieties. And, best of all, my husband Allan — who professes not to care for corn on the cob — loves it.
This open-pollinated variety comes to us from the University of Wisconsin and gets its odd name from the days of pre-hybrid corn. In those early days, the color of corn kernels was highly variable. During husking bees, anyone who husked an ear with red kernels got to kiss the person of their choice. So the developers chose this corn’s name to indicate the variable color of the kernels.
The kernels of a Who Gets Kissed? ear may be mostly yellow or mostly white or nearly half and half. But so far we haven’t seen any red ones.
Growing Who Gets Kissed?
Who Gets Kissed? plants are compact and only up to 6-feet tall. And the 7-inch long ears grow about 2 feet above the ground. So this variety is a perfect fit for our raised bed garden.
We sow seeds around the time of spring’s last frost. We place them 10 inches apart in rows 10 inches apart, 2 seeds per hole. When the sprouts are 4 inches tall we thin to one per hole. Or, if one hole fails to sprout (which is rare) we leave two growing in the next hole.
Last year we tried something different that worked out super well. In autumn we gathered leaves to cover the garden soil over winter. In spring we spread the leaves apart to plant the corn.
The leaves kept the soil suitably moist and prevented weeds from crowding out the corn. Thus we didn’t have to spend any time weeding. And, as a bonus, for once we didn’t have a problem with crows.
About 11 weeks from planting we were enjoying the first fresh corn of the year. Successive planting every two to three weeks lets us enjoy homegrown corn throughout the corn growing season.
Recipe Notes
This recipe for pickled corn on the cob is a variation of Pickled Corn and Peppers from FoodNetwork. I slightly modified it to use ingredients that are available in our garden when the corn is ready to harvest.
For example, we grow celeriac because celery doesn’t grow well in our area; the two are basically interchangeable. Sometimes the orange bell peppers haven’t ripened yet, in which case I use all green bell peppers. And we rarely have red jalapeños early enough, so I use green ones and add a small carrot for color.
As for vinegar, we prefer the milder flavor of organic white to the stronger flavored apple cider vinegar. Regardless, Allan and I both agree these pickles are absolutely scrumptious. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
Pickled Corn on the Cob
Bring to a simmer:
1-1/3 cups vinegar
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 bay leaves
Stir until sugar dissolves.
Let brine cool.
Cut into 1″ chunks:
2 tender ears of corn
Cook corn pieces 5 minutes in:
boiling water to cover
Remove corn pieces and cool in:
cold water
In boiling water cook 2 minutes:
½ green pepper, cut into ½” strips
½ red or orange bell pepper, ½” strips
½ C celeriac, sliced thin
1 small carrot, sliced thin
Cool in cool water.
Combine vegetables in 1-quart jar with:
2 small jalapeño peppers, sliced thin
Cover with brine. Refrigerate 1 week before serving. Enjoy!
Excellent! Of all the ingredients I’ve ever considered pickling, corn on the cob was not one of them. Thanks for the recipe, I’m going to have to try it out!