Husk-Grilled Corn With Brown Sugar-Cayenne Butter

Husk-grilled corn with brown sugar-cayenne butter

There’s nothing better than summer corn, and unless you’re standing out in a corn field eating it raw, there’s no better way to prepare corn than to grill it.

This recipe for husk-grilled corn comes from Cook’s Country Magazine, June/July 2015. You can follow the basic grilling technique described below and serve with butter, salt and pepper at the dinner table, or you can “guild the lily” by serving the corn with this brown sugar-cayenne butter.

I hope you enjoy it!

Husk-Grilled Corn with Brown Sugar-Cayenne Butter

Ingredients:

  • 6 ears of corn in husks
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 Tablespoons packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon table salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Stir butter, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, and cayenne until smooth and combined.

Butter mixture in foil boat

Make a foil boat to hold the butter mixture: Tear a sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil 12″ x 14″. Fold in half to 12″ x 7″. Roll up sides and crimp to form a boat just big enough to hold an ear of corn.

Place butter mixture into the foil boat.

Preheat your gas grill on HIGH for 15 minutes. Use a grill brush to scrub the grates clean.

Fresh corn goes onto the grill

 

Corn ready to be shucked

Cut silk from the end of each ear of corn. Put corn straight onto the ripping hot grill and close the lid. Cook 3 minutes, then use long tongs to give the corn a 1/4 turn. Repeat until 4 sides have been grilled, about 12 minutes total time. Corn is cooked when you pull back the husk to reveal steaming corn and bright yellow kernels.

Removing stem from corn

Removing husk with tongs and towel

Remove corn to a cutting board. Cut off the stem ends. Carefully remove husks and silk using tongs and a towel.

Rolling corn in butter mixture

Corn flaring-up on the grill

Roll corn in the butter mixture and return it to the grill with the lid open. The grill may initially flare-up and make some loud popping noises due to the butter. Move the corn around to avoid flames, turning frequently until there is some char, maybe 3-5 minutes max. If you see any soot on the corn due to burned butter from the initial flare-up, gently wipe it off with a towel.

Corn ready to come off the grill

Husk-grilled corn with brown sugar-cayenne butter

Remove corn from the grill. Roll again in the butter mixture. Serve with any leftover butter on the side.

This corn is sweet with a little heat. You may notice a slight caramel corn note. Delicious!

The Secret To Moist Grilled Chicken

Moist grilled chicken halves

Brining. Salting. Marinating. Injecting. Buttering. Beer butting. (Is that even a word?) These are but a few of the methods that people use in an attempt to make moist, tasty chicken.

But I am now going to reveal to you the #1 Secret to grilling moist, delicious chicken every time you cook:

DO NOT OVERCOOK IT!

That’s right. Don’t overcook it. Get yourself a good instant-read thermometer and measure the internal temp during grilling. I don’t care how you season the bird or brine it or inject it…if you cook the breast meat to 160-165°F and the thigh meat to 170-175°F and then remove the chicken from the grill, I guarantee* you will have moist, delicious meat.

Yes, brining chicken provides a margin of error, allowing you to cook to higher internal temps than those listed above and still achieve moist meat, and it can flavor the meat, too. But you can get moist meat and perhaps more real chicken flavor if you don’t brine and keep the internal temp within the ranges above.

So season your chicken well, use your thermometer, don’t overcook it and tell us how it turns out on The Virtual Weber Bulletin Board. And remember, we like to see your photos!

* Guarantee not valid in the Americas, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, polar regions, or territorial & international waters.

More New Grilling Books for 2015

There’s yet another crop of new grilling books out for 2015. And here you thought everything had been written about our favorite outdoor cooking method…

Take a look at these new offerings. If you like any of these, let us know on The Virtual Weber Bulletin Board.

 

Grilling With House of Q

Grilling With House of Q

Amazon.com says, “If you love the taste of barbecue but worry about cooking the perfect steak or if you’re a whiz with burgers but want to grill other foods or if you harbor aspirations of presenting your own smoked brisket to a panel of trained judges, then this book is for you. BBQ Brian has spent more than a decade smoking and grilling foods, competing against other pit masters and learning from some of the best in the business. And not only does he regularly win awards for his barbecue and House of Q BBQ sauces, but he’s now one of the most sought-after teachers around. Why? Because he tells a great story, makes learning fun and easy and freely shares his recipes and his love of good food. Grilling with House of Q is part handsome cookbook, part instruction manual and part story collection. The result is that rare volume that entertains and becomes your go-to for delicious, no-fail smoked ribs, shrimp tacos, pulled pork and pit beans—or burritos, mac ’n’ cheese and baklava—all prepared on your grill and all eagerly anticipated by friends, backyard neighbors and barbecue judges.”

 

Build Your Own Burger

Build Your Own Burger

Amazon says, “Want to take your burger making skills to a whole new and exciting level? Let Build Your Own Burger show you how. This fun and practical guide to creating delicious and original burgers has literally thousands of combinations. In this inventive and fun format, ingredients are split into four categories – the buns, the sauces, the patties, and the toppings – each image presented in its own panel. Mix and match the panels to create your ideal burger. A comprehensive section covers the basics, including equipment, ingredients, and troubleshooting tips to get you started. The tasty-looking photography and the clever format will inspire cooks to create unique and mouth-watering flavor combinations such as: A fiery Chili Bun with a Beef Jalapeno Patty, topped with Sweet Chili Mayo and a Cooling Cucumber Salad or an Olive Ciabatta bun with a Field Mushroom Patty, topped with Vine-Ripened Tomato Salsa and Grilled Halloumi. With easy-to-follow recipes and photographs of all the elements, even a beginner can create luscious burgers in no time at all. Filled with burger ideas for any occasion and every palate, this really is the only burger book you’ll ever need.”

 

Southern Cooking For Company

Southern Cooking For Company

Not a grilling book per se, but with some imagination many of the main dish recipes can be adapted to the grill. This book is probably worth owning just for the side dish and dessert recipes alone!

Amazon says, “Nicki Pendleton Wood has gathered recipes from more than 100 Southerners that they prepare when company is coming. These are the show-off recipes hosts pull out when guests are on the way, whether for an intimate evening with another couple, a party for 100 people celebrating a milestone birthday, or anything in between. In addition to the recipes, contributors share their secrets for making guests feel at home.”

 

The Eat Like A Man Guide To Feeding A Crowd

The Eat Like A Man Guide To Feeding A Crowd

Amazon says, “This welcome follow-up to Esquire’s wildly popular Eat Like a Man cookbook is the ultimate resource for guys who want to host big crowds and need the scaled-up recipes, logistical advice, and mojo to pull it off whether they’re cooking breakfast for a houseful of weekend guests, producing an epic spread for the playoffs, or planning the backyard BBQ that trumps all. With tantalizing photos and about 100 recipes for lazy breakfasts, afternoon noshing, dinner spreads, and late-night binges—including loads of favorites from chefs who know how to satisfy a crowd, such as Linton Hopkins, Edward Lee, and Michael Symon—this is the only cookbook a man will ever need when the party is at his place.”

 

The Beer Bible

The Beer Bible

Amazon says, “It’s finally here—the comprehensive, authoritative book that does for beer what The Wine Bible does for wine. Written by an expert from the West Coast, where America’s craft beer movement got its start, The Beer Bible is the ultimate reader- and drinker-friendly guide to all the world’s beers.

“No other book of this depth and scope approaches the subject of beer in the same way that beer lovers do—by style, just as a perfect pub menu is organized—and gets right to the pleasure of discovery, knowledge, and connoisseurship. Divided into four major families—ales, lagers, wheat beers, and tart and wild ales—there’s everything a beer drinker wants to know about the hundreds of different authentic types of brews, from bitters, bocks, and IPAs to weisses, milk stouts, lambics, and more. Each style is a chapter unto itself, delving into origins, ingredients, description and characteristics, substyles, and tasting notes, and ending with a recommended list of the beers to know in each category. Hip infographics throughout make the explanation of beer’s flavors, brewing methods, ingredients, labeling, serving, and more as immediate as it is lively.

“The book is written for passionate beginners, who will love its “if you like X, try Y” feature; for intermediate beer lovers eager to go deeper; and for true geeks, who will find new information on every page. History, romance, the art of tasting, backstories and anecdotes, appropriate glassware, bitterness units, mouthfeel, and more—it’s all here. Plus a primer on pairing beer and food using the three Cs— complement, contrast, or cut. It’s the book that every beer lover will read with pleasure, and use with even more.”

 

School of Booze

School Of Booze

Amazon says, “Humans were seeking out alcohol millions of years before the word “keg” was coined. School of Booze contains everything you have ever wanted to know about alcoholic beverages, from how to make absinthe to the cultural history of zythos (beer). It covers the discovery and invention of fermented alcohol, ancient history, toasting, alcohol and health, alcohol’s role in religion, origin of slang expressions, virtually every known form of alcoholic beverage and their histories, temperance and prohibition movements and law, and much more. Packed with fascinating miscellany and curious facts to entertain your friends at the pub, this book is an essential compendium of knowledge about what essayist Dr. Samuel Johnson called life’s “second greatest pleasure.” It is the perfect gift for yourself, or for anyone who enjoys raising a glass to good health. Bottoms up!”

Deep Cleaning Your Weber Gas Grill

In a post last year, I said I was a clean freak when it comes to my grill. But sometimes I get busy and/or lazy and I let my Weber Summit 450 go too long between cleanings. I know it’s starting to get bad when I have a hard time lighting the grill because the ignitors are clogged with debris. I know it’s getting even worse when the burners are burning unevenly and with yellow flames because some of the burner holes are clogged. That’s when I know it’s time to break down and do a deep cleaning of my grill.

Here’s how I do it.

Grill Cleaning Tools & Supplies Needed

Grill cleaning supplies & tools
Some of the supplies & tools needed to do a Weber gas grill deep cleaning

To deep clean your grill you’ll need the following tools and supplies:

  • Grill brush
  • Leather grilling  gloves
  • Narrow and wide putty knives
  • Stainless steel bristle brush
  • Eyeglass screwdriver or paper clip
  • Disposable latex/nitrile gloves
  • Windex, Simple Green or similar cleaner
  • Stainless steel cleaner
  • Compressed air duster
  • 0000 super-fine steel wool
  • Towels/rags
  • Garbage bag

During some of the steps shown below, you may want to wear disposable gloves to keep your hands clean. Continue reading Deep Cleaning Your Weber Gas Grill