To Hull Corn
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the baking soda in the water.
Add the corn and boil for three hours, or until the hulls come off.
Wash the corn and boil for an additional three hours, or until soft.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Corn
- The main ingredient; its kernels soften and their hulls loosen during the long alkaline boil.
- Baking soda
- An alkali that loosens the corn hulls and helps the kernels soften during boiling.
The step that matters
Washing the corn before the second boil. The first boil loosens the hulls and leaves alkali on the kernels. Rinsing removes the loosened hulls and residual alkali, so the second boil softens the kernels evenly and the corn tastes clean.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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