Scrambled Corn

The fresh corn season is not quite upon us, though the heat of summer certainly is.  I think of hot summer nights and buttery, explosive sweet corn.  In lieu of trying to work with premature corn on the cob  I sought out frozen corn and freeze dried corn.  We used these two types of preserved corn to make an intense flavored corn puree.  The corn puree has that essence of summer, just no cob.  I then took the puree and added some methyl cellulose to it so that we could use the corn puree in several guises.  Last evening we served scrambled corn with strawberry confit, onion glass and tarragon.  The methyl cellulose enabled us to create curds of corn which came together in the style of soft scrambled eggs.  We also talked about using this base with preserved truffles and smoked roe.  Similarly, this same base can be poached as corn dumplings.  The key is that this method allows us to add a familiar texture to an ingredient mostly eaten on the cob or creamed.  Come to think of it, our scrambled corn is just a differently textured version of creamed corn.  It's tasty none the less.