Why We Work

Culinary banter encourages the development of dishes.  Aki took the corn we got and grilled it.  She then took one ear of the grilled corn, shaved it off the cob and used it to enhance a black bean stew which we served with some scrambled eggs for breakfast.  I took the remaining five ears and took the kernels off the cob.  I was not sure what I was going to do with the corn, so I asked Aki.  She responded as if I was to have already known, "make a grilled corn caramel, use the truffle caramel."  And it was so.  I took the corn and warmed it in skim milk with some agave and salt.  I then pureed the mixture with some cream cheese to add a decadent richness.  Often I enrich corn purees with butter, though here I felt the cream cheese would lend itself to the preparation we were going for.  Finally, I took the corn base and added some Methocel in order to allow us to serve the creme caramel in a warm state.  I lined a metal tin with the caramel, added the corn base and warmed the combined ingredients in the oven.  The result was a soft and silky warm corn creme caramel.  We garnished the dish with some epazote and a chorizo crisp.  We had no true plans for this finished dish, yet both of our input and approaches yielded some tasty results.