great tastes. great stories.
In the shorkk household eating corn on the cob and artichokes are a clear indicator of our ancestral heritage.
One half of shorkk, from the northern hemisphere, adds melted butter to corn on the cob and dunks artichoke leaves in it too. Delicious.
The other half of shorkk, having grown up in warmer sunnier climes, Lebanon, reaches for the extra virgin olive oil. Delicious?
Given that the season is changing, and new things are good for the brain, it was time for the northern-hemisphere-half-of-shorkk to experiment.
Having done a quick poll on Instagram, most (Lebanese amongst them) said they put butter on their corn. It seems strange that we’re all so fixated on butter. Given that Professor Tim Spector is encouraging us to take up new eating habits, it was time for a challenge.
Our new delivery included some bottles of Zejd’s premium extra virgin olive oil, this was good timing. Armed with some particularly good sweetcorn from the market, once steamed for 15 minutes, the corn was coated with a tablespoon of Zejd’s premium EVOO and a sprinkle of salt.
The result was surprisingly good. Since the corn was warm, the gentle grassy aroma married nicely with the sweetness.The way the oil completely melted into the corn was another bonus, no need to melt butter in a pan. The combination felt lighter, less heavy to digest. Once finished, there was no greasy residue in the mouth, unlike with butter. A good pairing for this popular vegetable. A convert.
Did you know that you can make an infusion with the corn silk?
The wispy thread-like strands underneath the outer layers of the sweetcorn are called corn silk. In Lebanon they are dried and included in infusions called “zhourat”. Each dried flower and leaf in the mixture is selected for its health benefit. The corn silk is a mild dieuretic and helpful for urinary infections.
There are lots of things you could experiment with if you’d like to swap in extra virgin olive oil for something you usually have butter with.
Frying an egg in EVOO is an easy one to start with and if you’re a baker it’s worth looking up Philip Khoury (head pastry chef at Harrod’s). His book “A New Way to Bake” uses extra virgin olive oil as the fat in most of the bakes. Interestingly his tea loaf/cakes use around 60g of EVOO compared to around 150g of butter in a conventional cake.
If you give the experiment a go, we’d love to hear what you think. Good or bad! Drop us a line below.
