Freezing is a quick and convenient way to preserve vegetables at home. Sweet corn is a popular, easy and excellent vegetable to freeze. If you want to avoid having to go back to buying packets of frozen corn when the season's over, try freezing your own. It's not that much effort, and it's guaranteed to taste better. It is also one of the simplest ways to put up a vegetable for the winter. The corn will taste much better than anything you've ever had from a store.
Corns are full of nutrition. Corn is rich in vitamin C, an antioxidant that helps protect your cells from damage, and wards off diseases like cancer and heart disease. Yellow corn is a good source of the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, which are good for eye health and help prevent the lens damage that leads to cataracts. It can be used all year long as a side dish or the perfect addition to snacks, soups and more. You can basically use frozen corn anywhere you’d use fresh corn which saves your time.
Freezing fresh corn is done one of two ways: on the cob or off. Freezing corn on the cob follows the same steps as freezing the kernels, except you’ll be freezing whole cobs of corn. Cobs occupy far more freezer space, so keep that in mind. Making frozen corn is a simple process. The basic procedure for freezing corn kernels is blanching.
You can simply cut corn kernels off the cob, place them into a bag and put in the freezer. You can even freeze the whole cob if you want. I prefer to blanch corn before freezing as blanched corn will stay fresh in the freezer for about 6-8 months.
Blanching, followed by chilling in ice water, are critical processes for producing quality frozen corn. This process not only removes surface dirt, but it also deactivates enzymes that lead to spoilage. The natural enzymes in corn need to be inactivated before freezing to prevent both loss of color and nutrients and texture changes. These enzymes are inactivated by a hot blanch treatment. The chilling process prevents the corn from becoming mushy due to overcooking the starch.
Ingredients:
250 gm. Fresh cornInstructions:
Corn kernels are easily available in market, you can buy them. If you have bought corn cob, remove silk. Then cut the corn kernels from the cob by slicing from the top to the bottom of the corn cob, cutting between the kernels and the cob. Wash them very well with water so that all silks and husk.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Drop all kernels into boiling water and cook 2-3 minutes. The corn will float on the top.
Remove the corns from the boiling water by straining and place in the ice water. This is to stop the further cooking process.
Strain the corns again through a sieve to remove the excess water.
Fill up these corns in small polythene bags or zip lock bags. Remove as much air as possible, spread the corns in bag and seal it. Place them in freezer of your refrigerator. Keep the bag horizontally in the freezer.
Frozen corns are ready to use. Whenever you want you can use then in your favourite soup or snacks.
Tips:
- You can boil whole cob. After blanching process, cut kernels off of cobs, seal and freeze them. You can freeze whole cob with corns but it takes up more space in freezer.
- If you are preserving a big batch of corns, it is better to boil them in parts rather than all together. This would ensure they get evenly cooked.
- Don’t boil for too long else the corns will lose their colour and will shrivel up.
- Don’t forget to use chilled water or add some ice to the water.
- You can also use containers instead of bags. But it is convenient to use plastic bags as they occupies less space in the fridge too.
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