Whether they’ve been boiled, barbecued or roasted, spent corn cobs are bursting with flavour and good for all sorts of other dishes, including corn cob ice-cream and today’s sweet and umami-rich stock that can be used in soups, gumbos, risottos or to cook grains such as rice, quinoa or polenta; they can also be used instead of wood chips for smoking meat.
Corn cob stock is particularly sweet, aromatic and intense, and perfect for taking all kinds of dishes to the next level. My favourite way to use it is in a Colombian-style chicken-and-potato one-pot meal called sancocho de pollo: to make a meal for four, boil four chicken thighs in a litre of stock made with cobs saved in the freezer from the last time you ate corn. Add a fresh corn cob cut into rounds, a sliced onion, two cubed sweet potatoes and some chopped coriander, and, after an hour, once everything is tender, it’s ready to serve.
