I love summer vegetables from the farmers market. From the delicious tomatoes, to the incomparable fruit, the benefits of in-season produce can't be overstated for me.
Among the vegetables that really can't be beat in peak summer is fresh sweet corn. I've blogged about many a summer corn recipe in the past, and a new recipe I tried this summer will become an annual occurrence - the NY Times Creamy Corn Pasta with Basil. This could very well be a relatively simple weeknight meal. Or it could become what I made this summer – a fantastic centerpiece to a dinner party.
I achieve the latter by substituting hand-made fresh pasta for store-bought dried pasta, and increasing the amount of corn to 3 cobs to fit with the increased pasta amount.
I started by making the fresh pasta dough, letting it rest, and then beginning the laborious process (if one doesn't have a pasta machine!) of rolling out the sheets to very thin, almost transparent sheets.
I then let the well-floured sheets dry out a bit before cutting the sheets into fettuccine-like strips.
I then started preparing the pasta sauce by stripping the corn cobs of the kernels, and sautéing the herbs and corn in olive oil.
Finally, when the corn is heated through, blend the corn to a puree and recook the blended sauce in butter – yum!
Toss the re-heated sauce with pasta, and then add salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste (I needed to use a lot of salt and pepper to get the flavors to come out). Serve immediately, if you haven't already started eating straight from the pan!
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