Baby corn
बेबी कॉर्न
Fresh Produce
The crunch in Indo-Chinese starters, and a vegetable firm enough to hold its shape in a dry pepper fry.
What to know
It is the whole immature cob, edible raw, so heat is there for texture and browning rather than to cook it through. A minute or two of blanching is plenty; longer and it goes slack, and it never firms up again.
- Choosing it
- Pale ivory to light yellow, tight pointed tip, no browning at the cut end. Rubbery or translucent cobs have been sitting in water.
- Storing it
- Loosely covered or in a paper bag in the fridge, used within three or four days. Vacuum packs keep unopened; drain and pat dry before they go anywhere near hot oil.
- By eye
- 200 g ≈ 16–18 cobs ≈ one supermarket punnet
- If you cannot get it
- Fresh in most Indian cities, and in vacuum packs or tins elsewhere. Tinned baby corn is already soft — skip any blanching and put it straight in the pan.Try: mushroom, capsicum
Measures
- 1 piece ≈ 12 g
- 1 cup ≈ 110 g
Cups here are the Indian 200 ml cup, not the 240 ml US cup — a common reason a recipe does not work. Weigh where you can; the grams are the figure we cook to.