Corn

I’m always trying to come up with yet another version of chili and yet another chicken dinner. Here’s both in one meal in another new way.

This is a gut bustingly delicious twist on steak and bakers.

This dish is preventative medicine; it prevents one from ordering and pigging out on bad Mexican-style take-out food. If you make this instead you won’t end up feeling too fat or too full.

Though I haven’t lived on Cape Code since I was eight, this dish proves I’m not just a Red Sox fan but a true New England Patriot. With Chowda and Mac ’n’ Cheese in one dinner, you can get to Massachusetts in 30 minutes or less, even if you live in Michigan.

I loved corn so much as a kid that you couldn’t get that cob out of my hand for hours. In the summer months substitute fresh kernels scraped from the cob for the frozen.

This is a chop, drop, and open recipe. Place your cutting board next to the stove, heat up the pots, chop everything on the board, drop it into the pan, then open up your cans. As soon as the stoup bubbles, dinner is done.

Here’s another example of “stoup”; a meal in a bowl that’s thicker than soup, thinner than stew.

I have only eaten this slightly sweet and slightly sour dish in Gujarat, and how good it was, too. It isn’t just corn grains that are cooked in the dal but the cob itself, lopped off into reasonably sized rounds. The woody part of the cob flavors the dal in mysterious ways. You just cannot pick up these corn pieces with Western cutlery. Hands are required to eat the corn off the dal-and-spice-flavored cob sections. If you cannot find toor dal (also labeled toovar dal and arhar dal), use any other split peas that you can find easily, such as red lentils or yellow split peas. Just remember that red lentils cook faster than toor dal. This dal is put into individual serving bowls and served with rice or Indian flatbreads. A selection of other vegetables and relishes are also included in vegetarian meals. Non-vegetarians might add fish or chicken.

This is an easy, perfumed, stir-fried corn dish that can be made with fresh or frozen corn. This may be served with most Indian meals but also goes well with Western-style roasted or grilled pork, duck, and chicken.

Walking along the corniche or waterfront in Alexandria, one is irresistibly lured by the smell of corn grilled over charcoal. Vendors sit behind little braziers filled with glowing coals, fanning the flames furiously, or letting the sea breeze do it for them.

This is good at room temperature as well as warm. Try it out on kids; leftovers are good to pack in brown-bag lunches.