Sweet corn campanelle with miso butter

Name: Sweet corn campanelle with miso butter
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian, Japanese
Ingredients: 1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved; kosher salt and ground black pepper; 4 ears corn, husked; 4 tbsp salted butter, divided; 2 shallots, minced; 1 habanero chili, stemmed, seeded and minced (fruity heat, not a dare; a serrano stands in nicely); 12 oz campanelle or other short pasta; 1 tbsp white miso; 1 lemon, zest and juice; 1 cup lightly packed fresh basil, sliced

Corn three ways in one pot, then the fix the original never knew it needed: white miso in the butter and a lemon squeezed over the lot.

At a Glance

Time

1 hr

Adjust servings

Story

Corn and miso are the same trick played twice. Sweet corn is loaded with sugar and savour at once, and white miso, the mildest and sweetest of the fermented soybean pastes, brings more of both. Mashed into the finishing butter it doesn't add a new flavor so much as turn the corn's own volume up, which is why a dish this rich suddenly tastes seasoned instead of merely sweet.

Ingredients

1 pint grape or cherry tomatoeshalved
kosher salt and ground black pepper
4 ears cornhusked
4 tbsp salted butterdivided
2 shallotsminced
1 habanero chilistemmed, seeded and minced (fruity heat, not a dare; a serrano stands in nicely)
12 oz campanelle or other short pasta
1 tbsp white miso
1 lemonzest and juice
1 cup lightly packed fresh basilsliced

Method

Corn masquerading as a cream sauce, and not a drop of cream in it. The dish traces back to Al Forno in Providence, where the trick is corn three ways: kernels grated to a raw puree, cobs simmered into a broth that cooks the pasta, and the puree melted into butter at the end. Gorgeous bones. It just needed someone savory at the party, and that someone is miso.

Stir the tomatoes with ¼ teaspoon salt in a large bowl and leave them to weep while you work. That salted juice becomes part of the sauce, so don't you dare drain it.
Set a box grater in a second large bowl and grate the corn down to the cobs on the large holes. Keep the cobs. In a large pot, bring 2½ quarts water and 1½ teaspoons salt to a boil, add the naked cobs, cover and simmer over medium 10 minutes. Fish out the cobs with tongs and bin them. You now have corn broth, and it is about to cook the pasta.
In a 12-inch skillet over medium, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the grated corn with its milky liquid, the shallots, the chili and ½ teaspoon salt, and cook, stirring, until the shallots soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in 1½ cups of the corn broth and simmer over medium-low, stirring now and then, until slightly thickened, 10 to 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, return the remaining broth to a boil and cook the pasta in it, stirring, until just shy of al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water, then drain. Tip the pasta into the skillet and cook over medium, stirring, until the sauce coats and turns creamy, about 2 minutes, loosening with reserved water 2 tablespoons at a time if it tightens.
Off the heat, mash the miso into the remaining 2 tablespoons butter with a fork until smooth, then add it to the skillet with the tomatoes and their juices, the lemon zest and the basil. Toss until the butter melts. Miso goes in off the heat for a reason, a hard boil flattens its aroma. Squeeze in the lemon juice, taste, then salt and pepper until it shouts.

A note on the other directions, since a dish this good deserves a wardrobe. For the Italian answer, melt 2 anchovy fillets into the butter with the shallots, swap the habanero for a heaped teaspoon of chopped Calabrian chilis and finish with a fistful of grated Pecorino. Or send it east: 2 teaspoons fish sauce stirred in with the pasta water, lime in place of the lemon, and the habanero suddenly makes perfect sense. Same bones, three frocks.

On the pass