Corn Nest

One of the most memorable dishes we created with the Bocuse d'Or Team USA was this corn nest, which also proved to have some challenges. One of the key challenges was utilizing the corn silk, which is normally discarded while preparing corn. How could we turn this seemingly mundane byproduct into a stunning, delicious, elevating touch to our dish?

We did some R&D with the coaching team at Alinea, which was important for the development of this dish. We saw how the restaurant was using corn silk in innovative ways, such as candying, frying, and incorporating it into desserts. We noticed the texture was a bit chewy but looked beautiful on their dishes. 

We focused on figuring out how to reduce the chewy texture and began to use different methods and products. At first, we found that the result was still very sweet instead of the savory flavor we were hoping to achieve. We removed the sugar and replaced it with glucose to keep the properties of sugar but reduce the sweetness. We still had a challenge with the texture, so we pressure-cooked it, but it was still not to our liking. We took a closer look at every case of corn and discovered a key finding: the more mature the corn silk was, the chewier the texture. After two months of consistent testing, we were finally able to perfect the nest. And here it is—give it a try!

• Servings 16 Nests
• Dish Side
• Time 48 hours
• Skill Advanced