Freshly harvested corn comes as this perfect package ready to cook and eat: Peel back the husks until they fan out around the ear’s base, remove the silk, and then fold the husks back up the ear and lay it on a grill, let the corn steam inside its own husks. Any silk you miss burns off with the heat or comes off when you pull away the warm husks, revealing the sweet, lightly charred kernels along the cob.

Since you’re pulling back the husks to get at the silk, it’s the perfect time to smear flavored butter down the ear so that it melts between the kernels as the corn cooks. The smoky lime butter recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon is my favorite way to dress corn on the cob, but you can choose other blends instead, like lemon and oregano leaves, orange and nasturtium blossoms, or one you’ve already prepared as Compound Herb Butter.

Learn more about grilling and freezing corn and get the complete recipe for Husk-Grilled Corn with Smoky Lime Butter in my column.

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When you’re making this week’s recipe, a few of these tips and tricks may come in handy:

• The soaking step helps to keep the husks from going up in flame. The ears likely won’t sit neatly in the bowl and the kernels will get wet, so pat them dry if you have trouble getting the lime butter to stick.
• One fresh lime usually yields about 1 tablespoon of zest and 2 tablespoons of juice, which is good to know if you need to swap in bottled juice. Beating the butter with a fork may not completely emulsify the juice into the butter, but that’s fine; just pour any excess over the kernels before you fold up the husks.
• Take care so that you don’t overcook the corn, particularly if you plan to freeze it. If the husks are charred completely black, it’s probably gone too long even for an immediate meal. Think of grilling corn for freezing as a replacement for blanching it. Overcooked corn can be starchy and chewy when defrosted, especially if you’re then adding it to a dish and cooking it again.
• Corncob stock can be made straightaway, or you can freeze the cobs for a later batch. If you’re making corncob stock from freshly grilled corn, you can “milk” the cobs by running the backside of a knife down them and adding the resulting liquid to the stockpot for extra flavor.
• I give brief instructions for making corncob stock in this week’s Flathead Beacon column, but you can find a full recipe here. I originally froze all of my stocks in small containers, but I’ve become a fan of silicone ice trays for freezing stocks. I freeze corncob stock in 1-cup cubes to use when making soup, risotto, and simple steamed rice and in 1-ounce cubes to add to pan sauces.

Learn more about homemade stocks in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.