Baby corn

Baby corn (also known as young corn, mini corn, cornlettes, or candle corn in Thai language cookbooks) is a cereal grain taken from corn (maize) harvested early while the stalks are still small and immature. It typically is eaten whole – cob included – in contrast to mature corn, whose cob is too tough for human consumption. It is eaten both raw and cooked. Baby corn is common in stir fry dishes.

There are two methods for producing baby corn (known as aborted corn when the kernels release due to stress or the like): either as a primary crop or as a secondary crop in a planting of sweet corn or field corn. In the first method, a seed variety is chosen and planted to produce only baby corn. (Many varieties are suitable, but those developed specifically for baby corn tend to produce more ears per plant.) In the second production method, the variety is selected to produce sweet or field corn. The second ear from the top of the plant is harvested for baby corn, while the top ear is allowed to mature.

Baby corn ears are hand-picked as soon as the corn silks emerge from the ear tips, or a few days after. Corn generally matures very quickly, so the harvest of baby corn must be timed carefully to avoid ending up with more mature corn ears. Baby corn ears are typically 4.5 to 10 cm (1.8–3.9 in) in length and 7 to 17 mm (0.28–0.67 in) in diameter.

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Wikipedia