Corn Pudding

As a child of Virginia, Edna Lewis — the African-American chef and cookbook author credited with preserving countless recipes from the old South — was ambivalent about a lot of Thanksgiving standbys that belonged, in her view, to Yankee territory: cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, even turkey.

“But Lewis can’t imagine Thanksgiving without corn pudding,” Molly O’Neill wrote here in The Times in 1992. Plenty of Virginians would agree with her. For them, as for Miss Lewis, this buttery, fluffy dish serves as not only a seasonal bridge — a farewell to summer, with winter chill waiting in the wings — but also as a sweetly welcome blurring of the lines between a side dish and a dessert.

In her essential book “The Taste of Country Cooking,” Miss Lewis, as she was called, wrote that her mother always paired corn pudding with a “casserole made from fresh-dug sweet potatoes.” That strikes us as a partnership worth encouraging.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons/42 grams butter, melted, plus more for dish
• 2 cups/350 grams corn (from about 3 ears)
• ⅓ cup/67 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon/5 grams salt
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 cups/480 milliliters whole milk
• ½ teaspoon/1 gram freshly grated nutmeg

• Nutritional Information

  • Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

    268 calories; 11 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 37 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 22 grams sugars; 8 grams protein; 85 milligrams cholesterol; 400 milligrams sodium

  Note: Nutrient information is not available for all ingredients. Amount is based on available data.
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6 to 8 servings

Preparation

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and butter a 1 1/2-quart baking dish. Cut the corn from the cob into a mixing bowl by slicing from the top of the ear downward. Don’t go too close to the cob; cut only half the kernel, then scrape off the rest with the back of the knife.
2. Stir sugar and salt into corn. Mix beaten eggs and milk together, then stir into corn mixture. Add melted butter and mix thoroughly.
3. Spoon mixture into prepared dish and sprinkle with nutmeg. Place the dish in a larger baking dish or roasting pan. Transfer to oven and carefully pour hot water into the larger dish until it comes about halfway up the sides of the smaller baking dish.
4. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the pudding comes out clean. The pudding will be set but still jiggle.

1 hour