Miso marinated corn ribs (vegan)

Corn ribs

Somewhere around mid summer I was scrolling through Instagram and corn ribs popped on my feed. What’s that? I say, and as a huge lover of corn knew instantly, that I’ll be trying this thing out very soon. I love corn in all it’s forms, so why would this be any different? At that point I had no idea that the experiment wouldn’t be so much about the looks, but all about the flavor.

See, cutting corn to strips resembling ribs is far from easy. In fact, it’s dangerous. At least with the equipment and knife skills I have! So instead of loving this particular shape of serving corn I ended up loving my experiment for it’s flavor! Inspired by my recent endeavours with miso fermented garlic, I marinated the corn in miso paste. And before cooking it, I slathered it in vegan aioli! If you are as big of a fan of miso, corn and aioli, you already know this flavor combination turned out to be the real winner of this experiment 🙂

Tik Tok-trend

Corn ribs cooked in an Air Fryer are apparently massively trending in TikTok, but I’m not quite sure where the trend got its start. Countless international food sites have now published corn ribs recipes, so crediting someone for the original idea has proven to be rather difficult. If you know who came up with this idea first please let me know. Unfortunately I also don’t remember who’s corn ribs I initially spotted on IG the inspiration to make these myself… sorry! I usually save inspiring posts in a folder but this time I hadn’t done so. Booo Jella, boo!

In any case, the idea is that you cut corn into strips vertically. When cooked, the strips curl up to ressemble “ribs”. Serving corn like this is not only fun to look at, but maybe also makes less of a mess on your fingers as you eat? For me however, the best thing is that cut like this all you get is the “top side” of a corn on the cobb.

So in theory, I’m all for these trending “corn ribs”! Especially if you want to sprinkle your corn with things! And yes they look like such fun snacks… but in practice, they are anything but fun to make. Cutting corn lengthwise is difficult AF and not to mention dangerous. The whole process took me way longer than I’d care for and countless heart palpitations. And since I didn’t cut my strips thin enough on the core side, my ribs didn’t curl up in the oven at all. What a flop! 😀

Miso marinated aioli corn

So, to put it short, my corn ribs recipe today is all about how I seasoned the corn, not so much about the trending shape.  I can’t recommend anyone trying the shape out, unless you’re up for a challenge… But I can definitely recommend marinating corn in miso and seasoning it with aioli before roasting!

Miso pickiling (misozuke) is a Japanese method of making pickles, which I learned about as I was making miso fermented garlic earlier this summer. Since corn and miso are such a delicious combo, I knew I’d be trying the miso pickling method somehow out with corn too! Obviously my miso marinated corn isn’t quite a misozuke, but it’s definitely inspired by the whole concept of misozuke. I mixed the marinade out of white miso and mirin and smeared in on my corn ribs for a few hours. Before cooking I wiped away some of the marinade, and proceeded to coat the corn with vegan aioli.

Mayo roasted corn?

You read that right! I’ve actually been roasting all of my corn slathered with mayo this summer. Mayo is mainly fat, and it stick super well to corn. It also allows for all the different spices to stick to the surface and not fall of while cooking. And mayo assists in developing a wonderful roasty surface in the corn! I chose to sprinkle my corn ribs with some togarashi or this “mango masala” I found from Tesco’s selection. However since miso is salty and I used vegan aioli, these corn ribs don’t necessarily need any added seasonings at all. I mean, at least if miso-aioli corn sounds like a dream to you too!