Don't throw out those cobs. For summer stock, make it with corn

"I love making use of food that otherwise might be considered trash (the bones of a roast chicken for broth or stale rice for fried rice), so imagine my excitement when I learned that I could take my raw corncobs out of the compost bin and transform them into a golden stock so rich in corn flavor that it was like giving corn a second life."

"'I learned that there are no secrets or tricks to this kind of cooking,' I said, proud of my analysis. 'It's all very accessible to the home cook.' Boom! Had I been on my toes, I might even have posited that Alice Waters was the patron saint of home cooking. But I would have been wrong. 'You're wrong!' the cook replied. 'We have a million little secrets and tricks that we use all day long to coax every bit of flavor out of each ingredient.'"

Raw corncobs can be transformed into a golden stock that concentrates and intensifies corn flavor, effectively giving corn a second life. Common kitchen practice repurposes imperfect ingredients—such as roast chicken bones for broth or stale rice for fried rice—to extract maximum value. Cooks at Chez Panisse rely on numerous small techniques and tricks to coax every bit of flavor from ingredients during daily work. Careful attention to simple methods and resourceful use of scraps yield significant flavor gains and minimize waste, turning otherwise discarded parts into powerful culinary ingredients.

Read at Los Angeles Times