Mexican Corn Ribs with Nước Mắm Caramel Glaze

Ingredients

Corn Ribs
4 corn with husks

Glaze
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons butter
½ cup Mexican crema
1 teaspoon garlic mince
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 teaspoons sambal chile

Toppings
3 tablespoons cotija cheese
2-3 limes zested

Directions

  1. Place the corn with the husks still on directly onto the middle rack of a 400 F oven for 40 minutes. Flip them halfway. Meanwhile, prepare the glaze.
  2. In a small pot, warm up the Mexican crema with the garlic, fish sauce, and sambal chile. Do not boil. Set aside.
  3. In a medium-sized pot, add sugar, lime juice, and water. Heat the sugar over medium-high heat. Do not stir. Once the sugar has turned into an amber color, lower the heat.
  4. Be careful when adding the butter, the caramel will begin to bubble. Stir well and add the warm crema mixture. Let it simmer for a minute or two. Stirring once more. Set aside.
  5. Remove the husks from the corn and cut the corn in half, and then each half into fourths, yielding 32 small ribs. At this point, you can grill them on a skillet to get char marks if you’d like. 
  6. Glaze the ribs with the fish-sauce caramel using a pastry brush, then top with cotija cheese and lime zest.