The sweet corn kernels, pine nuts, cucumber, and carrot are lightly seasoned with green onion, salt, and sugar. Every ingredient comes together to create a hearty meal that is nutty and sweet. Stir fried corn with pine nuts (松仁玉米) is a famous northern Chinese dish I often ate growing up. It’s one of those popular dishes that are quite unknown outside of China. The dish may look plain, but it is loaded with goodies. The main ingredients are the sweet corn kernels and pine nuts. It might seem strange to cook a cheap ingredient with an expensive one, but once you try it, you’ll find these two go really great together and create a very nice flavor that is nutty and sweet. There are quite a few versions of the corn and pine nut stir-fry. For extra color, people usually add carrot, cucumber, green peas, and/or bell peppers. The version I’m introducing today is the northern Chinese style that I’d typically order in a restaurant. It is lightly seasoned with green onion, salt and sugar, with carrot, and cucumber for color. At the end of cooking, I use a chicken stock slurry to bring all the ingredients together.
This is a very simple recipe, but you need to take note of a few things if you want to create a delicious dish that is as good as the one in the restaurant. The key is the ratio of the veggies. You want the main ingredient to be the corn. You can use some colorful veggies to add texture and color, but the total amount of them shouldn’t exceed the amount of corn. And you should use enough pine nuts that every single bite has one or two pine nuts in it. Unlike most of the stir fried dishes I’ve introduced on this site, this dish does not require a lot of herbs. In fact, it’s OK to skip the green onion if you don’t have any. This dish emphasizes the sweet and refreshing flavor of the corn and pine nuts, so you don’t want to add anything that would overpower the main ingredients. I added a chicken stock slurry at the end, which brings the ingredients together and makes the dish even more flavorful. If you want to make the dish vegetarian, simply replace the chicken stock with water. And if you do not like the idea of using potato starch, it is ok to skip this step too. The final dish will be slightly dry, but still taste good. I hope you enjoy!
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