a recipe—instead, it’s a casual paragraph in his book. He describes the dish as “grilled corn, Persian style,” and tells me that it’s a common snack sold by street vendors in Iran. It’s a favorite of his and, as a longtime fan of, the street corn sold in Mexico, I find this all very relatable. The corn of Baraghani’s youth is a much simpler, welcome departure from the crema, cotija, and chili powder-laden cobs of my childhood, and I couldn’t be more excited to try his method.
The key to Baraghani’s Persian style grilled corn is to shuck it, then get it really, really dark over hot coals. “You want to get it darker than most people would normally take it,” he tells me. We’re not looking for a few grill marks on the corn, but rather a deep caramel, almost molasses color, as uniformly as possible over every kernel—don't sweat it if it's not perfectly uniform. It should take about 8 to 12 minutes of grilling, rotating the corn every two to three minutes.
Then, instead of slathering with butter and sprinkling with salt, you’ll give your corn a bath. “While the corn is still hot, fresh from the grill, dip it in aof hot, very, very salty water, almost like a brine,” Baraghani tells me. The water should be super salty—even more than pasta water. Baraghani advises stirring ½ cup of kosher salt into 10 cups of hot water until dissolved before dunking the corn in for one to three minutes.
It’s corn