This is a great corn chowder that has just enough sweetness to ensure that kids and adults alike will love it. The secret is to use fresh ears of corn and not canned. Frankly, I've never even tried it with canned corn, but why would you?!
Garnish with finely chopped scallions or cilantro leaves.
Directions
In a medium sized pot, sweat the vegetables in the oil:
- 2 ears fresh corn cut off the cob
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 stalk celery, chopped
- 1 carrot, chopped
- pinch of salt
When the vegetables have softened, add the chicken stock and simmer 30-40 minutes.
Pur?e the broth and vegetable mixture in a food processor until very smooth. Strain through a fine sieve, keeping the liquid and discarding the pulp.
Make a blonde roux from the butter and flour by melting the butter in a shallow saut? pan and stirring in the flour until well combined.
Combine the filtered corn broth, the hot roux, the remaining chicken stock and the additional corn. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.
Just before serving, stir in and gently simmer for about 5 minutes:
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
- salt to taste
Kids!
Chopping the veggies for the stock, and of course, the kids love shucking the corn!
Notes...
This is basically a two part recipe. Make a corn "stock" with vegetables and corn. Puree and filter the stock, and then add more corn and cream to finish the chowder. The recipe uses four ears of corn total. Two are used to form the base stock and are pureed with the other vegetables. The second two ears are used to add actual kernels of corn to the soup. Use fresh ears of corn, not canned corn! Fresh corn is way sweeter than canned and when whole kernels of corn are added to the soup near the end, the fresh kernels remain very crunchy and add a lot to the experience.