Corn soup and corn

LUCKY DIP TIME

This is actually a lucky dip from a few days ago, because in the end I just did an "A Word From" post.

The book I chose was The Seasonal Kitchen by Beverley Sutherland Smith, which is one of my very favourite books and which I use frequently. It's one of those books arranged by ingredient, so when you've got an overload of zucchini say, that's about to go off, then this is one of my first stops to see what to do with it. Irrelevant in this instance as corn is not really in season at the moment. However, the page I opened it at was for two different corn soup recipes - Herbed corn soup and Golden corn soup with avocado. And there is yet another recipe on the previous page for Corn chowder - so corn, at least in Beverley Sutherland Smith's mind is really good for soup.

Before I get to the soup itself, a little bit more about the book. I guess you could say that she pinched a lot of the ideas for the book's arrangement from Stephanie Alexander's ground-breaking tome The Cook's Companion. This is particularly true for her lists of things that go with the ingredient in question and for the easy ideas she features here and there. I wonder did this cause any copyright problems? But the recipes are her own and it's rather more beautifully illustrated and although not every recipe is illustrated, many of them are. Do we need pictures? Does this make us feel we have failed when what we make doesn't quite look like the picture? Or do the pictures stimulate us to try? I'm not sure. My early paperback recipe books do not have pictures. Robert Carrier made a big thing about the few 'plates' as they called them then in his two early books. I do remember a similar sort of arrangement in my mother's Mrs. Beeton's. ( I think this was her only cookbook.) There was the occasional 'plate' although it wasn't often of an actual dish - more likely to be an illustration of the cuts of beef or something like that. And when you have no picture it can be a little bit of a surprise to see how the dish turns out.

But I digress. On the page that I picked as my lucky dip there is a hint about how to make croutons for soup - with the fanciful suggestion that you cut them into shapes with cookie cutters, and that you roll the edges in chopped parsley after frying them. But this too is another digression.

First - to corn itself.

A quick check of my cookery books and a visit to my favourite websites, made me think that the English (and some Australians) don't really do corn. At first I thought Delia had ignored it altogether, but then I realised that the British call it sweetcorn - and she does have a soup, although not really - it's a pumpkin soup with toasted corn on top. The most exotic of the British - Yotam Ottolenghi - has two recipes for corn soup - Sweetcorn Chowder with Spiced Butter and Sweetcorn Soup with Chipotle and Lime. (Stephanie has a version of the first one - well the soup is rather plainer but the spiced butter finish is similar.) And then I found that Jamie Oliver has a Sweetcorn and Mussel Chowder, and Nigel Slater has several (just Google Nigel Slater sweetcorn), so my aspersions on the British are somewhat unfounded. Just a problem with nomenclature. I'm not sure about the Asians, though I did find a reference to a Chinese crab and corn soup. Another time.

The word chowder which is frequently used when referring to corn soups, points to its new world origins though. Well sort of. It was first used in the eighteenth century by Bretons who had settled in New England. The name itself seems to be arrived from the French 'chaudière' meaning a stew pot - and that word is from the latin 'caldaria' meaning the same, and also cauldron. It's the only New World cereal and Beverley Sutherland Smith tells of the rather lovely legend of its origins. A golden-haired girl appeared to a brave young warrior demanding he set the prairie alight and then drag her through the ashes by her long hair. Corn sprang up from the tufts of the golden hair that were left on the ground. It has been cultivated there for around 10,00 years.

Another unrelated fact I saw just yesterday when researching holidays in France, was that maize as a crop in that country is being reconsidered in some places due to the diminishing rain - for it needs a fair bit of moisture.

Corn is, of course, one of those crops that can do a very wide number of things. You can make a flour from it - known as polenta in Italy, and cornmeal and cornflour elsewhere. You can do lots of different things with the whole cob and the kernels and you can even use the leafy husk to wrap things in. So it's very versatile and relatively easy to grow - I've even grown some myself in the past. It should be cooked very fresh - Beverley Sutherland Smith quotes another of my favourite cooks, Bert Greene, as saying, "you may stroll to the garden to cut the corn but you had darn well better run back to the kitchen to cook it." So maybe this is a vegetable you should really buy frozen. The kernels should still have 'milk' in them - pierce one to see when you buy it.

So at last - my page of lucky dip recipes. As I said there are three soup recipes in this book and they are all different which shows the versatility of corn. The picture is of the herbed corn soup. I'll give you two of them - leaving out the chowder - well it is on a different page and I've already directed you to a few.

HERBED CORN SOUP

3 corn cobs, 45g butter, 1 onion, finely chopped, 1 red capsicum cut into fine strips, 1 medium-sized potato, peeled and neatly diced, 3 cups chicken stock, 4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh marjoram, 2 leaves sage, finely chopped, 2 teaspoons finely chopped thyme, 3/4 cup cream, 1/2 cup grated tasty/cheddar cheese

Remove the husks and silk from the corn and carefully strip the kernels from the husks by cutting down with a sharp knife and having the corn in a basin to stop the juices being lost. Melt the butter and add onion and capsicum. Cook gently a couple of minutes until slightly limp. Add the corn, potato and stock and simmer gently about 10 minutes. Add the herbs and cook another couple of minutes. Take about 1 1/2 cups of the mixture and purée it. Return to the pan, it will slightly thicken the soup. Stir in the cream.

If you are reheating the soup don't add the cheese until dinnertime, as it can become sticky and tacky. Heat the soup again, scatter in the cheese and immediately remove from the heat and stir until the cheese has melted. Serve with a fine dusting of parsley on the top, if you wish.

GOLDEN CORN SOUP WITH AVOCADO

1/4 cup olive oil, 1 large onion, finely diced, 1 red capsicum, 2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped, 1 tablespoon flour, 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock, 3 corn cobs, 2 rashers bacon, cut into fine strips, 1 ripe avocado, 2 tablespoons finely chopped chives or parsley.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion capsicum and garlic and cook gently for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables are wilted. Scatter with flour and stir for a few minutes. Pour in the stock and let it come to the boil, stirring until lightly thickened. Grate the corn into a deep basin. This is a messy job. Corn splashes juice as you grate it, so using a deep basin helps stop those juices from going all over the bench. Tip the grated corn and all the liquid around it into the soup and cover. Leave to cook for about 20 minutes or until the vegetables are quite tender.

When ready to serve, cook the bacon until it is crisp. Drain well. Cut the avocado into small cubes and mix with the bacon and chives. Reheat the soup and add the avocado mixture at the finish, stir and take off the heat. You mustn't let avocado cook for long or it will become bitter. Serve ladling out some of the avocado with each portion. Or if you find it easier, serve the soup in a bowl, topping with the avocado and bacon mix.

So there you have it - corn and corn soup. I do like corn soup and often throw it into a thick veggie soup. I sometimes use milk as a large part of the liquid.