Creamy Corn Soup

Something creamy seemed like a great idea for our next soup.  As the weather gets chillier here in Boston, I'll likely be making even more soup than I have been lately.  My mom and I both recently purchased Pati Jinich's Pati's Mexican Table and have been eager to try out her recipes.  This is not a winter soup, but a perfect one for autumn - full of corn and a taste of summer, but also creamy, spicy, and with a hint of vanilla to warm up the chill of fall.  Never mind that it's still in the high 70s in Las Cruces during the day - the temperature always drops significantly at night in the desert!

Creamy Corn Soup, from Pati's Mexican Table

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2/3 cup chopped white onion

2/3 cup thinly sliced leeks (white and light green parts only)

4 cups fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels

5 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 canned chipotle in adobo, seeded if desired, plus 2 tablespoons adobo sauce

1/2 vanilla bean, sliced open

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

slices of toasted crunchy bread (or, as my mom suggests, corn tortillas)

1.  Heat the oil and butter in a large pot over medium heat until the butter starts to foam.  Add the onion and leeks and cook for 5-6 minutes, until softened.  Add the corn and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it softens and deepens in color.

2.  Add the broth, chipotle, and adobo sauce, and bring to a gently simmer.  Cook for 5-6 minutes.

3.  Puree the soup until smooth (or puree only half, if you like more body as we do). 

4.  Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add them to the soup, along with the bean.  Gently heat the soup over low heat until hot, then add the milk.  Season with salt and pepper, stir, and allow the soup to steep over low heat for 8-10 minutes.  Remove the vanilla bean and serve.


CASSIE'S VERSION

This was simple and very comforting.  It was also consumed long ago, from both fridge and freezer, and I forgot to write anything down after making it.  I do remember that I increased the amount of adobo sauce (probably too much - my hand is often a little heavy when it comes to chile), and I also used my fancy Tahitian vanilla salt in addition to the vanilla bean.  This salt, a gift from my mom, has a very unusual sweet flavor and I am often unsure of how and when to use it.  I recently discovered it is great atop chocolate chip cookies, and it was also perfect in this soup.  Do not skip the vanilla, either in bean, salt, or extract form; it is a subtle addition that makes this otherwise simple soup a little different.  Aside from the vanilla, this is a fairly straightforward corn soup - but the proportions are just right, and sometimes straightforward with a little twist is just right for a satisfying lunch or dinner!

ANN'S VERSION

My mom also forgot to document her soup.  But she loved it!

KALE AND SWEET POTATO SOUP WITH CUMIN AND LEMON

(from Love Soup by Anna Thomas)

2 lg. leeks, white and lt. green part only
1 lg. onion
2 Tbs. olive oil
1-1/2 tsp. sea salt, more to taste
12 oz. sweet potatoes
1 sm. Yukon gold or white potato
12 oz. black or Russian kale
4 green onions, sliced
2/3 c. chopped cilantro
2-1/2 c. vegetable broth, as needed
fresh ground black pepper
1 Tbs. cumin seed
1-2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
pinch of hot pepper
garnish:  additional fruity green olive oil, crumbled feta cheese

Wash and coarsely chop the leeks, using only the white and light green part, and chop the onion.  Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan and start sauteing the onions with a sprinkle of salt.  When they are translucent and soft add the leeks and keep cooking, stirring often, until all the vegetables are golden, about 20 min.

Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes, scrub the small Yukon gold or white potato, and cut them all in 1/2 inch dice.  Trim the thick stems from the kale and cut the greens into one-inch strips or chop them very coarsely.  Combine the sweet potatoes and kale in a soup pot with 5 cups cold water and a teaspoon of salt, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about fifteen minutes.

Add the sauteed leeks and onions to the pot along with the sliced green onions, cilantro and a lot of fresh ground black pepper.  Add as much of the vegetable broth as you need to give the soup a nice consistency--this is a hearty soup but not a stew and it should pour easily from a ladle.  Simmer the soup gently, covered, for about ten more minutes.

Lightly toast the cumin seed in a dry pan just until it is fragrant and grind it in a mortar or spice grinder.  Stir the cumin seed and a spoonful of lemon juice into the soup and taste.  Add more salt, pepper or lemon juice as needed and finish with a pinch of cayenne or any red pepper.

Ladle the soup into warm bowls and garnish each bowl with a swirl of fruity olive oil.  If you like cheese, a heaping spoonful of tangy crumbled feta cheese dropped on top of each serving is fantastic.

ANN'S VERSION

I found this recipe by googling "kale soup" and this was one of the few that didn't have beans and sausage.  My all-time favorite soup (and one I make often) is kale with potatoes, beans and sausage so I wanted one a little different.  The online recipe said it was from an Anna Thomas cookbook, Love Soup.  Her Vegetarian Epicure cookbooks are probably the most dilapidated in my library from frequent use so I was sure it would be good.  I must admit though that I did some drastic comma editing when I posted the recipe as the recipe had commas out the wazoo which drives me crazy.  I would not expect this of Anna Thomas who I suspect is superior in all things so I blame the blogger who posted her recipe.

I chose a kale soup because I had a lot of baby kale in my garden.  Notice I said "had".  I actually took my kitchen scale to the garden to make sure I cut only the 12 oz. called for in the recipe since I want the crop to continue.   I stopped at 8 oz. because it was a big bowlful of kale and the stems were so tender and tiny that I would not be removing them.  The poor kale patch is quite sparse now but should rebound soon.  

I used a sweet onion variety (can't recall the name) grown in Las Cruces,  a red-skinned potato, a whole bunch of cilantro and 3 cups of unsalted chicken broth instead of the vegetable broth.  I'm not a vegetarian and I've never found a commercial vegetable broth that doesn't have an overwhelming taste of one vegetable, usually celery or turnips.  The soup goes together pretty quickly with most of your time spent chopping.  The final consistency was excellent and all the ingredients kept their integrity so it was also very attractive.  Toasting cumin seed has got to be one of the best smells in the world, and when ground in a mortar it is amazing and really essential to this soup.  At the end I also added the juice of 2 small lemons, 2 tsp. of salt and 1 tsp. of Aleppo pepper (one of my favorites). I did not add olive oil to my bowl (because I forgot!) but the feta cheese is a great addition.  The Windmill Dairy (in northern NM) goats' milk feta is the best ever!

Really good soup--healthy and satisfying.  The combination of sweet potatoes and kale is so pretty and very tasty.  I highly recommend this recipe.


CASSIE'S VERSION

Yum!  This was delicious, and very, very green.  I might have used more kale than was necessary, as well as more cilantro, but I love greens so this worked for me.  I used one sweet potato, one red-skinned potato, and two full packages of baby kale which didn't require any de-stemming.  As a result I needed to add quite a bit of broth to thin the soup, which then required that I add additional toasted cumin, way more lemon juice (almost three whole lemons), and healthy doses of red and black pepper.  I too used Aleppo pepper as that was close at hand.  The feta was a lovely touch at the end and added a nice saltiness and consistency.  Other than fiddling with the quantities somewhat, I adhered to the recipe and was glad I did.  I would not have thought to combine these ingredients, nor would I have thought a soup could be so tasty with so few components - but this made for a very satisfying dinner.  Thanks for the recipe, Mom!  And it appears that we made the very same modifications, down to the skin of the potato and the variety of the red pepper.  Reminds me of those days that we would inadvertently wear the same color shirt, pants, and shoes and not realize it until the afternoon.  :)