I love sweetcorn in all forms! Grilled, steamed, in salads, in soups, popcorn and even straight out of the can! When I was much younger, I used to place a can of creamed corn in the fridge, opened it and eat it straight away. I know it's not the most sophisticated way of eating it but it tasted great! somewhat like ice cream!
One of my fave is the Chicken and Sweetcorn soup, one dish that is usually ordered when we dine out as a family. Being away from home, I seem to have forgotten about it until Lisa from My Lemony Kitchen posted it recently. I've no idea why I didn't think of making it earlier but am glad that I finally did! Initially, I wanted to follow strictly to Lisa's recipe but I couldn't find creamed corn anywhere! I guess it should be sold in Chinatown but I didn't get a chance to drop by so I decided to come up with my own recipe. The husband loved it so it's a winner!
It's a rather long winded recipe and I decided to do everything from scratch, that being the stock and poaching the chicken, all on the same day. It was well worth the effort though! Feel free to use pre-prepared stock or left over chicken. For a vegetarian version, just leave out the chicken and it'll taste great too!
Inspired by My Lemony Kitchen
Ingredients (Makes about 3 big bowls)
Stock & Chicken
1 medium carrot, roughly chopped
2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
1 spring onion/scallions, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, smashed
8 whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 litre of water
3 chicken breasts or chicken thighs
Soup
1 can sweetcorn
50g frozen corn
2 eggs, whisked
3 tbsp corn flour mixed with 6 tbsp of water
Sesame Oil
Salt
White pepper
Sliced spring onions and chilli, to garnish(Optional)
Method
Stock & Chicken
1) Place all stock ingredients except the chicken in pot and bring it to a boil.
2) Once it comes to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for at least an hour. You may need to top up the water.
3) Add chicken to the stock, bring it to boil, lower the heat and let it simmer for another 15 mins or until chicken is cooked. (Poaching the chicken in the stock adds even more flavour)
4) Once this is done, remove from the heat. Shred the chicken and set aside. Carefully pour the stock through a sieve and squeeze the day lights out of the vegetables.
Soup
5) Pour the stock back into the pot, add canned and frozen corn and bring back to a boil.
6) Stir in the corn flour mixture.
7) Slowly pour in the egg whilst stirring the soup.
8) Lower the heat and simmer for another 1-2 mins until egg is cooked.
9) Season to taste
10) Place shredded chicken into the bowls, scoop soup into bowls, garnish with spring onions and chilli, drizzle some sesame oil and serve.
After our cold morning walk in the beautiful snow, all I wanted when I got home was a bowl of warming soup. Luckily, I had some vegetable stock waiting for me in the freezer and there's always frozen peas in the freezer for days when we run out of vegetables and for days like this. Impromptu soup making! It would have been great if I had some fresh mint on hand but i really didn't want to go out in the cold again to buy some since my toes and fingertips had already thawed out. :P
What I really love about soup recipes is that one can take a basic soup recipe and just improvise with whatever you have at home. All you basically need is a good stock, some vegetables and to make it more exciting, add some herbs or spices and you are good to go!
Ingredients (Serves 2)
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
1 small carrot, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
450g of frozen peas
1 stalk of spring onions, chopped
500ml of Vegetable Stock
Olive Oil
Pine nuts, Extra Virgin Olive Oil to garnish (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Method
1) Fully defrost the peas.The reason I do this is because I want to keep the cooking time of peas as short as possible to keep their bright green colour.
2) Heat up some olive oil in a heavy bottom pot. Add the onion and carrots. Cook over a gentle heat until the onions and carrots are soft (about 10 mins). Add the garlic and cook a further 2 mins.
3) Pour in the stock and bring to boil.
4) Add in the peas as well as the spring onions and bring back to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for a further 2 mins.
5) Use a hand blender or liquidiser, pulse until the soup is smooth. Season to taste.
6) Divide into bowls, garnish with pine nuts. Drizzle with extra virgin oil oil and serve with some good bread.
Am still in a soup frenzy after enjoying the delicious Sweet Potato and Chorizo Soup and having seen this on the menu in St James Tavern recently(more on this in another post), I decided to cook it myself instead of ordering it as it can't be that difficult right? Well, I was partially right as I bought fresh chestnuts so peeling them were quite a chore! Other than that, this velvety and divine tasting soup was easy peasy and the husband loved it!! :)
Adapted from Nigella.com (serves 2-3)
Ingredients
125g red lentils
150g cooked chestnuts
800ml vegetable stock
1 carrot
1 small onion
half leek
2 tablespoons olive oil
fresh coriander, chopped
Single Cream to serve
Method
1.Finely chop the onion, leek and carrot.
2.Heat the oil in a pan, add the chopped vegetables and let sweat and soften in the oil.
3.Add the lentils and stir, then add the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer until lentils are very soft (about 20 minutes).
4.Add the chestnuts and simmer for a further 15 minutes or so.
5.Liquidise until smooth adding as much water as you need.
6.Whenever you want to serve it reheat, and sprinkle each full bowl of soup with coriander and lace with cream.
When it's cold outside, one of the best thing to enjoy inside is a bowl of piping hot soup in front the fireplace. A fireplace I don't have but a bowl of soup can be easily whipped up in no time at all. This one combines the sweetness of the sweet potatoes with the spiciness of the other ingredients to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside which in my opinion is a very nice feeling to have in winter. And of course,anything with chorizo is always delicious!!! ;)
Adapted from Jamie Oliver Food Revolution
Serves 3-4
Ingredients
2 carrots
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
450g sweet potatoes
100g chorizo sausage
1.5 heaped teaspoon curry powder
1 vege stock cube or 1 vege knorr stock pot
900ml of water
1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped
Method
Peel and roughly slice the carrots and onions.
Peel and slice the garlic.
Peel and chop the potatoes.
Slice the chorizo.
Put a large heavy based pot on medium heat and lightly fry the chorizo without any oil. Once the oil oozes out of the chorizo, remove the chorizo and set aside.
In the same pot, add onion and garlic. Saute until onions are translucent.
Add carrots, sweet potato and curry powder and mix together
Cook for around 10 mins with the lid askew, until the carrots have softened but are still holding their shape.
Put the stock cubes/stock pot into a jug and pour in 900ml of boiling water
Stir until dissolved then add to the vegetables
Add back the chorizo into the pot, give the soup a good stir and bring to the boil
Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins until potato is softened
Season with salt and pepper
Using a hand blender or liquidiser, pulse the soup until smooth and scatter over a little finely chopped chilli
Divide between bowls and serve with bread!!
