Friday 25 January 2008

Let them eat soup!

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As everyone who has been watching the UK news at the beginning of the week will know (well most people in the UK will actually know from their own experience), it has been raining and raining and raining here in Yorkshire.

Well, I have to say it has been hideous and I certainly didn't feel like singing. Maybe if Gene Kelly had been around to accompany me I would have burst into song and dance, but as that wasn't the case the only remedy I could think of was to wrap up warm, light a fire, make soup and of course eat it!

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When I was in New York in December I had a wonderful Chicken and Corn Chowder, so now my quest is to come up with a recipe to match it. I haven't quite perfected it, but nevertheless this was pretty good and in my opinion well worth posting. I took the Sweetcorn Chowder recipe from 'Nigella Express' as the basis and added and adapted a little here and there to come up with this. It served two of us, plus one portion to take to work for lunch the next day.


Quick Chicken and Corn Chowder

500gr frozen sweetcorn, defrosted
2 spring onions, cleaned and roughly chopped
1 small clove of garlic, peeled
35gr cornmeal or semolina
1 litre hot vegetable stock
1 chicken breast fillet, cooked and shredded
1 pinch of cayenne pepper, or to taste
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
1 red chili, seeds removed and finely chopped

200gr lightly salted tortilla chips
some grated cheddar

Preheat your oven to 200C/Gas 6/400F.

Drain any liquid that might have collected while defrosting from the sweetcorn and place it in a food processor together with the spring onions, garlic, cornmeal (semolina) and blend until mushy.

Scrape the mix into a heavy bottomed pan, add the vegetable stock, stir and bring to a simmer. Season to taste with cayenne, salt and pepper.

Lower the heat and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the soup is simmering spread your tortillas on a baking sheet and sprinkle with as much or as little cheddar as you like, warm them through in your oven until the cheese has melted. It should take about 5 minutes

Add the shredded cooked chicken to the soup (I fried mine on low heat while the soup was simmering, but you could use left over roast chicken as well) and heat through.

Fill some bowls with the soup and top with a few of the tortilla chips and sprinkle with chili.

Serve the rest of the tortilla chips on the side.




3 comments:

Marie Rayner said...

That looks absolutely delicious Sylvie! I make a chicken sweetcorn chowder myself, but I add a can of creamed corn to it. It makes it taste really nice and corny and gives the soup an extra creaminess!

Sylvie said...

Thanks Marie. I didn't know cream style corn was available in the UK until I found it in a supermarket in Manchester's Chinatown just yesterday. I had never seen it anywhere before, but maybe I just haven't been looking properly. I bought a can anyways, so I can try it next time!

aforkfulofspaghetti said...

That sounds delicious - and how lovely to have another portion leftover for the next day!