The Elberta Farms Angel dropped off half a dozen super-fantastic ears of sweet corn last evening (along with a basket of the most delicious blueberries). Tuffy P suggested I make us some BBQ Corn Chowder. It’s been long enough since I’ve made something like this I wasn’t sure how exactly I went about it in the past – but I never let something like not knowing what I’m doing slow me down. Here’s how I made this awesome summer soup.
At the heart of this chowder is corn cooked on a charcoal grill. I guess in a pinch you could grill up some corn on one of those gas grills some people use but that kind of misses the point since it’s the smoky charcoal flavour you’re after. I started some charcoal and grilled all 6 ears until they had some nice colour.
While I was grilling the corn, I boiled up one peeled baking potato and then smashed it. I used a baking potato because it’s starchy and I expected it would thicken the chowder nicely. After the corn was nicely browned, I cut it off the cob and split it more or less in half. I put half of it in a bowl with the potato and added quite a bit of milk, maybe half a litre (I used 1% but you could go crazy and add whole milk or cream or even some sour cream or creme fresh). I blended this with an immersion blender for maybe 20 seconds, then put this bowl aside.
Next I splashed some super-fantastic olive oil (we use Salah’s Gold) into my soup pot and sauteed a chopped onion, a smashed and chopped garlic clove, a bunch of chopped up shiitake mushrooms, some celery, salt, pepper, lots of chopped up sage from the garden, and a little dried savory.
To this I added the reserved bbq corn.
At this point I was in the home stretch. I poured in some stock (don’t tell anyone, it was stock in a box) and mixed it up good, scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon to mix in all the tasty bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. Then I added in the milk/corn/potato blend. I let it all cook together for about 15 minutes.
Just before serving, I chopped in some parsley and chives from from the garden and dropped a basil leaf in each bowl to make it look nice.
So good!
27th Street 