Pure Comfort

Fresh corn isn’t a vegetable commonly available in winter when this soup is so desirable, so canned corn is the way to go. Its sweet, corn-infused packing water is great in the soup.

Ingredients:

– 3 8 oz. cans sweet yellow corn
– 2 med. carrots, peeled, chopped into 3 pieces each
– 2 stalks celery, chopped into 3 pieces each
– 1/4 med. onion in a single chunk
– fresh parsley knot
– 1/2 med. sweet onion, minced
– butter
– 1 strip thick cut bacon, minced
– flour
– salt
– fresh ground black pepper
– whole milk

Preparation:

Drain the cans of corn and reserve the packing water. Mash the corn from 2 of the cans.

Simmer the vegetables in water to cover for 20 min. Remove from heat, remove vegetables from stock, reserving carrots for a future dish and pressing the rest of the vegetables through a strainer over the pot to express the liquid.

Fry the bacon in 1 tbsp butter in a large pot over med. heat till brown and crispy, add theonion and sautée till translucent. Add 4 rounded tbsp of flour and melt in 4 tbsp of flour to make a paste, and continue stirring and flipping the bubbling paste to cook evenly for 2 minutes to prevent it from sticking and burning. Add the water from all three cans of corn and stir thoroughly to dissolve the flour paste and continue stirring with a wooden spatula scraping along the bottom of the skillet to keep the cream sauce from sticking and burning. Add all the mashed corn and then the vegetable stock a bit at a time to extend volume while maintaining chowder consistency, stirring to prevent burning. Add milk to whiten the soup and half of the can of un-mashed corn. Turn-off burner, cover pot, and let corn flavor steep into the soup for 10 minutes before serving.

Serve with oyster crackers.