Sweet Corn Soup

From the Aaron Barnett collection

Introduction

Aaron Barnett, the chef of Portland’s 23Hoyt, adapted his mom’s corn soup for the restaurant. The original recipe calls for chicken stock, but this variation uses vegetable stock or water instead. This delicious soup tastes mostly of sweet corn but has hints of cilantro, cumin, jalapeño, and lime.

Ingredients

Soup

Garnishes

Steps

1. In a large heavy-bottomed soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat and sweat the onion, garlic, jalapeño, and cumin until tender and translucent. Add the corn and cilantro and continue cooking until tender. Add the vegetable stock or water and simmer for approximately 20 minutes.
2. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream. Using an immersion blender (or an ordinary blender, being careful not to spray hot soup everywhere), purée the soup and then strain it through a fine-meshed sieve. Add the lime juice to the soup and season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Garnish each cup or bowl of soup with a squeeze of lime juice, a cilantro leaf, a teaspoon of corn kernels, and a pinch each of diced red radish and jalapeño.

Notes

To make an easy vegetable stock, combine a couple of carrots, a celery stalk, half an onion, the corn cobs from the cut corn, and a handful of cilantro stems in a large stock pot with 3 1/2 quarts of water. Simmer, partially covered, for 1 to 2 hours. Strain.

This content is from the Aaron Barnett collection.