Cold Corn Vichyssoise, make the most of sweet summer corn -4-6 small portions
One of my August 2013 recipes for Beyond Celiac (formerly National Foundation for Celiac Awareness)
This recipe is based on one of Jacques Pépin’s. It's summertime, hot and humid and I had just made Gazpacho. I noticed this cold soup in one of his books. He only uses the corn niblets. I have read quite a few times of simmering the 'empty' corn cobs with soup or even making a corn broth from corn cobs. So I let the corn cobs simmer in the soup and added fresh herbs from my garden as well as finishing the soup with light cream rather than half and half as he does. This is a very mild, creamy soup, with the sweetness of the corn and so much flavor from the fresh herbs. I even found that this was still good when I made it with raw corn cobs that had been in the fridge for several days, but were still juicy with 'milk'. And make sure to use potatoes that disintegrate on cooking and don’t stay firm. Remember that corn is very mild so if you try making this with water and fat free milk you will be very disappointed. I even added 2 tablespoons of butter to hot version for amazing burst of butter flavor. Think about making this as a cold soup for 4th of July or any summer bbq instead of grilling corn, fabulous as fresh corn is with butter and some truffle salt.
I noticed recently that Fine Cooking had a similar recipe with soup topped with crispy prosciuto and fresh basil.
1 tbsp butter (15 ml)
1 tbsp oil (15 ml)- avocado or mild olive oil, never canola or soy.
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1 medium potato (Russet/Idaho) weighing about 4-6 oz (125-175 g), peeled and cut into 1 “ (2.5 cm) chunks
About 2 cups (16 fl oz, 480 ml) of fresh corn cut from the cob. 3 skinny ears is roughly 2 cups. This summer I found that skinny ears were far more tender than fat ears, even when both were juicy/milky when raw.
2 cups (16 fl oz, 480ml) gf chicken stock
3/4 c (6 fl oz, 180 ml) light cream (single cream) bay leaf, several sprigs of fresh thyme or ½ tsp dried thyme. Don't be heavy handed with dried thyme, it can overpower. Lemon thyme is phenomenal.
Fresh chives to garnish. Even a few tiny cooked shrimp
1. Heat the butter and oil in a saucepan large enough to take the cobs lying flat (or else you have to cut the cobs to fit size of saucepan)
2. Add the onion and cook gently for a few minutes. Try not to let it brown.
3. Add the potatoes, corn niblets, corn cobs, bay leaf, fresh thyme and chicken stock.
4. Bring to a gentle boil, then turn down to a simmer and simmer, covered, for 20-30 minutes until potatoes are totally soft and disintegrating. (Only about 5 minutes in pressure cooker)
5. Remove bay leaf from soup, Try and remove the stringy stems of the fresh thyme – not necessary with dried thyme . Remove cobs from soup,
6. I like to purée the soup still in the saucepan using an immersion blender. If you didn’t use potatoes that fall apart then it can be difficult to get the soup smooth.
7. Stir in the light cream, let the soup cool and then refrigerate for several hours. It is wonderful hot as well.
8. Serve garnished with some fresh chives. A spoon of corn niblet is a great texture contrast as well when serving.
