I am sure most of you have heard of Heidi Swanson and her famous blog 101cookbooks.com, but if you have not, it’s worth taking a browsing trip to her land of beautiful photos and delicious recipes. This is a recipe she had posted recently and it looked so great that I had to make it. I made some adaptations based on what I had at home. Also, instead of serving it with yogurt, I decided to serve with sour cream… perhaps I was trying to satisfy my Ukranian sister in law’s taste preference for sour cream over yogurt. I did have it with yogurt the next night and it was as great. It’s a recipe that you can add, or change and it would still come out tasting great and perfect for summer. In her blog, Heidi suggests to serve with hot farro or barley. Or alternately, topped with a poached egg and sprinkled with toasted, sliced almonds. I served it with a side of shrimp scampi and tomato cheese tart. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
Recipe:
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Corn Soup with Harissa and Cream
Adapted from 101cookbooks.com
Serves 4 to 6
Time to Prep: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- 6 ears corn, husks removed
- water
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1.5 lbs potatoes, cut into 1/4-inch dice
- 1 leek chopped (light green parts only
- 1/4 onion, chopped
- 4 medium cloves garlic, chopped
- salt and ground pepper
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- plain sour cream or yogurt, harissa, and fresh dill, to serve
Using a medium size bowl, cut the kernels from the cobs of corn. Place the cobs in a large pot of cold water (enough to cover the cobs.) Let the water come to a boil. Once the water is at boiling point, lower the heat and simmer for 35 minutes. Remove the cobs from the broth. The broth should have reduced by about half.
While the corn cobs are simmering, heat the olive oil and butter in a large skillet with a lid over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes, stir until they are well-coated, add salt, and saute until the potatoes for about 5 minutes. Cover the skillet with lid and cook for an additional of 5 minutes. Add the leeks, garlic and corn kernels. Cover with lid again and let it cook for another 3 minutes. Add sour cream and stir to combine. Add salt and pepper and adjust seasoning.
Add this mixture to the corn broth. At this point, you can decide if you need to add a little more water or not depending on how watery you like your soup. Let simmer for about 5 minutes or longer if you have added more water.
Once the soup has done simmering, remove from heat. I took the advice of Heidi and kept some of the soup chunky and some processed. If you like this using her method as well, remove about half of the soup and puree the rest, then stir the reserves chunky portion back in – combining smooth/chunky in the end. Taste and adjust with more salt and pepper.
Serve with a spoonful of plain yogurt or sour cream and chopped dill. If you love the added spicy kick, don’t forget the harissa paste.
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