Corn chowder: a soup built on stock from the stripped cobs, with bacon and potatoes
The American late-summer soup, thick from potato and corn rather than from a litre of cream. The secret is in the part nobody looks at: once the kernels are off, the bare cobs are left, and a great deal of corn flavour sits in them. Twenty minutes of simmering those cobs in stock gives a broth you cannot buy. Then bacon, potatoes, kernels, and a third of the soup blended for body.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Kernels and cobs 10 min
- Cob stock 20 min
- Bacon and vegetables 10 min
- Simmering 15 min
- Blending and cream 5 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneCut off the kernels and scrape the cobs
Stand a cob upright in a wide bowl (not on a board — the kernels fly across the kitchen) and slice the kernels off downwards with a sharp knife, close to the core. Then run the back of the knife down the stripped cob, squeezing out the milky liquid into the bowl. Keep the cobs.
Ingredients: 4 pcs fresh corn on the cob · 800 ml vegetable or chicken stock · 120 g smoked bacon · 1 pcs onion · 2 pcs celery · 400 g potatoes · 20 g butter · 2 tbsp plain flour · 300 ml milk · 100 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 pcs bay leaf · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
TipThat milk is starch and sugar from the base of the kernels. Scraped from four cobs it gives a few spoonfuls of liquid that thicken the soup and deepen its flavour more than another splash of cream would.
Knife down, then the blunt side along the cobSimmer a stock from the cobs
Snap the cobs in half, put them in a pot with the stock and the bay leaf, bring to the boil and simmer covered 20 minutes. Lift out the cobs and the bay leaf and discard them; keep the stock in the pot.
TipThe cob is not waste: it holds the aromatics and starch that make the soup taste of corn rather than merely sweet. Skip this step and the chowder tastes like potato soup with corn added.
Twenty minutes, then the cobs go in the binRender the bacon
In a second heavy pot, put the diced bacon into the cold pot and fry over medium heat 7–8 minutes, until the fat has run and the pieces are crisp. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto paper towel and save them for the top; leave the fat in the pot.
TipA cold start gives the fat time to escape before the meat scorches. Dropped onto a hot base, bacon sticks at once and stays tough, and noticeably less of the fat the onion needs to soften in renders out.
Cold start, crisp bits saved for the topSoften the vegetables and add flour
Add the butter to the bacon fat, then the finely diced onion and celery, and cook 5 minutes, until soft but not browned. Sprinkle in the flour and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the raw smell goes.
Onion and celery soft, flour cooked two minutesAdd the stock, potatoes and corn
Add the hot cob stock a ladle at a time, stirring smooth after each — flour let down gradually cannot form lumps. Add the potatoes in 1.5 cm dice, the corn kernels and the scraped corn milk. Simmer 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
Stock by the ladle, then potatoes and kernelsBlend a third of it
Dip the stick blender into one spot and blend about a third of the soup, leaving the rest in pieces. A chowder should be thick from potato and corn starch, not from cream.
TipBlending part of it gives you a creamy background and whole mouthfuls in the same bowl. Blended completely, the soup becomes an ordinary purée and loses what separates a chowder from a cream soup.
Blender on one side, the rest left chunkyMilk, cream, serve
Pour in the milk and cream, season with salt and pepper and heat through without boiling — a thick milky soup boiled hard catches on the bottom easily and the dairy may split. Ladle into bowls, top with the crisp bacon, chives and, if you like, a knob of butter. Keeps up to 2 days in the fridge; reheat gently.
Ingredients: ½ bunch chives · 10 g butter
Heated but not boiled, bacon and chives on top
Before you start
From canned corn
Out of season: 400 g canned corn, drained and rinsed, plus plain vegetable stock instead of cob stock. The soup will be sweeter and shallower — add a teaspoon of smoked paprika to make up the depth.
Without meat
Instead of bacon, 30 g butter and half a teaspoon of smoked paprika added with the flour. Toasted sunflower seeds on top instead of the bacon bits.
With fish
200 g cod in 3 cm cubes, dropped in for the last 5 minutes, turns this into a hearty corn and fish chowder. Don't stir once the fish is in or it breaks up.
