Monday, June 18, 2007

Sweet Corn Soup

Dear Foodies,

Here's a bowl of soul warming soup. This dish was part of a Indo-Chinese dinner that my room mate and I had put together. My roomie, actually ex-roomie now :(, makes the best vegetable manchuria. It had been ages since she made some and we pestered her into making some for us. So we decided to make it a complete Indo-Chinese meal that night with her making the signature manchuria's & vegetable stir fry and I made this soup and vegetable fried rice. I'll come back with the recipes for all of them, and try getting a guest post in for the lip smacking manchuria's ( you can see a pic of them on my blog header)


Now coming back to the soup, we had two options in mind, a hot n sour soup or the sweet corn soup. The hot n sour soup was just plain soy sauce and since all the other dishes were already loaded with that ingredient I decided to try making the sweet corn soup. Its a extremely simple soup to make and very delicious. It gets your taste buds rolling and totally warmed up for a meal ahead. Alternately, you can add extra vegetables to it and have it with some fresh toasted bread to make it a meal in itself. I used frozen corn this time, but you can always substitute with fresh corn. It will only take a little longer to get tender.

Ingredients:
  • 1 pack - frozen Sweet Corn (16 oz pack)
  • 1 cup - Carrot, grated
  • 1 cup - Cabbage, shredded/finely julienned
  • 3 cups - Water/as per required consistency
  • 2 Tbsp - Soy sauce/ as per taste
  • 1 Tbsp - Vinegar/as per taste
  • Salt and Pepper for seasoning (use freshly ground pepper)
  • 1-2 Tbsp - cornstarch - Optional
Garnish:
  • 3 nos - Green chillies (Indian chillies), chopped
  • 2 Tbsp - Vinegar
Add the chopped green chillies to the vinegar and let it sit for awhile until you get the soup prepared.
  • Coriander leaves
Method:
  1. Heat water in a saucepan and drop the frozen corn into it and let it come to a boil. You don't have to necessarily thaw the corn, it will save you some time though.
  2. Once the corn kernels get tender, turn off the heat and reserve 1/2 - 3/4 cup of corn to use as whole. After the rest of the corn cools down puree it in a blender or use a hand blender. I did not make it a smooth puree but preferred a slight grainy texture.
  3. *Always wait till the ingredients cool down before you transfer them to a blender. When hot, the steam generated can force the lid of the blender to pop open, raining everything in it onto your kitchen and you might hurt yourself too, so always be cautious.*
  4. Now transfer the pureed corn to the stove top and add the reserved corn, grated carrots and shredded cabbage to it and simmer. Also add the soy sauce and vinegar, adjusting as per your taste. The carrots and cabbage should not be cooked till tender, let them stay a little crisp from some crunch.
  5. Adjust the consistency of the soup to your liking. If you want to thicken it add a spoon of corn starch mixed into cold water and allow the soup to come to a boil.
  6. Add a little salt and pepper now for some base taste and leave the rest to be added while serving the soup.
  7. Garnish with the vinegar soaked chillies and coriander leaves.

I loved this soup. Its what any dish should be, simple and delicious. The crunch from the carrots and cabbage is really nice and the whole corn kernels add to the texture. Its a nice little mouthful, especially when had with the chillies. The vinegar mellows the sharpness of the green chillies a little and they are a perfect compliment to the mild corn. Freshly ground pepper is a must in this soup, sweet corn and pepper go perfectly well together.

While replying to the comments I realized this soup could be the purrfect dish for Coffee's MBP-Going Lite. No oil, no butter vonly vegetabuls :)) :)) I had gone through a few recipes before I started making this soup(how can you be a blogger and not search in other blogs) and one of them was Shilpa's recipe and this one from Saroj's cookbook.

20 thoughts:

bee said...

this is totally my kind of dish. will try it soon. i wish i had a roomie who made icecreams and soups.

Suganya said...

Sweet corn with salty soy sauce.. Looks creamy too... Waiting for the other indo-chine recipes :)

Viji said...

Very nice priya. The soup look yummy. Viji

Meeta K. Wolff said...

Hmmmn! My mother used to make a killer sweet corn soup. This really soounds great Priya. Hmmmmn!

Sia said...

all my roomie did was wash plates:( and we were not very keen cooks at that time:)
this is my kind of dish priya. give me a bowl of soup and break i will happily sit and make it a whole meal:)

TNL said...

That is such a lovely hue of yellow...and what a great recipe!

thanks for sharing,
trupti

ushaprashanth said...

Hi!
Soup is really very nice!! And that's a very informative tip you have given here!!

Priya said...


Its nice to see that all of you liked the soup. Give it a try and let me know soon :)

Bee, my roomie and frnds have been complaining to everyone who asks that its all my fault that they have put on a little weight :((

Suganya, will try to post the other recipes soon too. And the soup does look creamy and is extremely light though. Oh...did I say lite ?? :D

Viji, let me know if you make some :)

Meeta, hmmmm...may be its time you made some...hmmmm :P

Sia, lol, I know how much you love soups thru your blog, hope you enjoy this one too :)

Trupti, Thank you ! I did not have to try too hard with this recipe, its just so simple and wonderful.

Usha, my mother always told me not to use the blender with hot stuff. Once I tried it and could feel the steam pressure on my hand which was over the lid. In a hurry we tend to rush things, but with a blender we need to be extra careful.

Nupur said...

Oh, that soup looks delicious! I'm always on the look-out for a good recipe for this...thanks for sharing. I too had a roomie who was a very good cook (I miss you, Steph!)...oh, and one thing about the blender, if you use an immersion blender, you can puree hot soups in a jiffy in the same pot. It is a very useful kitchen tool, IMHO.

Priya said...


Thank you Nupur, hope you try it and love it as much as I did. Oh yaa, the immersion blender,a spice grinder, a food processor, have these and a lot more on my list of things to buy when I move to my own apt :)

Nabeela said...

the immersion blender in on my list too ;)
As for the soup, looks good and creamy....your room-mates are certainly lucky!

Nabeela said...

P.S: I understand now why you said your spanakopitas have very less butter....becasue phyllo sheets don't have much. I somehow thought that phyllo sheets had as much butter as puff pastry....but I was wrong. When I looked at the nutrition information on phyllo sheets at my grocery store, I realized my mistake.

Anonymous said...

always had corn soup at restaurants or ready made
ur recipe looks yummy.

Anonymous said...

always had corn soup at restaurants or ready made
ur recipe looks yummy.
need to get ingredients first :(

www.talimpu.com

Suganya said...

This is my fav.....Love it...Nice picture..

Anonymous said...

great soup...very new to me...have to try it...thanks for sharing

Shobana senthilkumar said...

Hi ,
u have posted my fave soup.Looks creamy and rich.

Nupur said...

After looking at this post, I had to rush and make sweet corn soup. I broke fresh corn cobs into half, then pressure-cooked them, stripped away the corn using a sharp knife and then made the soup. Thanks for the inspiration!

Priya said...

Now you have inspired me to try it again with some fresh corn :D. Thank you for letting me know you liked it :)

Chef said...

You need cream style corn for this soup not frozen corn.That makes lot of difference.

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