Mexican Street Corn Chowder

Mexican Street Corn Chowder

 

This is a hearty and delicious soup; perfect for cool fall and winter days. It's also a delicious summer soup using fresh summer corn. So many options! You can prepare it with fresh or frozen corn and you can opt to make it vegetarian by omitting the bacon and swapping chicken broth for veggie broth. Don't let the ingredient list intimidate you. It may look like a lot of ingredients, but it's really not and it's easy to make.

 

What You'll Need: 

 

3 strips of Bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces

1 Yellow (not sweet) Onion, chopped

1 Poblano pepper, chopped

3 stalks of Celery, chopped

4-6 cloves of Garlic, minced

2 Tbsp Butter

2 Tbsp Flour

5 cups of Corn ***See note below

2 cartons of Chicken Broth

1 ½ pounds of small golden Potatoes or Golden Yukon, cut into small bite sized even pieces

1 Tablespoon Honey (if not using fresh corn)

2 Tablespoons Oregano

2 Tablespoons Cumin

2 Tablespoons Ancho Chile Powder

Salt and Pepper

2 Bay Leaves 

Half and Half – about a cup

2 Limes, one zested and juiced. The other cut into wedges for garnish

Cilantro – about ½ cup, more if you want. Chopped for garnish.

Queso Fresco

Mexican Crema for garnish

  

***I used the Trader Joe’s frozen roasted corn, because fresh corn is not in season. But you can use fresh corn. Grill 8 ears of fresh corn on your grill or your grill pan and cut the kernels off. Add the cobs to the soup while it simmers to get the sweetness of the corn and remove the cobs before blending.  The fresh corn is sweeter, so you probably won’t need to add the honey. You can also use regular frozen corn. 

 

What You'll Do: 

Place the bacon pieces in a large Le Creuset Dutch Oven or other large, heavy pot on medium heat. Cook the bacon pieces until they are crispy and all of the delicious bacon fat has been rendered. Add the chopped onion, poblano, and celery to the bacon and fat and sauté until the onion starts to get soft and translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for just a minute, because it cooks fast.

 

When the garlic is brown, remove most of the bacon fat by pushing the veggies to one side of the pot and dabbing the fat with paper towels. You don’t want to remove all of it, but most of it.

 

Add the butter, stir it in and let it melt. Sprinkle the flour in and keep stirring until the flour gets a little brown. Next, add the corn, 5 cups of chicken broth, the potatoes, and spices. Add the juice and zest of one lime and the honey (if you are not using fresh corn). Go easy on the spices and salt because you can always add more later. Let the soup simmer on very low heat for about 30 minutes so that the flavors have time to develop and the potatoes will get nice and soft. Add more chicken broth along the way if you need to adjust the consistency of the soup.

 

Adjust the seasonings, adding more of whatever your taste buds think it needs. Remember that you’re about to add half and half and that will cool the spices down, so err a tiny bit on the spicy side. Remove the bay leaves and the corn cobs if you're using those. Add the half and half and, using an immersion blender, blend it up a little bit to thicken. If you don’t have an immersion blender, remove 2-3 cups of the soup and use a blender to purée, then add back into your pot. 

 

 

Ladle the soup into bowls and add swirls or dots of Mexican Crema. Top with a sprinkling of ancho chili powder, a wedge of lime, and generous amounts of crumbled queso fresco and chopped cilantro.