The Food Revolution Ambassador monthly challenges this month include one of the best comfort foods around soup. But not just any soup – a hearty corn chowder! Over on Jamie Oliver’s site they’ve been talking a lot about comfort food recently, with the release of Jamie’s new book, so making one of the most comforting foods around, a chowder, seemed a natural fit.
If you can believe it, I have never actually made a corn chowder before so I was interested to try this one out. It also seemed like the perfect fit for our Thanksgiving dinner just over a week ago. I served it in little tea cups as we stood around and enjoyed some bubbly.
Jamie says: “Corn chowder is one of the ultimate comfort foods – I love it and it’s much easier than you think to make. You can adapt chowders and add all sorts of things from crab meat to smoked fish – the idea is really to be as hearty as possible.” It’s definitely a hearty soup thickened with a potato and a little flour – but it’s not as decadent as you might imagine when you are eating it. Jamie’s recipe calls for semi-skimmed (1% milk) – I used skim milk with a touch of cream (a tiny amount, maybe 1/4 cup of the total 3 cups of liquid) and it was perfect. I used a mixture of fresh and frozen corn – one of the other Ambassadors roasted her corn before using it in the soup which sounds like a great way to add some more flavour! (but you can make it entirely with frozen corn) and topped it with some spring onions for some extra colour and crunch.
I’ll definitely make this again; it’s so easy, uses ingredients I most always have on hand and it’s such a perfect autumn/winter soup – in flavour but also it brings a lot of colour to a grey day.
Win a copy of Jamie Oliver’s “Jamie’s Comfort Food” (worldwide). Closes Wednesday October 23rd 6pm EST. Details here.
Open to Canadians – win a $50 Kraft Canada gift basket. Closes Wednesday October 22nd 2014 at 6pm EST. Details here.
I’m a great lover of all soup ( my father’s son) but I’m unsure about corn.
But, I have a general question for Mr Neil.
Is there really any wine that ‘pairs’ with soup… it always strikes me that soup – any soup – doesn’t lend itself to an accompanying wine.
When it is served “shot style” (in small glasses or tea cups) a bubbly worked nicely!