Spicy Cumin-Infused Sweet Corn Soup
Ingredients (yields 4 servings)
5 cups of sweet corn (fresh or frozen)
1 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 jalapeños, seeded and minced
3 tablespoons butter
3 cups vegetable stock
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Instructions
Saute the corn, onion, cumin and jalapeños with the butter in a large saute pan for 20-25 minutes or until the kernels are cooked. Reserve 2 cups of corn for garnish.
Place the remaining corn in a blender with the vegetable stock and puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon some of the reserved corn mixture into each bowl and ladle the soup over the corn. Sprinkle with the chopped cilantro.
Recipe Notes: I’m going to assume that your freezer looks similar to mine and if I were to open it, we would discover a random assortment of half-used bags of frozen fruits and vegetables. Freezer-burned and long forgotten, we have no recollection how they got there and despite whatever solemn oath we took at the time to use it up for some future purpose, it simply never happened. Included in my menagerie of frozen detritus were two partial bags of corn that I was determined to turn into lunch. Years ago, I had dined at the legendary Charlie Trotter’s restaurant in Chicago and Chef Trotter himself gifted me with a pile of his cookbooks. One of the titles was Gourmet Cooking for Dummies, Charlie’s guide to fancy cooking for the novice. Most of the dishes were beyond my skillset save for a recipe for corn soup. I’ve been making it for years and you simply can’t go wrong with it, even with freezer-burned corn. This recipe is vegetarian and can be made vegan by substituting the butter for a plant-based oil. I would also suggest pairing it with some Southwestern cornbread.