It’s cold. It is pouring rain. I have a @!%!! roof leak.
I’m craving soup…again!
Here is a recipe from Joanne Chang’s Myers + Chang At Home cookbook. You can buy the cookbook through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.
In the introduction to this recipe, Joanne Chang describes this soup as “one of the most indulgent soups you’ll ever eat.” That’s a “whoa!” for me; I can never resist a recipe with that kind of praise from the author, particularly a renowned chef like Chang.
Chang, the recipient of the 2016 James Beard award for Outstanding Baker, is the founder of Boston’s Flour Bakeries (there are 9 of them). She has written a number of important cookbooks including Pastry Love and Flour. She and her restauranteur husband Christopher Myers are the owners of Myers + Chang, a popular “Asian-ish” (their description) Boston Restaurant. Did I mention that she is a Harvard honors graduate in Applied Mathematics and Economics?
Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.
Coconut and Corn Soup
Ingredients
- 6-8 Ears of fresh sweet corn (shucked)
- 4 T. unsalted butter
- 1 medium leek (carefully cleaned and sliced)
- 4 medium shallots (sliced)
- 2 t. kosher salt
- 1 t. ground white pepper
- 2 14-oz. cans of coconut milk
- 1 C. water
- Grated zest of 2 limes
- 4-6 t. sriracha or sambal oelek (for garnish)
- Thinly-sliced basil leaves (Thai if available--for garnish)
Directions
- Step 1 Shuck the corn and slice the corn kernels off the cobs. You want about 5-6 C. fresh corn kernels. Set aside.
- Step 2 Sauté leeks and shallots in melted butter in a large pan. Season with salt and white pepper. Sauté until the vegetables soften and become translucent.
- Step 3 Add the corn kernels to the pan with the leeks and shallots. Continue to cook for another 5 minutes. Stir while cooking.
- Step 4 Add the coconut milk to the corn mixture. Add 1 C. water to the mixture. Stir in the lime zest and simmer the soup over low heat for about 15 minutes.Remove the soup from the heat and let it cool a bit before you puree it.
- Step 5 Puree the soup in batches. Then, strain the smooth soup through a fine sieve to get a perfectly smooth texture. Sieve it twice if you have the time and the patience. Discard the pulp.
- Step 6 Reheat the soup before serving. You can thin it a bit with more coconut milk or dairy milk at this point if you wish. Garnish each bowl of soup with about 1 t. of the sriracha. (The original recipe uses sambal oelek) and strips of fresh basil. I garnished mine with some fresh basil flowers.
