Summer!
Here is a bit of mood music to set the tone: Joe Hisaishi’s One Summer’s Day.
How pretty is that?
This is my favorite time of the year for cooking. Summer fruits and vegetables are ripe and plentiful in the farmer’s markets. I just stand there in awe of Mother Nature’s bounty and muse on the possibilities for my kitchen.
Stone fruits. Tomatoes. Squash and beans and strawberries and kale chard. Wow.
This Fresh Corn and Tomato Soup recipe makes great use of both ripe tomatoes and fresh white corn. The surprise in the soup (at least for me) was the use of corn meal as a thickener. Who knew? I feared that the broth would turn grainy but in the end it was smooth and flavorful.
Hope you enjoy this one. I did –to the very last drop.
Save RecipeIngredients
- 4 Corn Cobs
- 5 C. water
- 1 Large Shallot (unpeeled)
- 2 Sprigs of Fresh Oregano
- 3 T. Olive Oil
- 1 Chopped Sweet Onion
- 3 Cloves Garlic (chopped)
- 1/4 C. Cornmeal
- 2 Tomatoes (chopped)
- 2 Russet Potatoes (peeled and chopped)
- Chopped Cilantro, Chopped Fresh Tomato, grated Parmesan for garnish
Instructions
- Prepare the fresh corn. Remove the kernels from the cobs and set the kernels aside.
- Combine stripped corn cobs with 5 cups of water in a soup pot along with the unpeeled shallot. Add the sprigs of fresh oregano to the soup pot. Bring the water to a simmer and cook the corn broth for 15 minutes. Remove cobs and discard. Remove shallot and herbs. Set broth aside
- Heat olive oil in a skillet and saute sweet onion and garlic in olive oil until the onion and garlic are soft. (I found that I only needed to use about 1/2 of the sweet corn kernels I got from 4 ears of corn. Depending upon the size of the corn you use, you may need to adjust the amount you put into your soup.) Stir the cornmeal into the onion/garlic mixture and continue cooking (and stirring) for an additional 5 minutes.
- Add onion/garlic/cornmeal mixture to the broth. Add the tomatoes, potatoes and reserved corn to the broth. Cook until potatoes are tender. Season to your taste with salt and pepper.
- Garnish with chopped cilantro, chopped tomatoes and grated Parmesan cheese.
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This recipe is adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe. You can find the original recipe here.
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