Roasted Corn Chowder

One of my sassier friends commented last week that I should make a chowder because I'm from Rhode Island. I don't think he's the least bit familiar with the nastiness that is Rhode Island clam chowder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clam_chowder#Rhode_Island_clam_chowder) nor does he know that I'm not really a fan of traditional clam chowders. However, he threw down a challenge so I had to respond. Sudhir - I hope you're happy with this roasted corn chowder.

For this soup, you'll need: corn (I used 2 12-ounce bags of frozen corn), 5 Roma tomatoes, 4 stalks of celery, 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 5 small red potatoes, 2 chipotles in adobo sauce, 2 cups of milk, 4 cups of broth of your choosing (I used chicken), chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, 1/4 cup of flour, butter and olive oil. (please ignore the destroyed wall, we're still waiting on our tin tiles for the kitchen)

First, if you're using frozen corn set it out to thaw for maybe 10-20 minutes. If you're using fresh corn, cook it and cut it off the cob.  Then chop the tomatoes, discarding seeds.  Since its January, I was not pleased with the ripeness of the tomatoes I had, but that didn't seem to matter in the end. Mix the corn, tomatoes, salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and bit of olive oil together in a baking dish and roast in the oven at 400 degress for 20-25 minutes.

Meanwhile, mince the garlic and dice the celery, onion and potatoes.  You can also mince the chipotle but keep it separate from the other veggies.  Now, melt about a tablespoon of butter in your soup-making vessel of choice. I used an 8 quart cast-iron dutch oven (go ahead and giggle) today.  Once the butter is melted, get your garlic, onion and celery cooking.

Cook the veggies for about 2-5 minutes, then add the flour, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes to form a roux-like substance. You may need to add more butter if the flour seems to just be clinging for dear life to a veggie or your spoon.

Next, add 1 cup of milk and 3 cups of broth.

Right about now, hopefully your roasted corn and tomatoes are done. Remove about one cup of corn from the baking pan and transfer to a large bowl.  Add the remaining one cup each of milk and broth and the chipotles.  Get out your trusty stick blender (seriously, buy one right now if you don't have one yet) and blend until smooth.

Add the blended corn mixture to the soup pot and bring to a boil. If you're cooking in cast iron like I was, this will take a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately, you do want to be close by so you can watch the progress of the boil.  Since there's milk in the soup, the potential for a huge milk boil over exists and those are no fun to clean up.

Once its boiling, add the potatoes and cook for 7-10 minutes.  Check to be sure the potatoes are cooked and add the remaining roasted corn and tomatoes.  Turn down the heat and simmer until everything is heated through or until you're ready to eat.

My soup turned out really spicy on account of the chipotles. If you don't like spicy just leave them out, or use less of them. Since I left out the traditional chowder ingredient of seafood, I thought it was more than appropriate to garnish with some cheddar goldfish crackers. Enjoy!

I got about 6 servings out of this recipe. Estimated nutritional facts per serving: 320 calories, 6 grams of fat, 12 grams of cholesterol, 860 miligrams of sodium, and 60 grams of carbs.