Sunday, October 12, 2008

Sweet Corn Veloute

Susan from The Well-Seasoned Cook is hosting Weekend Herb Blogging and this week I've turned to Sweet Corn

Sweet Corn© by Haalo

Corn is a good source of many helpful nutrients that include Vitamin B1 and B5, Vitamin C, fibre, folate, manganese and phosphorous. It also contains two powerful anti-oxidants - lutein and zeaxanthin. These compounds are useful in reducing the risk of macular degeneration. So not only is corn pleasant to look at, it might just help save your sight.

In this week's dish, I'm concentrating on bringing out the pure flavours of sweet corn. As it's the Spring Racing Carnival my mind turns to entertainment and ideas for finger food - especially items that are easy to make but look and taste impressive.

As the weather can be a bit hit and miss in Spring, I'm making a soup sip - or as I've called it a Velouté - it's just that much more richer and luxurious that it deserves the title (even though it isn't a traditional velouté).

You may well look at the ingredient list and say "is that is?" but believe me, you won't get a soup more creamier with more of those pure sweet corn flavour than this. It's a little glass of sunshine!


Sweet Corn Velouté© by Haalo

Sweet Corn Velouté

1 cob sweet corn, husked
milk
freshly ground salt

Carefully slice down the cob to remove the kernels - chop the core into thick slices.

Place the corn kernels and core into a saucepan and top with enough milk to generously cover.

Simmer on a very low heat until the kernels are tender - discard the cores.

Tip the ingredients into a blender and process until smooth.

For an extra velvety result, pour the blended ingredients through a fine sieve and discard the solids (you can also use these solids in the croquettes).

Place this sieved mixture into a clean saucepan, taste and season as desired. Simmer until reheated.

To get a creamy finish, use a hand blender to froth up the velouté before serving.

Sweet Corn Velouté© by Haalo


As a bonus, I've served the velouté with these little Potato, Corn and Chorizo Croquettes.

12 comments

  1. What an interesting recipe. I love corn!

    Paz

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  2. what beautiful photos... i hope i will be able to take some pictures like that in a hundred years`time...

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  3. Wow, what a beautiful photo of the soup. I bet this tastes just amazing.

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  4. Where do you get fresh corn in the Spring?

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  5. Stunning, the simplicity and the photos!

    Thanks for being part of WHB, Haalo!

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  6. Thanks Paz!

    Thank you Ana-Marija, you are too kind.

    Thanks Kalyn - there's a lovely purity to the flavour

    Hi Nate & Annie - there's corn everywhere here in Spring.

    Thanks Susan - always a pleasure!

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  7. What stunning photographs! I love that you've used the core of the corn for extra flavour in the soup. Waste not, want not, and all that!

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  8. Thanks Angela - actually the corn cob helps make the soup extra creamy.

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  9. I'm trying a take on that as we speak (blog?), but I have to make it for tomorrow's lunch so I'm oven roasting the corn husks so that it takes less time tomorrow's morning... We'll see. I'm pretty excited! And gosh, NO sieving, we like bits in the soup we do :-))

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  10. Hi CC - roasting the husks is certainly different, love to know how it all turns out

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  11. Well - It was fast to whip up in the morning, but I think the sieving would have been necessary. I didn't mind the solids too much but I think my friend found them a bit disturbing. That said, I only have an immersion blender, so it's likely that it doesn't process the food as finely as a blender. I also recommand using only the best corn, as it's the star ingredient of the recipe - mine wasn't as vibrantly yellow as yours!
    Thank you for the recipe!

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  12. Thanks for the update CC - maybe the roasting affected the colour?

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