Editor’s Note: Christine Burns Rudalevige will return with next week’s Green Plate Special.
One blueberry muffin or panzanella or quiche recipe is pretty much like another. But occasionally, you stumble on a recipe so clever, it rises above the cacophony that constitutes today’s frenzied food world. The website Food52 has a term for those: genius recipes.
SPICED CORN ON THE COB AND CHOWDER
This recipe is from “Mr. Todiwala’s Spice Box: 120 Recipes from Just Ten Spices” (Mitchell Beazley, $29.99), although Food Editor Peggy Grodinsky adapted the soup to suit herself. As she was taking a picture of the chowder, Press Herald photographer Brianna Soukup suggested substituting coconut milk for ordinary milk, an excellent idea.
FOR THE CORN
(Bhuna Bhutta)
Serves 2 or 4, depending on whether you hold corn kernels for the soup.
4 cobs of corn, husked and silks discarded
3 cups whole milk
1 1/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2- to 3-inch piece unpeeled ginger root, sliced about 1/4-inch thick
3 to 4 cloves, lightly crushed
2-inch piece of cinnamon stick
2 dried red chiles
4 to 5 black peppercorns, lightly crushed
Butter, for spreading
Red chili powder, for sprinkling
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Put the corncobs, milk and stock in a large saucepan. Add the ginger, cloves, cinnamon, red chilies, crushed peppercorns and some salt, and top off with just enough water to cover the corn. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then cook at a low simmer 15 to 20 minutes, or until the corn is tender. Set aside to let cobs cool in the liquid.
When you are ready to serve, lift the cobs out of the pot and drain thoroughly on paper towels. Do not pour out the cooking liquid – you will need it to make the soup.
Meanwhile, heat the broiler until very hot. (If you like, reserve two of the cobs for the soup.)
Place the cobs under the broiler and cook, turning as needed, until they are hot and lightly browned.
Spread with butter and sprinkle with salt, pepper and a dash of red chili powder. Serve.
FOR THE SOUP
Serves 5 to 6
Reserved broth from Spiced Corn on the Cob
3 to 4 potatoes, diced small
1 stalk celery, diced small
1 medium-sized onion, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced small
Healthy handful of green beans, tipped and cut into 1-inch lengths
Vegetable stock or water, as needed
2 reserved corn cobs from Spiced Corn on the Cob
Chopped cilantro or parsley, to garnish
Strain the broth, discarding the spices, and return to the soup pot. Add the potatoes, celery and onion. Cook for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
Using a slotted spoon, remove about half the potatoes and set aside. Puree the remaining vegetables and the broth in a food processor (or with an immersion blender). Add more stock or water if the soup is too thick. Return to soup pot.
Add the carrots and green beans, and simmer until almost tender, about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, slice the corn kernels from the cob. Add the reserved diced potato and the corn kernels to the broth. Simmer to warm. Serve the soup garnished with cilantro or parsley.
Earlier this summer, I was thumbing through “Mr. Todiwala’s Spice Box: 120 Recipes from Just Ten Spices,” a new Indian-Western fusion cookbook that arrived in the mail, when my eye was caught by his recipe for Spiced Corn on the Cob. It wasn’t merely the surprising idea to cook the cobs in a spiced milky broth – though that in itself struck me as unusual and smart. It was writer Cyrus Todiwala’s further suggestion that home cooks then use the spiced (and now corn-inflected) broth to make soup.
Genius! A friend of mine more modestly praises such thinking as Depression Era cooking, the waste-not-want-not mentality. Or you could label it The New Sustainable Cooking.
I set Todiwala’s recipe aside and waited patiently for corn to arrive at the farmers market. Now it has, so last week I got to work in the kitchen. Not much work, truthfully, as both parts of this recipe are fast and easy.
I served some of the spiced, broiled corn on the cob to an unexpected lunch guest. I shaved the kernels off the two remaining cobs to add back to the soup, which I enjoyed for lunch all week.
The original version purees the soup and garnishes it with croutons. I took Todiwala’s concept but adapted his recipe, turning my version into a sort of Indian-spiced corn chowder, using the corn kernels I’d held back, green beans, carrots and potatoes.
Both the spiced corn and the soup were fragrant and tasty.
The corn-on-the-cob cooking water did not go down the drain as usual at a time when southern Maine is experiencing a drought, and I am feeling especially conscious of water waste. The cook – me, this is – felt both well-fed and virtuous.
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