Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Sweet Corn and Cod Chowder



I made a trip to The Hahn Farm again yesterday for sweet corn and came home with a bag loaded with beautiful ears of sweet bicolor corn. They also had Ginger Gold apples which I have never tasted, so I grabbed a bag of those as well. As always, I received a generous dozen (14 ears), so I will be cookin' up lots of delicious corn. For dinner last night I paired the corn up with a pound of nice wild Atlantic cod to make a delicious chowder. This was really a meal in a bowl. I did not have any carrots or celery in the house, so I used red onion and a few of my Blushing Beauty sweet peppers from my garden. The weather was very pleasant yesterday, mid 70's with a brisk north wind, hinting of fall weather and a great night for chowder. Here is the recipe I came up with.


Sweet Corn and Cod Chowder
make about 6-8 servings

3 tbl unsalted butter
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced sweet pepper
1/3 cup flour
1 80z jar clam juice
2 cups (1 large) baking potato diced into 1/2" pieces
2 cups fresh corn ( 2 ears)
4 cups broth (I used veggie, but chicken or fish would be great)
2 cups water (or more broth)
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1# cod cut into 1" pieces
1/2 cup half & half
fresh dill



In a large soup pot melt the butter over med high heat. Add the onion and peppers and saute until the onion just gets soft, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the veggies with the flour and stir to coat.



Continue to stir and cook another minute. Add the clam juice to the pan, stirring constantly and cook 1-2 minutes until it begins to thicken. Toss in the diced potatoes, broth and water and stir all the ingredients together. Then add the salt, pepper and thyme and when it come to a boil, turn down to simmer and cook about 10 minutes.





After that time, add the corn and continue to cook until the corn has cooked through and the potatoes are done. Add the fish to the pot, give it a stir and let the fish cook, about 5-6 minutes. When the fish is cooked, remove the pan from the heat, add the half & half, and stir until heated. Serve with a generous sprinkling of chopped fresh dill.




A few "corny" hints: To remove the pesky silks, give the ears a good rinse under cold running water. When cutting the kernels off the cob, stand the cob upside down in a large bowl, then run a sharp knife along the cob. The bowl will catch the cut kernels.

5 comments:

kat said...

I've never added fish to my corn chowder, this might be a great way to get more fish in our diet

Kimi said...

Kat, this would also be good with shrimp, scallops or any mild, firm, white fish. Even salmon would be great.

Anonymous said...

I went looking online for a good cod chowder recipe, and yours looked the most interesting. I cooked it up with only a few quantity changes (I doubled the amount of cod, affordable if you have a Trader Joe's nearby with frozen cod at $7.99/lb. We love overdoing whatever the "Oomph" protein is in a meal). Really terrific flavor, and the density of the broth, made with flour instead of cream, was perfect. One other slight change - since we have no fresh corn in December, I used frozen Trader Joe's roasted sweet corn. It is already cooked, so I just reheated it by throwing it in at the same time as the cod.

Great recipe. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Hi Kim,
I went searching for a good chowder recipe and this shows up. I see "Hahn farms" and I think "that's kinda cool that we have a Hahn farm in Huron, too bad she is not aware of ours because she'd be able to taste the best corn". Oh.. but I read on, and see "wow, she IS from Huron". I'll look forward to following your Blog.

Kimi said...

Anon, Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Oh how I long for Hahn's corn now! I have been a bit absent due to family health, but will be up and running soon, so stay tuned!