Sweetcorn Chowder

Did anyone ever watch that show on Cartoon Network called Chowder? No, my neither. But I do remember the theme tune… it goes a little something like dunndududndnd CHOWDER!!!! That’s it, that’s all I remember. And everytime I make, read or write about chowder, that’s all I can think of.

Dunndudnnndudnd CHOWDER!!! CHOWDEEERRRR!!!!! F***ing CHOWDER!!!

Hm.

So this dish is sweetcorn chowder……. *hums*. I love sweetcorn. Any dish I can possibly put sweetcorn in, I will. I have back up sweetcorn tins for when I run out of my bag of frozen sweetcorn, because god help this household if I ever want sweetcorn for something and I don’t have any.
I’ve been meaning to make this dish for a long ass time, and I have no idea why I haven’t before now. I think I thought it was more complicated than it was, or always required ingredients I didn’t have? Like potatoes. For some very odd reason I never have potatoes in. Well, I actually had potatoes in when I decided to finally make this, so…

The first time I made this the liquid was JUST milk. And to be honest, that’s a lot of milk. Milk is cheap so it’s not exactly like it’s a huge dip in my bank to make this recipe, but it’s just a loooot of milk. Calories, sugar… And I kind of wanted this to be one of my go to healthy meals. So second time round I did half the liquid and veg stock and half as milk. The taste did vary a tiny bit, but both where equally nice, and I reduced the calories and sugar a fair bit at least.

Oh and the second time round I actually added bacon. But for the sake of this recipe, I’m going to exclude it from the recipe to make it at least vegetarian. I’ll add a note at the end of when to add the bacon if you wish to have it.

Tom seemed to really like this dish actually because he wanted more the next day and day after – which is why I ended up making the second load in the same week. He added white fish to him for added protein, but it could work very well with prawns, clams/mussels, salmon, white beans, chickpeas, chicken…
I kept mine simple and didn’t add anything extra. Cause that’s the way I like my chowder, simple and full of sweetcorn!

Hey, although I’ve been cooking for a fair while now – I mean not super long, but like… 4 years or something, which… really isn’t that long at all when you write it down, but you learn a lot in cooking in 4 years. Hey, remember I said when I first met Tom I couldn’t even cook scrambled eggs? I was totally not joking. I sucked, SO BAD. I was afraid of cooking, I feared the culinary arts. Until I became one with the knife. With the chopping board. With the stove. Become one, young grasshopper, feel the energy… Okay! I HEAR YA, I’LL STOP BEING A FREAK AND GET ON WITH IT. I can’t type like this anymore anyway, I really don’t know what I’m saying. I’ll just get straight to the recipe shall I?

Prep: 10 minutes          Cooking Time: 15 minutes          Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• Two medium white potatoes
• Crap load of sweetcorn
• One large white onion (diced)
• 450 ml vegetable/vegan stock
• 450 ml milk (dairy free if vegan)
• Table spoon of all purpose flour
• One stick of celery (finely chopped)
• Dried thyme
• Fresh parsley
• Olive Oil

Extras:

• White fish
• Prawns
• Chicken Breast
• Salmon Fillet
• Mussels/Clams
• White bean
• Chickpeas

Instructions:

• Prep everything. You know I like to get my sh*t together before I begin cooking anything. So chop that onion! Slice that celery! Dice those potatoes! You can peel the potatoes, but that’s extra effort and it’s perfectly fine to leave the skin on. Just make sure you wash them first. Make the onion little cubes. So slice length ways, turn it around and slice the other way. Finely slice the celery.
• Put a drizzle of oil in your pan and set it on medium heat. Add the onion and celery, and sprinkle your dried thyme over it all. Cook until the onion begins to go golden. Keep stirring so it doesn’t burn. When the onion is golden-ey and slightly transparent, should take around 5 minutes, sprinkle the flour all over and mix it in. When it’s all coated, pour in your stock and milk. Add the diced potatoes and cook for 10 minutes on medium-high heat.
• BE CAREFUL. Especially with milk, if it;’s bubbling to strongly it will overflow all over your hob. It happened to me. Twice.
• After 10 minutes your potatoes will be sft, but not mushy. At this point, add the corn and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add fresh parsley, salt, pepper and sever. Sprink;y a little bit more parsley on top for garnish and Ta-daaaa! All done 🙂

Notes:

• If you’re adding any other ingredients cooking time and technique will vary. Which i why I stick to plain.  Cause – lazy. Tom added white fish, which he buys frozen. This takes a few minutes in the microwave, so he just did that when I added the corn and added it to his own bowl separately. He also wanted bacon second time round so we had some of that.
• For bacon, I bought already chopped streaky bacon, and then added it at the beginning with the onion. You know when the bacon is cooked because it becomes a more “salmon” coloured opaque pink, instead of slightly transparent. But don’;t worry about making sure this is 100% cooked as it will continue to cook when you add the stock and milk.
• Salmon takes around 8 minutes to boil so you can just add it a couple of minutes in to your cooking process. If its frozen you can’t really temperate it before hand – so maybe defrost it during the day.
• Chicken takes the longest so I suggest boiling or oven cooking it before you start this. But effort right.
• Raw prawns take about 3-6 minutes, depending on the size. Cooked even less.
• Clams and mussels are generally bought already cooked, so these take minutes. I suggest adding them after 5 minutes of boiling.
• White beans and chickpeas if bought tinned are already cooked too, so I suggest adding them with the corn to maintain a bit of a bite.