Sweetcorn Chowder
We have hit finally hit a wall of back to school bugs, with a house full of heavy colds. It only took approximately 2 weeks of school routine to get here... time to fully embrace soup season.
With the entirely predictable onset of back to school bugs this week, I have delved into my mother’s soup recipes to see what comforting treasures I could find. This chowder felt like the perfect choice for what to eat, especially as seasonal sweetcorn is available now in the UK. It is a gentle and warming bowl of food thanks to the silky sweetcorn and potatoes, cooked in milk and stock. A staple from my childhood. My mother’s kitchen legacy is a huge source of inspiration in my food writing today however it can sometimes feel hard to fill those shoes for my own children. She set the bar very high indeed with home grown produce and home cooked meals, we were immensely lucky.
Cooking my mother’s recipes has been cathartic and part of my own process of grief, it has allowed me to feel close to her. I can never quite recreate something as she would, inevitably I add unintentional additions with my own methods. Perhaps this is the way it was meant to be, for my mother was a great cook but not a patient teacher and certainly not in her kitchen. I don’t remember her teaching me that much in the kitchen at all. I have fading memories of her showing me to finely chop parsley, how to separate eggs and how to line a pudding basin for Summer puddings… but really for the amount of time I cook now, her guiding hand was fairly absent. However, through osmosis and many hours with her in her kitchen I did learn more than perhaps was apparent to me at the time.
Many of the memories I cherish of my mother are tied to the tastes of our childhood. In the aftermath of her loss my sister Rebecca and I set about gathering her favourite recipes for a small cookbook we made in her memory. It is bound by a cover in her favourite royal blue with a photograph of her on the front. When I want to recreate a family recipe, as I have this week, I can simply turn to her notes, words and recipes captured there. This sweetcorn chowder was an easy choice for us, it was quickly added to the recipe book, as my mother loved making this soup and made it often. It is incredibly comforting for me to make it now.
Chowder is a recognisable American classic with recipe recordings as early as the 1880s. However, after further research the true origin of this recipe appears to be Ireland. A chowder should be a soup and broth, thickened with cream or milk. Although not bound by authenticity I like to think this particular recipe represents both my mother’s time spent in America and her Irish heritage. As a teenager she moved to Pennsylvania with her parents to go to school, following her father who was working as a master confectioner. Perhaps her love for chowder started there? The task of learning more about her early life and family still awaits with various suitcases filled with photos, letters and her family paperwork waiting patiently for our attention in the attic. A job I hope we will soon complete, as losing her makes me want to fill in as many gaps as I can.

This soup needs sweetcorn and whilst it might not seem the most obvious English crop we do grow wonderful sweetcorn in the UK. The plants are sensitive to cold so need to be started indoors and then moved outside in late Spring, when the temperatures soften. For a good harvest you need a long hot Summer and the corn will ripen from mid-Summer onwards. The short picking season is at the end of the Summer, as Autumn begins. If you want to celebrate this seasonal vegetable now is the perfect moment.
Sweet corn should be eaten as soon as possible and is suitable for home freezing. From the moment they are picked the sweetness of the kernels will degenerate, therefore homegrown sweetcorn, or sweetcorn found locally, with a shorter shelf life will be optimal. It is ready to eat when the tassels at the end of the cob turn a dark brown. Firstly remove the outer leaves/ husks from the cob and discard. Then wash the cobs in cold running water. Place a tea towel under your chopping board, this will catch any of the kernels that scatter, as you take them off the core. I then find it easiest to cut the base of the sweetcorn to create a flat surface to stand the corn on. Run a knife between the kernels and the core (as near to the core as possible) separating the two. You are now ready to make this treasured family soup.


Sweetcorn Chowder
Serves 4 (hungry people)

2 tablespoons olive oil
100g smoked bacon lardons
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 small onions (180g approx), finely chopped
3 celery stalks (180g approx), peeled and finely chopped
3-4 medium potatoes (400g approx), peeled and diced into 1cm cubes
400ml homemade chicken stock*
400g-450g sweetcorn kernels only, removed from 3 corn on the cobs approx
300-350ml whole milk
3 spring onions
handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
*The difference homemade stock makes to the quality of homemade soups is transformative, so I want to add links to my chicken stock and vegetable stock should you wish to try and make your own. They are a great freezer standby for soups if you too are facing the first round of Autumn colds, or school bugs.
First par-boil the potatoes: cover the peeled and cubed potatoes in a pot of cold water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 8-10 minutes. Drain and set aside. They will finish cooking in the soup later.
In a large heavy bottomed casserole pot add 1 tablespoon of oil and the bacon lardons, cook over a medium heat until the lardons are cooked through and crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon to kitchen towel to drain. Pour off the excess fat from the casserole pot.
Next add the butter and remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, onions and celery. Sauté the onions/ celery for 15 minutes on a low heat, until completely softened but not browned. Next add the par-boiled potatoes and cover everything with the stock, then bring to a slow boil. Next add the sweetcorn and then the milk slowly stirring as you do. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover with a tight fitting lid and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add finely diced spring onions 2-3 minutes from the end of cooking. Check the soup for seasoning and adjust accordingly, I think freshly ground black pepper should be generous and goes a long way here. The potatoes should now be cooked through when pierced with a knife. Finish with the chopped parsley and serve into warm bowls, scattered with the crispy bacon lardons. You will need crusty bread and butter, on the side.