Roast corn and sausage soup

This is a hearty winter soup that is both savoury from the sausage and spices and sweet from the corn with the crisp, fresh cilantro cutting through.

Ingredients

6 Sausages (I used honey garlic, but you can use whatever you like)

2lbs (aprox) of Potato

3 Cobs or 1 can of corn

2 Onions

1 Small bunch of cilantro

Salt to taste

Smoked salt or liquid smoke to taste

Black pepper to taste

1 tbsp Garlic

2 tsp Soya sauce (to taste without changing the colour)
½ Cup of Single cream

1 tbsp Butter/oil

Put the sausages on a bit of foil in a pan with a lip and throw them in the oven at 425. Keep them rotating and let them get nice and brown.

In a large pot, over a medium heat, put in your choice of butter or oil then throw in the onion, chopped into medium sized pieces. After a few minutes add the garlic and pepper and any misc herbs you think would work well.

Let the onions and garlic cook for a few minutes then throw in the corn if you have a can, otherwise cook your corn on the cob over the bbq or fire pit; roast the corn until it has little patches of brown. Cut the niblets off the corn and throw them in with the onions for a minute to fry.

 Don’t worry if you think you’re a little low on salt, we’ll get the flavour right at the end when we have the sausages in and adding their flavours.

Throw the potato in the pot and let it sizzle for a couple of minutes with the onions and corn, then add water until it is just about a fingernail’s height above the veg (read below for more details on the water). Half cover the soup and let it simmer for about half an hour while the sausages cook.

Half an hour later your potato should be cooked and your first big choice has to be made: How thick do you want your soup? And related to that: How many/big would you like the chunks of potato to be?

To precisely work with the potato, grab your masher.

Mash in one corner of the pot to protect any potato you don’t want mashed. Personally I like to mash almost all the potato leading to a very thick soup and only leaving only a few larger pieces of potato, but it’s up to you. If you choose to only give a few mashes and keep your potatoes mainly whole you might want to add a little less water so you don’t have to boil anything off and in the process overcook your potato.

Grab your sausages and get them out of the oven; they should be nice and brown by now. Carefully cut them into your choice of sizes. I like a few slightly larger chunks and then lots of small ones about the size of the corn.

Add the cream and give it a stir, add the Soya sauce and notice the bright white is muted a little and the hint of the salty soy flavour is infused. Watch out for adding too much soy it can easily be too strong and will change the colour (and taste) of the soup; if you need to add more salt, use table or sea salt when you’ve hit your max of soy.

I added smoked salt to give that campy outdoors feel to the soup and that in itself took 5 minutes of adding a pinch, tasting, adding a pinch, wondering if it was working, adding a pinch, tasting, resisting adding a lot, adding a pinch, tasting etc.

Let everything simmer together for 5 to 10 minutes and let the soup reduce a tiny bit while the flavours mix.

Now start flavouring the soup with salt. When the soup is almost as salty as you think it needs to be, stop adding salt. Give it a break and cut up your coriander. You want really really small pieces and not so much you overpower any other flavours, just enough to cut through and give a fresh taste of spring in our fall/winter soup.

Serve with fresh hot bread or crackers and careful not to eat too much! The contrast of the corn and sausage is incredibly good and it’s easy to just keep eating!

Enjoy.