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.
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
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.