Sweet Corn Chowder with Butter Roasted Mushrooms
The kitchen has been quiet in this house. A very mild Thanksgiving sans any hosting responsibilities, nor any major post holiday plans. & no visit from my parents this year, so it was truly a fairly restful day. Festive-ness was confined to one hell of a Thanksgiving cheesecake, some weekend work at the bar, and one trip into the forest to get the world’s cutest Christmas tree. Literally it’s so cute, as in best Christmas tree we’ve ever had cute, and we named it Belsnickel. & true story I’ve never had a better experience getting a tree, either. Our last Christmas in Arizona, we did go chop down a Christmas tree, and it was slim pickings out there in Arizona cliffside. Like we found no tree I wanted to put in my living, but you better believe we still brought one back. This year, in the Washington forest, the options were endless. So on a Thanksgiving that was different from our normal. our little tree was the perfect thing to rejuvenate my Christmas spirit.
Step 2 to kick my holiday spirit in high gear - a homemade dinner to enjoy while staring at our sparkling tree. Truly, I think that’s what screams holidays to me - nights at home with a cozy dinner, a festive movie, dogs snuggled up hoping for a dropped bite of anything. Its pretty ordinary and couch potato-y, but it’s cozy, and it’s this family memory that coincides with a palpable feeling of home. & as I flipped through my favorite soup cookbook, & set out to cook for my tastebuds, a Sweet Corn Chowder with Butter Roasted Mushrooms is where I landed.
My paleo diet, and probably my Peloton instructors, hate me for this dinner. I’ve drank the Kool-Aid, and Juli from PaleOmg has convinced me corn isn’t a real vegetable, but she’s also given me the permission to indulge in moderation. & this girl loves corn chowder. Creamy & sweet & savory & buttery. Ugh it’s everything good in this world. Just total decadence in a bowl. It’s pureed to get a smooth and velvety texture, but a couple ladle fulls of just the corn are reserved to give the soup a little bite.
The corn is sweet, so there’s definitely a little sweetness to the soup. Adding in some sauteed onion & fresh herbs gives the soup a little bit of depth, & add a few savory notes, & other than that all you need is just a pinch of salt and pepper.
The most magical part of this soup - the mushroom. Oooooo the mushrooms. It’s a little bit of a lie to say they’re butter roasted. It’s more a sauté. & let me say, nothing brings me more joy than mushrooms browned to perfection in a literal bath of butter. Julia Child passed along some very sound advice to the rest of the word - everything tastes better cooked in butter. Mushrooms are the BEST cooked in butter. The shrooms get perfectly crispy, & are like vegetable croutons that are the perfect chunky bite that provide a little textural diversity in this creamy, yummy soup. So good that Jordan let me know he’d like to have a bruschetta that was just loaded with these mushrooms.
Crouton No. 2 - a real crouton kinda thing. Toasted bread of any kind that can be used to mop the bottom of the bowl, and soak up every bit & morsel of this soup. We had some leftover cheddar chive biscuits (Jordan’s contribution to Thanksgiving) & oh my god it was perfect in the soup. But you better believe that leftover were paired with plain ol’ toasted white bread, and it was fucking great, too.
An awesome veggie soup that is next level comfort. & a soup that is so easy to make that I can easily whip it up for a quick and delicious late night meal.
For the Soup
3 tbsp butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
7 c. chicken broth
2 lb frozen corn kernels (probably 2-1lb bags)
1/4 c. heavy cream
Salt & pepper
2 tbsp fresh chives + more for garnish
Shredded cheddar cheese for garnish
For the Mushrooms
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsp butter
Salt & pepper
1 tbsp chives
Place a dutch oven over medium high heat. Add in the butter. Once melted add in the garlic & onions, stirring and letting cook until the onion is translucent. Sprinkle in a pinch of salt and pepper & stir. Add in the chicken broth and corn, bringing the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and let the soup continue to cook for 10 minutes.
Turn off the heat. Using a ladle, remove 2 scoops of the corn kernels. Puree the remaining soup in the dutch oven with an immersion blender. Puree until super smooth, so keep the immersion blender going for about 3 minutes. Add in the reserved corn kernels & the cream while soup is off the heat, and stir. Return the soup to low heat, let cook, stirring every so often. Leave the soup covered.
Move to whipping up the mushrooms. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Once melted and bubbling, add in the mushrooms & a pinch of salt and pepper. Give the mushrooms a little shake in the pan to get them into a single layer, and let them cook without stirring for 4-5 minutes. This will help them brown. Give them a stir and continue letting the brown for another 4-5 minutes. Stir in the chives at the very end & turn off the heat.
Give the soup a taste, adding a little more salt & pepper if needed. Stir in the chives Serve the soup in a bowls, sprinkling some cheddar cheese & chives right on top. Place a spoonful of browned shrooms atop the whole thing to finish it off.