Last night I made a vegan version of Jasper White’s Southwestern Corn Chowder via Matthew Amster-Burton. Here’s what I did:
- 3 ears yellow corn, grilled
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 red onion, cut into half-inch dice
- 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin (roasted whole, then ground)
- 1/8 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 pound red potatoes, peeled and cut into half-inch dice
- 3 cups corn broth (see below)
- salt and pepper
- 1 large poblano chile, grilled, peeled, cored, and diced
- 2 teaspoons arrowroot
- 2 tablespoons minced cilantro
- scallions and cilantro for garnish
- 1 dried chipotle, soaked in warm water
- Grill the corn per Cook’s Illustrated: remove all but the last layer of husk, leaving the kernels barely visible. Grill for about 6 minutes, turning occasionally.
- Grill the poblano: core and remove seeds, then split and flatten, smear with olive oil, grill until the skin blackens. I couldn’t be bothered to peel all of the skin and we all lived.
- Dry-roast the whole cumin. There’s a trend here: I wanted to maximize the flavors of all the major ingredients since we were doing without the bacon. I’m not sure if this was detectable in the final product, but it felt like Cooking.
- After husking, cutting and milking the corn, I put the cobs into 4 cups of boiling water, added some garlic, peppercorns and parsley, and made a broth while preparing the other ingredients. I had bought some commercial veggie broth but the corn broth actually had pretty good flavor, so I never used it.
- Follow the recipe as given with obvious substitutions.
- At the end I added a few tablespoons of the chipotle soaking liquid. I could’ve added more, and probably gone ahead and added actual diced chipotle, but I didn’t want to end up with chipotle soup.
I used red onion instead of yellow because that feels more “southwestern” to me. The store didn’t have Yukon Golds so I went with low-starch red potatoes, but I think in a vegan soup a better mix would’ve been diced red potatoes for substance, but a baking potato for starch. I’ve been told that Potato Buds® are a popular vegan trick for making thick chowder.
People seemed to like it, but there was still plenty left over, which strikes me as ideal.