Summer Sweetcorn Soup

From Market Vegetarian, Ross Dobson, Ryland Peters and Small, 2008.

After having made a salad of winter fruits I went straight ahead and made a summer sweetcorn soup.

This would seem to go right against what Ross Dobson is promoting: using fresh vegetables from the market when they are in season. At least this soup was perfectly in season though, rather than using fresh sweetcorn, I used frozen corn that, of course, could have been picked goodness knows when and from goodness knows where. I unfortunately didn’t read the label of the package. Apologies to Ross Dobson but sometimes there’s a case for using what’s handy and the corn was in the freezer.

For the first part of the soup I had to make the tapenade from red capsicum. It was very like a pesto but substituting the capsicum for the basil. The red capsicum had first to be put under the grill in the oven until the skin had turned black. It then went through the steaming process in a plastic bag until it was cool. It was then easy to peel. Next it went into the food processor with garlic, pine nuts and oil and was puréed. Some grated parmesan was added and it was ready. This was totally amazing to eat and it needed a lot of will power to stop from getting into it straightaway.

For the soup the sweetcorn was tossed into a pan with onion, celery, garlic and butter. It was then cooked over a medium heat for about 10 minutes. The stock was added and heated to boiling. It was then lidded and cooked for another 15 minutes and left to cool.

I then used a stick blender to whip the soup until it was smooth. It was poured through a sieve, cream was added and it was ready to serve when it had been heated through.

The soup was dished into plates and a spoonful of pepper tapenade was placed in the middle.

This is a soup worth going back to again. It was smooth and delicious and that pepper tapenade is wonderful. There was some of it left over and it was soon eaten up on slices of bread the next day.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔