Potato & Cheese Soup - ish

So, yesterday on twitter, Sparky mentioned the wonders of Potato and Cheese soup. Being a massive fan of cheese-in-soup (actually, cheese in anything, but for now we'll stick to soup), my ears pricked up.

Lo, I said unto myself. It is unseasonably cold, and therefore miserable. What better way to banish misery and warm one's insides than with a lovely pot of hot, cheesy soup?

Alack, dear Sparky had not a recipe - so I turned to that trusty demon, Google. My favourites were the easy version and the complex version.

However, as you're all aware, I'm also in the middle of moving - and I had some corn that was begging to be used up. And I quite like corn and potato and cheese soup........

And thus it began.

The resulting recipe is some sort of weird cross between the easy version above, and the corn chowder, also linked to above.

The Recipe

2 white or brown onions
1 very heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic
2t cumin
olive oil for frying
3c chicken stock
3 largish potatoes, cubed to about 1cm3
400g can of creamed corn
420g can of corn kernels (which, I was disgusted to discover, is only actually 61% corn)
2c milk
salt (preferably of the sage, lavendar and rosemary variety)
~7 sage leaves
sprinkle of rosemary
2c grated cheese (cheddar or tasty)
sour cream and chives for garnishing

In a large pan over a high heat, saute the onions, garlic and cumin. Don't let the onions brown. Add the stock, and bring to the boil. Add the potatoes, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the corn (both varieties, and I threw in the liquid from the corn kernels too) and simmer again for 10 minutes. Add the milk and seasonings (be generous with the salt, esp if you don't have the delicious sage/lavendar/rosemary variety), allow to simmer. Don't boil the milk too vigorously. Remove from heat, stir through cheese until melted, and serve garnished with a dollop of sour cream and some chives.

Makes 5 generous servings.

The Results

Taaa-sty. Exactly what I felt like, for which I was glad. Those of you that have tried it will recall that the corn chowder soup is somewhat Asian-styled - clear broth, corn, etc. This soup is like the non-Asian version. The milk and different proportions makes it creamier and less broth-like, and (strangely) altogether more like what I would consider a chowder to be... Most odd.

My only complaint was the type of potatoes I used; no idea what they were, but they held their form well throughout cooking, which is excellent for baking, but not so good for a soup where you want them to starchify the soup, making it even thicker, and releasing the potato flavour into the whole soup, rather than greedily confining it to the potato chunks.

Still. Definitely something I'll make again :)