Remember that great corn chowder we’ve served at Windosr Park Nordic Centre? We’ve had so many requests for the recipe, we thought it might be best to post it right here. If you have a big group to feed at a winter event, this is a hit.

Corn Chowder Soup Recipe

(Modified to feed 40. Served at the RRNSBC Sprints on Dec. 17th, 2011)

Ingredients

• ½ cup of flour
• ¾ cup of butter
• 2 litres of 1% milk
• 5 – 20 oz tins of creamed corn
• 5 – 20 oz tins of corn niblets
• 3 – large yellow onions
• 5 lbs of baby potatoes
• 2.5 lbs of thick sliced smoked bacon
• Salt, pepper and nutmeg

Preparation

1. Dice the bacon in ½ inch strips
2. Peel and slice the onions in thin rings
3. Wash and quarter (or smaller) the baby potatoes and par boil in salted water. Do not cook completely. Strain and set aside.
4. Take ¼ cup of butter (room temperature) and put in a large bowl. With a fork, combine the butter with the all-purpose flour until evenly blended. The other butter should be kept in the fridge. The normal ratio is one stick for one cup, but with recipe, the amount of butter in the roux can be reduced.
5. Throw the diced bacon in the large stock pot and cook over a medium flame, stirring occasionally. When the fat starts to render, lower the flame as low as you can and add the onion rings on top of the bacon and cover. You only want to “sweat” the onions so use the bacon as a layer between the bottom of the pot and the onions. Keep the heat low and don’t stir.
6. Be careful not to burn the onions (a burnt onion is very bitter and imparts the bitterness to the entire soup).When the onions are, translucent, they are done.
7. With a slotted spoon, remove the bacon and onions from the pot, leaving as much of the bacon fat as you can stomach in the pot. Set the bacon and onions in a bowl.
8. In a separate pot, slowly warm 4 litres of milk. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon, but do not scrape the bottom of the pot.
9. Put the large the large stock pot with the bacon fat back on the heat. You can deglaze the bottom of the pot with ½ a cup of boiling water and scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen any browned bacon stuck to the bottom -that’s all flavor.
10. Keep the heat very low and add the roux. It takes about 10 minutes to cook the flour in the roux. Keep muddling the roux with a wooden spoon as it cooks. You can tell when it is done by the smell. This is very important the flour has to cook in order to release the thickening starches, but you want to avoid the roux from having too much color. The darker the roux the nuttier the flavor –good for some recipes, but not for chowder.
11. Once the roux is cooked, start adding the hot milk, a small quantity at a time. Stir in the milk with a whisk, and keep the heat low. Once all four litres of milk are fully blended, turn up the heat and, stirring with a wooden spoon (don’t touch the bottom of the pot), bring to a low boil.
12. Reduce the heat and add the creamed corn, corn niblets, bacon and onion and the cooked cut potatoes.
13. Simmer on a low heat. And add more milk to bring the soup to the required consistency.
14. Season to taste with salt Pepper and nutmeg.
15. Lastly, before serving, take a 1 oz cube of cold butter on a fork and stir at around the top surface of the chowder until it has melted away.
16. Serve with crusty bread. A square meal from a round tin!

Alternatives:

Use smoked farmer’s sausage instead of bacon. Increase the butter in the roux to two sticks and use canola oil to sweat the onions. Drain the oil from the pot in this case.

Courtesy of John Savard, club member

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