Sweet Corn Chicken Soup

The last of the current series of soup..The weather is thankfully turning the corner and spring is peeping through the buds on the trees. Hmm.... Time to do preventive weed treatment and fertilize the yard!!And maybe open the grill.:)

This is the easiest of the soups and for the longest time I associated it with the Indo-Chinese restaurants in India and thought it was something very complicated! Then my friend's mom should me this non soy based, non ajinomoto based healthy soup and it became a regular in our house. Maybe in India it is complicated, but here with the advent of canned Sweet Corn Creamed Style, it is so easy! Maybe you do get creamed corn there too! The addition of scallions and ginger garlic gives the soup it the flavor we are accustomed to.

Vegetarian Version: Just replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock. Add the white stem of the scallion or leeks for more flavor.


You will Need:
Chicken- 1 pound
Sweet Corn cream Style -1 can
Green part of Scallions/spring onions-one handful
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh Ginger -Garlic paste -1 teaspoon
Corn Starch - 1 to 2 teaspoon
Egg- 1 ( beaten)

Garnish-Mix 3 Green chillies chopped with 2 Tbsp white vinegar and let it sit for some time.

Preparation:
1. Pressure cook the chicken with bones with 1 heaped teaspoon of fresh ginger-garlic paste and 4 cups of water for 1 whistle. Open the cooker when it cools, strain the stock and keep aside in the cooker. Remove the chicken from the bones and cut into bite sized pieces. Add this to the stock and return the pressure cooker to the flame.

2. Add the entire contents of the corn can and pressure cook again for a whistle. Alternatively you could slow cook for 15 minutes, add corn and cook for a further 15 minutes. Open the cooker and return to the flame,add salt and pepper and check the consistency.

3. Depending on the corn, it may be sufficiently thick or thin. Add 1 teaspoon of corn starch mixed with some of the stock if it looks too thin and let it boil. As it boils, add 1 beaten egg and remove from flame. The egg is optional. I mostly don't add it as it tastes good without it too. (I haven't added it in this photo.)Garnish the soup with fresh cilantro (a bit) and fresh cut scallions and top it with vinegar chilies.

P.S.Be careful of the corn starch..too much can spoil the taste and make it too thick. Also as it cools, it congeals further so stop when it is just short of your desired thickness. For those who don't get creamed corn in a can, just boil or pressure cook corn till tender and blend it with 1/4 cup milk till it is slightly creamed. Some like it very smooth so you can blend it all the way, else leave it chunky.

Easy version:
You could make this with boneless chicken too but the bone-in-ones taste better.
Instead of the step 1, use Chicken Boneless- 1 chicken breast cut into bite sized pieces, pressure cooked with 1 can of creamed style corn and 3 cups of water. Then proceed as above.

Related Links: A Veg version of the Sweet Corn Soup