Corn Soup

Hi guys!

It's monday and I decided it was time for a vegan recipe again - or at least a vegetarian recipe that can go vegan in one step. Last week, I vowed to leave soups out of my nutrition until autumn and here is how far I got with that resolution: exactly one week. Although the weather is sunny and bright, I wanted some colour on my plate and I was craving corn. So today's recipe is a super easy corn soup using canned corn to make it as easy as possible and available year-round as I am not able to buy fresh corn at the moment. The recipe comes from a german food magazine and is available online for all those of you who speak german.  I altered it a bit, though. Here's the link: http://www.essen-und-trinken.de/rezept/231899/maissuppe.html

And here is my - slightly altered - version of the recipe:
1 medium onion
1/4 teaspoon dried chili flakes (optional)
2 340g cans corn, drained (leaves you with 570g of corn, 20 oz)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
800ml (3 + 1/4 cups; 26 fl.oz) vegetable stock
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt, pepper and sugar for seasoning

1) Chop the onion into small squares. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium high heat and cook the onion along with the chili flakes for about 4 minutes or until noticeably softened, stirring a few times.

2) Add the corn and curry powder and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Turn the heat to medium and let simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.

3) Either transfer the soup to a blender or use a hand-held blender blend the soup until very fine. It will take some time as small chunks of pulp will tend to not blend as well. But with a little patience, you should be fine. 

4) Add the lemon juice and season with salt, pepper and about 2 pinches of sugar to taste. 

Serves: 4
Active preparation time: about 5 minutes
Total preparation time: 20 minutes

Here's what mine looks like:

  
Be careful when seasoning and taste along the way, because the curry and chili flakes might add spiciness that you are going to notice a little later instead of right the same moment. I love corn soup. It has something extremely comforting and homey to me and it involves one of my favorite vegetables. In comparison to the original recipe, I omitted cream and opted for a lot less olive oil to make the soup lighter without any flavour sacrifice, in my opinion. If you like your soups very creamy, feel free to add the cream (the recipe asks for 100ml or a little less than 1/2 cup). I wanted to keep the soup vegan and chose not to. 

Have fun trying and happy meat free monday to all!