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Corn Chowder

When she’s not fly fishing or helping run the family farm, Kali Ramey Martin is dreaming up new recipes for her next catered event (or simply for the dinner table). We spent a few hours with the writer, photographer, and chef in her own home where she taught us a new recipe for a fall favorite.

 

There are few things in this life more soothing to the soul than homemade soup. Even the making of it—chopping up ingredients, adding them to the stockpot one at a time and methodically stirring the swirling mixture until it simmers—provides some oddly therapeutic quality. Take that quality, mix in the first cool, crisp days of fall and an afternoon spent sunk into a leather chair watching football, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for serious relaxation. Well, that and this corn chowder.

Nothing transports me to the early days of fall like this soup. Using the last of late summer’s bounty, fresh corn and new potatoes, it somehow manages to be both light and decadent. Quick and easy, it can be whipped up during halftime and doesn’t take much more than a few minutes of prep before you have an impressive chowder simmering away on the stove. Enjoy with an open bag of tortilla chips and your favorite team on the screen.

  • 4 slices Bacon, Cut Into ½-inch Pieces (or Smaller)
  • 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 1 whole Yellow Onion, Diced
  • 1 clove Garlic, minced
  • 5 ears corn, shucked and kernels cut off the cob
  • 5 Red Potatoes, quartered
  • 2-3 whole Chipotle Peppers In Adobo Sauce, finely diced (careful, these are HOT!)
  • 1 whole 4-ounce Can Diced Green Chilies
  • 32 ounces, fluid Low Sodium Chicken Broth
  • 1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
    S&P
  • 3 Tablespoons Corn Meal
  • ¼ cups Water
  • Cilantro

 

  1. Slice bacon. Chop vegetables.
  2. Add bacon pieces and olive oil to a pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Cook for a couple of minutes until bacon begins to render.
  3. Throw in diced onion and stir, cooking for 3 to 4 minutes.
  4. Add corn and potatoes. Stir and cook for one minute.
  5. Add both kinds of chilies and peppers and stir.
  6. Pour in chicken broth and cream. Season.
  7. Stir and bring to a boil.
  8. Reduce heat to low.
  9. Combine cornmeal with water.
  10. Stir to combine, then pour into the chowder. Cover and cook for 15 minutes over low heat.
  11. Serve topped with cilantro and accompanied by Tortilla chips or thinly sliced corn tortillas.

 

For more recipes (and learning about life on the farm), follow Kali’s blog at birdisthewordpdx.com

Writing:Kali Ramey MartinPhotographs:James Fitzgerald