Tarragon Corn Chowder

This is a soup made for summer, fresh and bright. Compared to many corn chowders that can be a bit on the heavy side with cream and bacon, this chowder is rather light. It gets its body from Yukon gold potatoes and fresh corn.

The cool thing about this soup is the way the soup base is made—after you strip the kernels from the cobs, you just simmer the cobs for half an hour. You could use this method for any corn or vegetable soup for which you wanted a stronger corn flavor.

I love the way tarragon pairs with corn, to me it’s a perfect taste complement. But if tarragon isn’t your thing, you might try it with basil or thyme. In that case just swap out the fennel for more onions and potatoes.

Here’s another idea. Have leftover cooked corn from a weekend barbecue? Just use them for this recipe, or one like it. Cut off the kernels and simmer the cobs.

Tarragon Corn Chowder Recipe

This recipe uses whole corn-on-the-cob. The cobs are used to make a richly corn flavored broth.

You can make the chowder with with frozen corn, if you want. If you use frozen corn, you'll skip the cooking of the corn, as frozen corn is already cooked, and you'll need to add some sort of stock, either vegetable stock or chicken stock.

If you want to skip the wine, you can, though if you do you may want to squeeze a little lemon juice into the soup to help balance the sweetness from the corn.

Ingredients

• 4 ears corn, in the husk (resulting in about 3 cups corn kernels)
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 cup chopped white or yellow onion
• 1 cup chopped fennel bulb
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 3 bay leaves
• 4 small waxy potatoes, such as Yukon Gold, peeled and cut into chunks
• Salt
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1-2 Tbsp fresh chopped tarragon (French)

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