Corn soup with noodles and tempeh
Corn soup with noodles and tempeh
After lots and lots of rain, beautiful sunshine has graced us with its presence for the last few days but evenings are quite chilly so it’s corn soup time in my house! Corn is one of my favourite early autumn things to eat and it happens to be in season in the UK until November so I’m filling my boots.
This corn soup is a bit of a fusion dish, it features Thai-inspired aromatic base of shallots, garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass, which is spiced with mild curry powder and some extra turmeric for colour. I serve with it thick udon-style noodles and quick-glazed tempeh, but you could also include more veg (aside from corn) like green beans, broccoli or pak choi. They would all work beautifully.
This soup is creamy yet light, sweet and sour, with a bit of a kick from chilli and dried spices. It’s not difficult or time consuming to make and I recommend making it a day in advance if you can as the flavours improve immeasurably. You can use fresh corn on the cob like I did here, but you can also use defrosted or even canned corn as well. I like to char my corn kernels in a small amount of oil first, which caramelises it and adds to the overall flavour.
To make the soup, I sauté all the aromatics in a little oil until lightly charred. I then add water, shaved corn cobs and lemongrass stalks and a bit of a veggie cube and simmer everything for a bit. Once that’s done, I transfer everything including the corn to a blender and blend until creamy and smooth, then season and serve. It really isn’t that complicated at all yet provides oodles of nourishment and comfort. I hope you’ll enjoy it too.
MORE ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS
CORN: As this is a corn soup, corn is the main ingredient here. I used corn on the cob as it’s in season over here, but you can also use frozen corn or even canned corn. If using the latter two, be sure to get any excess moisture out by blotting it out on paper towels before charring.
AROMATICS: Every good soup relies on a base of fragrant aromatics for its flavour. Here I used Thai curry inspired combination of shallots, garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass. If you don’t like heat, you can deseed the chilli or even skip it altogether and perhaps replace it with a chunk of sweet red pepper. If you have trouble finding lemongrass, you could use lemongrass paste (a couple of tablespoons would be my guess) or you could skip it and maybe increase the amount of ginger for a more prominent ginger taste.
STOCK CUBE: I used half a veggie stock cube to add more flavour to the broth, a mushroom cube would also work well.
DRY SPICES: I used a combination of mild curry powder and a touch of turmeric for colour. Instead of curry powder you could use half a teaspoon of cumin and a teaspoon of coriander, they also work nicely.
NOODLES: I make this soup into a filling meal by added udon noodles to it. You could use any noodles you enjoy. If you are gluten-free, wide rice noodles would be my pick.
TEMPEH: Tempeh makes this corn soup more satiating and as it’s only quickly pan-fried and then glazed, it does not add a lot of work. You could also use tofu or vegan chicken instead.
LIME: As corn is naturally deliciously sweet, I used a good squeeze of lime to achieve the right balance of flavours. I also used some lime juice to make the glaze, it’s delicious against the sweetness of maple syrup. Rice wine vinegar would be a good substitue but you’ll probably need less as it tends to be more intense.
MAPLE SYRUP: Maple syrup creates a delicious sweet and sour glaze that coats tempeh nicely, its sweetness works really well with naturally slightly bitter tempeh. You can also use (brown ideally) sugar diluted in the rest of glaze ingredients.
SOY SAUCE: A dash of soy sauce (or tamari if you are making this dish without gluten) adds a lovely depth of flavour and plenty of seasoning to the soup and to the tempeh.
GARNISHES: You can pick one or all of the garnishes I chose to use, I went for some fresh coriander (cilantro for the US readers) as I love its citrusy flavour, green parts of spring onions (scallions) cut really thinly, chilli oil and black sesame seeds.
HOW TO MAKE IT?
1) CHAR THE CORN
The first step to making this delicious corn soup is to get more flavour out of its star ingredient. The best way to do that is to char it lightly on a heavy skillet. You can of course skip this step, but it’s not that much effort and the caramelisation you’ll get is key at getting more flavour into your soup.
2) SAUTEE THE AROMATICS
Every soup starts with a base of fragrant aromatics. You can either dice them by hand – you don’t have to chop super finely as it will all get blended in the end but be consistent so that everything cooks at the same rate. Alternatively, you can also just give everything a rough chop and put it into a mini chopper (small food processor) with a couple of tablespoons of oil to make a rough paste, then fry it in a pre-heated pan until translucent and fragrant.
3) MAKE STOCK
Add spices, saved cobs and lemongrass bits and pieces and some water to the pot with aromatics. Top it with a lid and simmer gently for about 30 minutes or so.
4) GLAZE THE TEMPEH
While the stock is simmering, cook your noodles and the tempeh. Fry tempeh pieces in a little bit of oil until golden on both sides. Once golden, pour mixed glazed ingredients into the pan and coat fried tempeh in it, allow the tempeh to take on the glaze and caramelise on both sides.
5) BLEND
Remove cobs and lemongrass pieces from the pot and transfer everything to a blender, add charred corn and plant milk and blend until super smooth.
6) SEASON AND SERVE
Return the soup to a pot to heat it up gently, season with soy sauce and lime juice and divide between bowls or cool and save for the next day (it will taste even better).
- 3 corns on the cob or 400 g / 3 cups of corn kernels*
- 60 ml / 4 tbsp vegetable oil, divided
- 3 small shallots
- 4 garlic cloves
- 20 g / 0.75 oz ginger
- 1 mild red chilli
- 2 lemongrass sticks
- 2-3 tsp mild curry powder
- ½ tsp turmeric
- 480 ml / 2 cups soy milk*
- ½ stock cube
- 20 ml / 1½ tbsp soy sauce or tamari (if GF)
- lime juice, to taste
- 85 g / 3 oz dry noodles, per person
GARNISHES
- a handful of coriander / cilantro
- chilli oil, to garnish
- 1-2 spring onions / scallions
GLAZED TEMPEH
- 200 g / 7 oz tempeh
- 20 ml / 1½ tbsp vegetable oil
- 45 ml / 3 tbsp lime juice
- 30 ml / 2 tbsp maple syrup or brown sugar
- salt
- Cut the kernels off the cobs (keep the cobs). If using defrosted or canned kernels, blot them dry on paper towels before using.
- Heat up a heavy pan (cast iron pan is best). Once the pan is hot add 2 tsp of oil. Once the oil is hot, add half of the kernels, stir-fry them until cooked and lightly charred. Empty the pan and follow the same steps with the other half.
- Chop aromatics – shallots, garlic, peeled ginger, chilli (deseed if you don’t like heat) and inner soft part of lemongrass (keep the rest). You could also pop roughly chopped aromatics and a couple of tablespoons of oil into a small food processor and blitz them into a paste.
- Pre-heat 2 tbsp of oil in a large pot, add chopped aromatics and fry on low heat until fragrant and translucent, stirring frequently. If you made a paste, simply preheat the pan and add the paste to it, there is no need for more oil.
- Season with a generous amount of salt, add dry spices, stock cube, saved cobs and lemongrass discards. Top with 1 litre / 4 cups of water, cover with a lid and simmer for 30 minutes. If serving straight away, cook the noodles while you wait – undercook them by a minute or so.
- Discard cobs and lemongrass sticks. Transfer the rest to a blender, add charred corn and blend until smooth. Transfer back to the pot.
- Add 2 cups of soy milk. Season with soy sauce (or tamari if GF) and lime juice to taste.
GLAZED TEMPEH
- Slice tempeh into thick slices. Mix up 3 tbsp lime juice, 2 tbsp maple syrup, 1 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tbsp of water in a small bowl, set aside.
- Heat up a heavy pan on low-medium heat, add 1 tbsp of oil. Arrange tempeh slices on shimmering oil. Fry them on both sides until golden.
- Add lime glaze to the pan, toss fried tempeh in it and allow it to caramelise on both sides.
*PLANT MILK: I used soy milk, but almond or oat will work too. Coconut milk works really well with the soup’s flavours too but as it’s thicker (if you use the canned variety) than soy milk, I would add half of the amount and replenish the rest with water.
