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Recipe: Sweet Corn Soup with Pan-Roasted Grape Tomatoes and Fresh Thyme

Adam Anderson, former chef at Lucia's (currently at Whole Foods), creates and shares Simple, Good, and Tasty recipes on an ongoing basis, using the ingredients from our Harmony Valley Farm CSA boxes.

Can you go wrong with sweet corn and tomatoes? Only if you try to do too much with them. This is one of my favorite dishes I've prepared this summer. It's simple, yet sophisticated enough to enjoy with a nice, oaky bottle of California Chardonnay - and plenty of sunshine.

Sweet Corn Soup with Pan-Roasted Grape Tomatoes and Fresh Thyme
Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

  • 8 ears - Sweet Corn, cut off the cob (reserve 4 of the cobs of corn to simmer with the soup)
  • 2 small - Onions, rough chopped
  • 2 cloves -  Garlic, chopped
  • 3 each - Dry Bay Leaves
  • 10 each - Cherry or Grape Tomatoes, cut in half
  • 1 Tbsp - Fresh Thyme, picked off stem and rough chopped
  • 1/3 cup - Olive Oil
  • 2-3 cup - Water
  • 1 cup - Heavy Whipping Cream
  • To taste - Salt and White Pepper

Preparation:

  1. Heat saucepan over medium heat.
  2. Add ¼ cup of olive oil to saucepan. Once up to temperature, add the sweet corn (reserve about a ¼ cup of the corn for the garnish), onion, garlic, and bay leaves. Season with salt and white pepper.
  3. Sauté until vegetables are translucent. Be careful not to give color to the sautéed vegetables.
  4. Add all the water (enough to cover the veggies) and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
  5. Remove from the heat and take out the bay leaves and corncobs. Add the heavy cream.
  6. In small batches, puree the soup in a blender until smooth. As you put the pureed soup back into a pot, strain the soup through a sieve, using a ladle to help push the soup through the sieve. The straining process can be skipped, but you'll achieve a much more desirable texture through this process.
  7. For the garnish, heat a pan over medium heat with the remaining olive oil. Sauté the remaining ¼ cup of corn, halved tomatoes and fresh thyme. Season with salt and pepper.
  8. Once the corn, tomatoes, and fresh thyme have been lightly sautéed, garnish each cup of soup with this sauté. Garnish should float on the top of the soup.