It’s the Soup of the Summer

Step aside gazpacho. Toasted Miso Double Corn Chowder is my soup of the summer.

A bowl of hot chowder may not sound refreshing, but this one is surprisingly light and a breeze to throw together. Instead of cups of cream, this soup gets its velvety texture from corn and potatoes. Cream has a tendency to obscure flavor, and I want my corn to shine.

This is the kind of recipe that gets me excited about our soon-to-be-released cookbook, “Milk Street Shorts.” It calls for all of six ingredients, and each of those ingredients brings something very specific to the table. The book won’t be released until October 14, but you can pre-order your copy now.

But back to the soup. Though potatoes are involved, sweet summer corn is the star of the bowl; once the kernels are removed, we simmer the spent cobs in water to extract every last drop of flavor (and thickening starch). We balance that sweetness with savory scallions and umami-packed miso, which are toasted in the pan to deep their flavor. A little mirin (a sweet, sake-like Japanese cooking wine) deglazes the pan, ensuring no flavor is left behind.

Everything gets simmered together until the potatoes are fork-tender. A small portion is blended until smooth, then returned to the pot to make a chowder that’s creamy, but not oppressively so, with the primary flavor being C-O-R-N. Drizzled with a shock of red chili oil, it’s surprisingly pretty. (A pot will serve four to six people, but my boyfriend and I consumed the whole batch within 24 hours.)

If you need another use for that tub of miso, try our Miso Butter Spaghetti with Scallions (also featured in “Shorts'”). Softened butter mixed with miso, garlic, scallion whites and lemon juice creates a simple and flavorful no-cook sauce for pasta. The heat from the noodles and some of the starchy pasta cooking water melts the butter, creating a silky, buttery emulsion. And for dessert, try vanilla ice cream drizzled with Miso Caramel (which, that's right, also can be found in “Shorts”).

And if you’re craving more vehicles for summer corn, “Shorts” has that too. The Sweet Corn-Infused Pasta with Tomatoes and Basil gets tons of grassy-sweet flavor from grated kernels and, much like in the soup mentioned above, spent cobs simmered in the pasta cooking water. The tomatoes and basil amplify the sunniness of the dish.

Need even more corn? Flip to the dessert chapter and bake it into a Mexican Sweet Corn Cake, no mixer needed. (We use a blender instead.)

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.