Sweet Corn Chicken Soup

This is the quintessential Indo-Chinese dish. It is a fair balance between the relatively bland Chicken soup with its overpowering chicken flavor and the spicy chicken corn chili. The addition of the sweet corn adds a certain je ne sais quois to the humble chicken broth and makes it a kid-magnet. This is a comfort food at my home and we prefer to have it during the fall and winter months.

Ingredients:

For homemade chicken stock:

• Chicken breast with rib bones - 1
• onion - 1
• carrot, cut in half - 1
• salt and pepper, to taste
• cinnamon - 1 stick
• ginger - 1 inch piece
• fennel seeds - 1 tbsp
• black peppercorn - 1 tbsp
• coriander seeds - 1 tbsp

For soup:

• carrot, match stick cut - 1/2 a cup
• green beans, sliced thin - 1/2 a cup
• green onion sliced thin - 1/2 a cup
• sweet corn kernels - 1/2 cup
• milk - 1/2 cup
• corn starch - 2 tbsp
• oil for sauteing
• salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

If you wish to use homemade chicken stock/broth. prepare it now. You could make it on stovetop or in your slow cooker. This is my preferred way:

1. In a 5 liter pressure cooker, add the frozen or fresh chicken breast, 15 cups of fresh water, and all the other broth ingredients. 
2. Cover and cook for 4 whistles. 
3. The broth is now ready.  When it has sufficiently cooled, pour it through a strainer. Save the meat and discard everything else that's left in the strainer.
4. Shred the meat into bite sized pieces. The thumb rule is to cut the meat so it would fit the silverware that will be used for consuming it (Soup spoon, in this case).

Soup:

1. In a small saute pan on medium flame, bring the milk to a boil.
2. Add the corn kernels to this. Cover and cook until the corn has softened, about 5 minutes.
3. Remove from heat source and with an immersion blender, blend the corn a little. This should give you about a cup of creamed corn.
4. In a 3 quart sauce pan on medium high heat, add the oil.
5. Before the oil starts to smoke, add the carrot, beans and cook covered until the vegetables are done done but still have a crunch.
6. Add the creamed corn to this. 
7. After 5 minutes, add the chicken stock and chicken. Let it simmer for around 10 minutes.
8. In a small bowl, prepare a corn starch slurry by whisking 2 tbsp corn starch in about 1/4 cup of cold water. In a steady stream, pour this slurry in the sauce pan, while continuously stirring the soup. This helps to thicken the soup and also adds a silky sheen to it.
9. Homemade sweet corn chicken soup is now ready. If you wish, you can add 1 egg white to it, in egg drop soup style.
10.  Add salt and pepper to taste and garnish with green onions before serving warm in individual bowls.

If you try this Chinese inspired Indian dish, let me know!

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