Elote Soup
Last summer, while in Arizona, my friend hosted a BBQ at her house to celebrate a weeklong dance event my husband and his friends put on. It was a potluck, so I decided to grab a few items and make Elote. Elote is kind of a Mexican street food dish comprising of roasted corn on the cob, cojita cheese, mayo, crema (like a mexican sour cream), lime, cayenne pepper or chili powder, cilantro, salt and butter. I am guessing it just depends on your preference on how you make it. Anyhow, I roasted corn on the grill, smothered it with butter and salt (we are already salivating, I know) and then added the cojita, mayo and crema combo with fresh cilantro and cayenne. It was amazing and of course gone quickly.
Fast forward to the other day, and I thought I would make it into a soup since I had some cojita cheese in my fridge from making Elote the other weekend with our new BBQ, and I decided to make some corn soup topped with the cheese, cilantro, avocado and cayenne. I ate it with tortilla chips. To say it was delicious is an understatement.
I hope you like this recipe, feel free to make with ready to use vegetable stock and canned corn or make your own. It will turn out great either way.
Ingredients
2 cups of low sodium vegetable stock, preferably organic
4 stalks of corn or 2.5 - 3 cups of canned corn
1/4 cup of finely chopped onion
2 tsp of oil (I used canola)
2 tbsp of butter (can used vegan)
2 bay leafs
Cojita cheese
avocado sliced
cayenne pepper
.5 - 1 tsp of salt
pepper
cilantro (optional)
lime wedges (optional)
If you are using fresh corn cut corn off cob, reserve corn and put halved cobs into a stockpot with the vegetable stock and let simmer on low for an hour, to infuse stock with corn flavor. If you dont have fresh corn, go to the next step.
Take 1 cup of the corn infused veggie stock and 1 cup of corn and cream in a food processor or blender. Put aside. In large stock pot add butter and oil over medium heat, brown reserved corn, onion, half teaspoon of salt until bottom of pot is slightly brown. Add the rest of the veggie stock (without the corn) and scrape bottom of pan with a wooden spoon to release the brown bits at the bottom of the pan (important as these bits are very flavorful). Add in pureed corn and veggie broth, and any seasonings that you may want to add. Let simmer for 20-30 minutes to slightly reduce and develop more flavor.
Serve with the garnishes above and tortilla chips. Bon appetit!!
