Recipe: Early fall chicken and corn soup

With the weather starting to cool, I’ve been enjoying playing with different soup recipes. One thing that I love about making my own soup is that I can control how much sodium goes in, especially if you make your own stock. You also control how mushy - or not - all the vegetables end up. This recipe is something I threw together recently for an informal dinner with some friends. I figured that if my gourmand friend James liked it enough to ask for the recipe, it might be worth writing it down.

Ingredients

• 1 pound of boneless chicken breasts, filleted
• 1 stalk of celery, chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• ½ medium yellow onion, chopped
• 1 Hungarian pepper, seeded and diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium tomato, peeled and chopped
• 6 cups of chicken stock
• 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 ears of corn, cut from the cob
• 1 tablespoon each of chopped sage, rosemary, and tarragon
• 2 tablespoons dry vermouth
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat one tablespoon each butter and olive oil in a large stockpot or dutch oven. Cook the carrot, onion, pepper, and celery for about 10 minutes over medium heat, or until softened.

2. When the vegetables have softened, add the garlic and stir for about a minute. Then add the chicken stock and turn the heat down to medium-low.

3. Meanwhile, salt and pepper the chicken breasts. Heat 1 tablespoon each olive oil and butter over medium-high heat in a large frying pan. Add the chicken and the herbs and cook approximately 4 minutes on each side, until the chicken is just cooked through. Turn the chicken out onto a cutting board, and deglaze the pan with the vermouth. Let the vermouth cook down, then add the liquid and the remaining herbs to the stock.

4. Cut the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and drop into the simmering stock.

5. In the large frying pan, heat the final 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. As the butter begins to foam, add the corn and salt and pepper to taste, and sauté for 6-7 minutes. Add the corn and the chopped tomatoes to the soup, and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Serves 6.

This recipe was written by Jessica Webster and originally posted on AnnArbor.com on Sept. 23, 2010.