Corn Chowder for cookoff

[chappie]

I entering a friend's chowder cookoff for the second straight year this weekend. Last year I spent a fortune on a lobster, andouille, mussels and saffron chowder that was unbelievably good -- but due to some poor planning and slow crock pot, too cold upon tasting there to win.

This time I'm going for a corn chowder with crawfish (a restaurant owner friend has a bunch in his freezer he's willing to part with). I'm thinking of cooking several bags of sweet corn first, then running it through a food mill to make a thick base to add to the chowder. I'm also going to boil down some corn cobs, from which I've cut the kernels -- I'll carmelize them

Other ideas are poblano chiles, red pepper for color and some canned chipotle. Mom has some lobster stock she made this week, so I might add that -- and of course I'm going to reduce some good cream to add at the end.

Any other ideas?

[Bond Girl]

You could try making an indian version of it with ginger and cumin and garam marsala.

[paul mitchell]

How about cold smoking the crawfish? Chantrelle mushrooms never hurt either.

Edited February 16, 2005 by paul mitchell (log)

[chappie]

How about cold smoking the crawfish? Chantrelle mushrooms never hurt either.

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My only problem with that is that the tails are precooked. The mushrooms may work, but I don't want to distract from the flavor of the corn or poblanos. A friend makes a similar chowder with andoille, but I'm not looking for that sharp of a meat flavor, either. I'm going to render some salt pork to start, and there will be potatoes... because I don't think chowder is chowder unless it has a pork product of some type and potatoes.

[Dana]

I had a corn chowder recently at a restaurant that contained chipotle, and it was just delish. Will you have any sort of croutons? I've made some I sauteed in bacon fat, and they were really nice on a soup.

[NulloModo]

Oh yes, definately add some bacon to the chowder, bacon and crawfish are perfect together. Perhaps something for a little texture as well? I'm thinking peanuts added late in the cooking just so they soften up a little might be great.

[stovetop]

A smoked pork hock

use fresh corn

take the meat out of shells and roast the bones, make like a shrimp or crab bisque

or use clam nector, or a nice light halibut stock

use a slurry to thicken( flour -water)

sweet peppers, cellery (very little)

potatoes, carrots, onions

Cream at the end

top with some corn and crawfish

steve

[fauxtarga]

I'm also going to boil down some corn cobs, from which I've cut the kernels -- I'll carmelize them

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This is interesting - you are boiling down blank cobs (no kernels)? What does this do, do you use it as a base to reduce? Is it like making corn stock? Or am I just misreading this and you are just using the kernels. Good luck.

[Luckylies]

bacon.

pork fat.

[suzilightning]

[This time I'm going for a corn chowder with crawfish (a restaurant owner friend has a bunch in his freezer he's willing to part with). I'm thinking of cooking several bags of sweet corn first, then running it through a food mill to make a thick base to add to the chowder. I'm also going to boil down some corn cobs, from which I've cut the kernels -- I'll carmelize them

try poaching your corn cobs in milk or evaporated milk then use that when you cook your potatoes. start trying the salt pork then add onions or shallots, leeks and then red pepper. then your milk and potatoes and the corn. finish off with the mudbugs and chives or flat leaf parsley as garnish.

[chappie]

Well, my "Cornographic Crawfish Chowder" won the contest hands down! Tasting one of the runner-ups, I had wondered if I should've used some andouille, but people seemed split on whether they liked sausage in their soup or not...

Here's what I did:

Made stock with 6 roasted, dekerneled cobbs, a quart of frozen lobster stock Dad had, celery, bay leaf, carrots, garlic and onion.

Rendered salt pork, added some butter and cooked down one onion, two cloves garlic, four red bell peppers and five poblanos, finely diced. Seasoned with pepper, two chopped chipotles in adobo (plus some of the sauce), cumin, Old Bay and a secret ingredient: an unlabeled, unidentified, granulated dried shrimp + spice product Dad picked up last month in Vietnam...

Then in went five diced potatoes, the roasted corn I'd cut off the cobbs, and stock. When potatoes were tender I added cream (started with 2 and half quarts and reduced slowly -- don't know what I ended up with...). Cooked four bags of frozen sweet corn, pureed them in the food processor in batches, pushed through a sieve for an intense corn background/thickener. Then at the very end I added 3 pounds of crawfish tails. Seasoned to taste (I added some splashes of Tabasco chipotle sauce, more of the secret Vietnamese shrimp stuff, and a thinned-out tablespoon of dried mustard...)

There were about 80 tasters, 15 or so chowders. Most crockpots were scraped dry, but there was one next to mine -- a crab chowder that smelled good -- that was still over half full by the end of the night. It tasted like soymilk powder mixed with crumbled chalk, margarine and the outflow of a chain-smoking crustacean with dysentary.

The runner-ups were a Rhode Island chowder that contained sausage and a very pure, clean rockfish (striped bass) chowder.

Next time, if I were to try to replicate my effort in a pinch, without simmering stock forever, I'd try using a bunch of shrimp paste in the corn stock, and acquiring a food mill to save steps on the corn essence.

[chappie]

It's that time of year again, the annual chowder cookoff weeks away and a title to reclaim after a subpar showing last year when I lost to some blonde whose oysterish paste contained bits of shell. Maybe she paid off the judges in the back room.

This year I'm thinking of making an insanely rich and delicious base, then grilling my seafood outside on the deck just before tasting. How does this sound?

I have also been tempted to do a quadruple corn, non-seafood chowder, but I think the voting public expects something that recently swam or lurked on the bottom of a body of water.

Any ideas for an award winner? I want to hone this recipe in my mind before taking it any further...