Want to skip the story? Here’s the recipe.

Hello Reader,

I’m posting again this weekend. 😊

I hope you enjoyed last night’s pork chop, pickled vegetables, and crispy capers.

Tonight, I made Mum’s sweet corn and chicken soup. It is the first time I’ve made this soup.

Mum made this soup when I was a boy, and while I’ve lived away from home since 1993, I know she continues to cook it for Dad, my brothers when they’re visiting, and my daughters. It’s one of Mum’s better-known soups.

I decided to cook it a little differently.

Recipe

Ingredients

• One can of corn kernels
• One can of creamed corn
• 1–2 chicken thighs
• Stock
• 1–2 eggs
• Cornflour
• Cream
• MSG
• Salt
• Pepper
• Sesame oil

Instructions

Chicken

1. Dice the chicken thigh meat into bite-sized chunks.
2. Please place them in a bowl and add salt, pepper, MSG, and sesame oil.
3. Massage the chicken pieces with the seasoning and oil.
4. Place the seasoned and lubricated chicken pieces into a vacuum bag.
5. Seal the bag.
6. Cook for 2 hours at 76 °C in a water bath.
7. Open the bag and empty the chicken and juices into the soup broth.

Corn soup broth with chicken pieces

1. Empty the cans of corn into a saucepan with the stock.
2. Bring to a slow simmer and cook for twenty minutes.
3. Add the chicken to the saucepan and simmer for about 10 minutes.
4. Break the eggs into a bowl, and beat them lightly, leaving white visible.
5. Blend cornflour with some water to make a slurry. Pour the slurry into the egg mixture.
6. While the soup is at a slow boil, pour the egg mixture in and stir until strands of coagulated white egg appear.
7. Before serving, add cream and reheat slightly.

Plating up and serving

1. Ladle soup into vacuum bags for meals later in the week. Vacuum seal the bags and refrigerate or freeze them.
2. Spoon the remaining soup into a bowl.
3. Give thanks to the Lord.
4. Enjoy with a spoon.

Thoughts on the meal

The advantage of separately cooking the chicken means it can be cooked days in advance.

The soup was as good as Mum’s. I’m going to do this again and again and again.

Final thoughts

1. Do you like corn and chicken soup?
2. Do you ever modify family recipes?

Footnotes

Sous vide cooking the chicken allowed me to ensure the chicken’s pasteurisation and achieving tenderness. It’s a bit of a faff for people who don’t have a water bath and water heater circulator. You can cook the chicken in the soup broth. That’s how Mum does it, and it’s always delicious. I like to do things differently when I can.

Corn kernels are the fruit, and there are roughly 800 kernels in 16 rows per ear of corn.

Creamed corn combines corn kernels with the residue from pulped corn kernels scraped from the cob.