Souper Tuesday: Spicy sweetcorn and coconut soup

This is a speedy way to turn out a delicious, creamy soup with a nice bit of spice and a lovely pile of extra bits and pieces as garnishing. It’s also quick and affordable to make. The sweetcorn is frozen, the coconut element is a single can of coconut cream, and the most costly item is likely to be the bacon, though only a few rashers are enough for the garnish, so there’ll be some left over for breakfast.

Potatoes give the soup its body, and they’re boiled in chicken stock, which meld to become the carrier for the other elements once they are blended in.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Your weekly winter soup recipes start here

I didn’t time it as such, but it really doesn’t take much longer than it takes to boil potatoes until tender, because you cook the onions and corn and their aromatics while the potatoes are boiling in stock.

The garnishings are also put together speedily.

Sweetcorn and coconut soup

(Serves 6 to 8, or 4 with seconds)

Ingredients

2 medium potatoes, diced

2 litres good chicken stock

2 medium white onions, sliced

1 x 1 kg packet of frozen sweetcorn (reserve a few kernels for garnish)

1 Tbsp ground cumin or to taste

1 Tbsp garlic powder or to taste

Salt and white pepper to taste

1 x 400 g can of coconut cream

For garnishing:

1 small onion, halved and sliced thinly

4 rashers of streaky bacon

A few sweetcorn kernels

White bread croutons fried in a little oil

Chilli oil for drizzling

Method

Peel the potatoes and dice them into small cubes.

Put them in a pot with 2 litres of decent-quality chicken stock and boil until tender. Leave to cool.

Fry the sliced onions for a few minutes, stirring, until softened.

Add the sweetcorn and cook, stirring, for a minute or two. Season generously (or to taste) with ground cumin and garlic powder, and season to taste with salt and white pepper. (I prefer white pepper in soups, but use black if you prefer.)

Add the cooked onion mix to the soup pot and blend until fairly smooth, but still holding some texture.

Stir in the coconut cream and heat through.

Taste, and decide whether you need to add more salt and pepper. Adjust according to your taste.

Fry bacon rashers until crisp and chop into small bits.

Fry the sliced small onion until softened.

Dice bread into small croutons and fry in oil until golden and crunchy.

Add a few sweetcorn kernels to the bacon pan and fry for a minute.

Quickly reheat the soup immediately before serving.

To garnish, after spooning the soup into bowls, first put a spoonful or two of fried sliced onions in the middle. Top the onion with bacon bits, croutons, and a few kernels. Drizzle chilli oil around. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed in a bowl by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.