Knowledge Base > Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)
This event was on
Tuesday, May 06, 2025 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Char Nolan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to cou… Read More.
Question:

Do you have a favorite way of making a corn chowder?
— Joan Belcher
Answer:
So here is the trick about making a creamy soup. And if you're using corn, you would want to cook the corn with the potato in the water. So you're gonna cook a peeled quartered potato, and then that potato is going to become creamy when you, uh, puree it. Now what I do when I make creamed soups is I will braise a couple of carrots, uh, a yellow onion and a potato, sometimes maybe a parsnip, and I will braise them in the oven. And then what happens at the end is that you have this beautifully caramelized concoction, for lack of a better word. And then I will add that to make a creamy soup. So make your soup with all of your ingredients. You might have a beautiful mis and pla that of course would have celery, carrot, and onions, uh, which is your, you know, your basic meal POIs, and then what other ingredients you have. And then you will take the potato out and cook it with a a, I'm sorry, blend it with about a cup of the stock or broth that is in the pan. And then you'll find that you're going to have a beautifully creamed corn soup or chowder as you're saying. You can add some plant milk to it, and you can play with the texture and consistency. You could add a little bit of a flour with some water in it as well. So I try to stay away from adding flowers. So for me, the potato works really, really well.
