Chef Demo Recipe: Jerry’s Essence of Corn Soup and Cherry Tomato, Melon and Mint Salad

We were delighted that Chef Jerry Traunfeld of Poppy (formerly of the Herbfarm) came to the market on Thursday both to cook for us and to sign his two cookbooks, The Herbfarm Cookbook and The Herbal Kitchen. Jerry has long been a proponent of cooking with the Pacific Northwest’s bounty of local foods, and is a master at using herbs (and spices, too!) to enhance their flavors. At his demo, Jerry made two dishes: an essence of corn soup that had more than a few attendees licking their fingers to get the last little bit, and a minted salad of ripe melon and cherry tomatoes. Both of these recipes are in Jerry’s second cookbook, The Herbal Kitchen.

Jerry demos the corn creamer. Photo by Kimberly McKittrick.

Sources: Jubilee corn from Alvarez, red cherry tomatoes and basil from Billy’s, Sungold tomatoes from Local Roots, and Gaia melons from Full Circle.

Sweet liquid gold. Photo by Kimberly McKittrick.

Essence of Corn Soup
6 servings

6 ears sweet corn, husked and silk removed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
basil leaves, sliced in thin strips, as garnish

Using a corn creamer*, scrape the pulp from the ears of corn into a large bowl. Do this is a large sink or outside, because the corn will splatter. You should end up with about 3 cups of pulp.

Put 2 or 3 of the scraped cobs in a saucepan; cover with cold water. Simmer for 30 minutes and strain. This is a corn stock that may be necessary to thin the soup.

Put the corn pulp in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into a fine strainer set on top of a saucepan and push it through with the back of a spoon, using a stirring motion. Add the butter and salt to the saucepan. Stir the soup with a whisk over medium heat until it is hot but not yet simmering and it thickens a little. Do not let it boil. Whisk in as much of the corn stock as you need to thin the soup to a consistency where it will just lightly coat a spoon. Depending on the corn, this could range from none at all to as much as a cup. Ladle the hot soup into small bowls and top with small pinches of the basil.

* To scrape the corn without a corn creamer: Stand an ear in a large mixing bowl, holding it at the top. Draw the tip of a paring knife down through each row, cutting a slit in the middle of each kernel of corn. After all the kernels are slashed, firmly scrape downward along the cob with the side of a sturdy tablespoon. The skin of the kernels will stay on the cob, while the pulp and milk will fall into the bowl.

A different fruit salad. Photo by Kimberly McKittrick.

Cherry Tomato, Melon and Mint Salad
8 servings

4 cups melon balls, scooped from ripe melons such as cantaloupe, honeydew or galia, at room temperature
2 cups ripe cherry tomato halves, at room temperature
4 teaspoons lime or lemon juice
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped spearmint leaves
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

Gently toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. This salad is best served within a hour of assembling it.