A little help repairing the flavor of my soup - Sweet Potato and Corn Chowder


 
Clint

Clint

TVWBB Olympian
I debated which chowder to make last night and I'm wishing I'd have gone with a New England variety instead of this. I have ~7 quarts of this though, and I'm not all that happy with the flavor. It's a little too sweet and just isn't much to my liking.

From the New England Soup Factory Cookbook:

188826_4553441436001_947950186_n.jpg
 
That does read like it will be sweet. I do a corn chowder with Bacon and Chili Peppers, that might help balance the sweet with some heat.

Tim
 
Thanks timothy, I'll try that with a quart or two... I found some bacon in the freezer on Saturday..... it'd give me an excuse to work on seasoning my cast iron pans.

What I've been doing is using about 5 dashes of Worchestershire sauce, about the same of my habanero sauce, a few squeezes on my coarse pepper mill.
 
I agree with what Timothy writes - to balance out the sweet you need some heat. Salt or bitter won't really reach sweetness. Maybe some sour tastes would help as well - which makes hot sauce (hot chilies and sour vinegar) a prime candidate for this.
 
do you think a balsamic vinegar would work? I put a couple Tbsp of balsamic in my ~8 qt chili (from this same cookbook) & like it - I didn't consider that.
 
Last edited:
For lunch I fried a couple pieces of (maple) bacon, added them to 1.5 cups (12 oz) of the soup, added a few splashes of my habanero sauce, several splashes of balsamic, a pinch of cumin, & a bit of generic chili powder. I stopped & tasted after the pinch of cumin & to me it tasted like curry. It's quite an improvement (very good), but I don't think I should be eating 2 pieces of bacon with each bowl of soup.... (trying to drop some weight) - but oh man, this is good!

I guess adding the bacon won't really bust the belt line ---- looks like it's ~50 calories per slice....less than I expected. When I eat too much of that (or fries/etc) I imagine that I can feel my 'moobs' growing lol.
 
Last edited:
I went to the store & picked up 3 green peppers, 5 jalapenos (no more heat than the green bell peppers). I'm baking ~1# bacon in the oven, throwing some of the peppers on the almost cooked bacon, then I plan on adding the balsamic etc like I did above. I have a couple friends coming by for dinner tonight - I bet they'll like it....unless I mess it up somehow. I'll post whether it's a success or a fail.
 
I'm very happy with the outcome, so were both of my friends. I kept it somewhat tame on the heat, they're not chili heads like me...they both said it was oohh, just right. Very complex flavor. Used about 5/16ths of a cup of balsamic. Still a hint of sweetness but it was nearly gone without a taste of the vinegar.

Thanks for the help guys, I bet the rest of this will be gone within 2 days.

<edit>
...some of the peppers I sprinkled over the bacon (nearly a pound, I could've used more---duh) while it broiled, the rest of the peppers I roasted (diced) in a dry cast iron pan. I blackened a few of them, the rest had a great flavor which really came through the soup, which I simmered for ~45 minutes again w/ the added ingredients. These mods will be printed out & taped inside the cookbook.
 
Last edited:
I know this is WAYYY beyond when you needed it, but you could always put a dozen or so frozen corn cobs in the chowder to deepen the flavor. That and some peppers as you did to jazz it up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top