“Cacio e Pepe” Corn Chowder | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with Kacio a pepe corn chowder. That's right. I'm not going to tell you that kacio a pepe is actually better on corn than it is on pasta. Oh no. What I'd rather do is have you make this and then tell me that. But either way, this was one of the best corn soups I've had in recent memory. And to get started, if you're using fresh corn, which I really hope you are, we can do the optional step of placing our corn cobs after we remove the kernels into our chicken broth. And then we'll also add in some nice cold fresh water. And we will bring this up to a simmer on high heat. And yes, I cut these cobs in half so they'd fit better in this small pan. But it really doesn't matter as long as you can fit them in your cooking liquid. And once that comes up to a boil, we'll reduce our heat to low. And we'll let this simmer gently for about an hour, which is plenty of time to extract lots of corny goodness. And while I can't tell you exactly how much extra flavor this is going to provide, I do know it's more than none. And since the cobs come free with the corn, why not do it? But anyway, I'm going to move that to the back of the stove while we start the actual soup, which involves adding some diced up panetta to some olive oil in a soup pot set over medium heat. And what we'll do is cook that stirring for like four or five minutes or until the fat renders out. And the penetta just starts to think about getting crispy. And it hopefully looks a little something like this. And once it does, we can start adding the rest of the ingredients. But I do like to pull out a spoon or two of the cooked penetta so we can use that to garnish the top later. So yes, another optional step. And then what we'll do is raise our heat to medium high. And we'll toss in some butter as well as about a cup of diced onions. Okay, I'm using scallions and shallots because that's what I had. But this is dealer's choice. I mean, you are after all the Jimmy Fallon of which alium, but no matter what you use. We'll follow that with some diced celery as well as a whole bunch of finely minced or crushed garlic. And we'll go ahead and give everything a stir. And we'll also at this point probably want to toss in a nice big pinch of salt since, as you know, that draws moisture out of our veggies and helps them soften and sweeten up a little quicker. So, we'll go ahead and toss that in. And we'll continue cooking this, stirring occasionally for a few more minutes. And once we get to the point where they're looking like this, we will stop and we will sprinkle in our flour and we'll stir that in to make a little bit of a rous, which is going to help give our corn chowder the perfect thickness. And after cooking that for a couple minutes to take that raw pasty edge off the flour, we'll go ahead and dump in some cold milk and whisk that in. And as I've said many times, hot rumps. Although, if we had lumps, you wouldn't be able to tell because this is very quickly going to turn into a thick paste. And then what we'll do once the milk's been incorporated is remove the cobs from our broth water mixture. And we'll go ahead and transfer that in. And we'll give that an enthusiastic whisking. And then we'll wait for it to come back to a simmer. And then once things start bubbling again, what we'll do is reduce our heat to medium low. And we'll let this simmer, stirring occasionally, for at least 15 minutes to ensure all our veggies are nice and soft. Okay, we're not going to cook the fresh corn. We're going to add very long. So, we want to make sure everything else is perfectly tender before that gets tossed in. And after simmering gently for about 15 minutes, our pot is probably going to look something like this. All right, the color will have deepened and things will probably have thickened up a little bit. And at this point, we can transfer in four cups of fresh corn. And I'm using a byolored corn which has the white kernels and the yellow kernels which I thought would look pretty. And I thought I could make a couple jokes about my corn being by. But then I remembered it was in the late 90s. So you'll have to settle for what I just said. But anyway, we'll stir that in and raise our heat to medium. And then we'll let our chowder cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally or whenever you feel like it. And if you want to sneak in a couple shakes of cayenne, feel free. I think a little extra heat's nice. Plus, it'll give our soup a little warmer color. And by the way, you can cook the corn longer than 10 minutes, but personally, I want mine to retain a little bit of texture so it's still just a touch crunchy, which I think is the state where we achieve the maximum sweetness. And no matter how long you want, we'll definitely want to give it a stir and give it a taste and maybe add another pinch of salt. But please be careful. The pecarina we're about to add is pretty salty, so you might want to do your final salt adjustments on the finished soup. And once we're happy with the seasoning, we can turn off the heat and we can add the rest of the ingredients, which includes some freshly sliced green onion tops, plus the co-stars of the show, some Pepe and some kacio. And yes, I like a little bit of a coarse grind on the pepper, plus a little bit of a coarser grading on the cheese. And as soon as that's in, we will immediately stir everything together. And believe it or not, that's it. Well, actually, I take that back. We're not quite done yet. Because once that's stirred in, we of course have to taste this for final seasoning. And now that the pepper and cheese are in, we'll have a much better idea if it needs another pinch of salt or not. But mine was tasting perfect, and I even double checked to make sure. And once it is, we'll grab a ladle and serve up. And if you wanted this thicker, you could add a little more flour or a little less broth. But I think this is the perfect viscosity right here, which you're going to get a much better look at as I transfer some into a bowl. And then, as far as finishing touches go, I like to save a little bit of the fresh corn and give it a brief sauté and sprinkle that over the top since sometimes the corn sinks down and you can't see it as well. And then I followed that with a little more freshly grated cheese, plus a scattering of our reserved panetta. And then we'll top that with another scattering of freshly sliced green onions before one last application of our freshly ground black pepper. And that's it. What I'm calling Kacio Pepe corn chowder was ready to enjoy. And that, my friends, as I said in the intro, was one of the best corn soups I've had in a long time. and all those amazing things. The cheese and pepper due to pasta is happening in this soup as well. But here, because of the sweetness of the corn and that little bit of porky goodness from the panetta, I think here, believe it or not, they might even work better. And while I did really enjoy this with the panetta, if you want to do a meatless version, some severely caramelized diced mushrooms would be a great substitute. So, I think this would be fairly easy to make vegetarian if you happen to swing that way. But anyway, if you like corn and you like chowters and you like kacua pepe, you are absolutely going to love this, which is why I really do hope you give it a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And as always, enjoy.