Nothing is more comforting than a big bowl of hearty soup and a slice of warm crusty bread. This chunky soup has a long list of ingredients but actually comes together quickly.  Especially if you use the leftover wild and brown rice (from the Rack of Lamb dinner post on October 2 on this site) and meat from a rotisserie chicken.  As usual, I use Costco’s rotisserie chicken, which yields about 1 3/4 pounds of meat, after discarding the skin and bones. Chop up the dark meat for the soup and refrigerate the breast meat for salads or sandwiches for another day.  The chicken Andouille sausage used here was found at Trader Joe’s but any cooked sausage you prefer (such as kielbasa) is fine.  Although the sausage is fully cooked, it is sautéed with the vegetables to lend them more flavor before liquid is added to the pot.  Today was my first opportunity to use my new “Elite” Cuisinart, and I must say, it was amazing, can’t wait to really put it to the test with a big ol’ day of cooking! With the holidays fast approaching, that will be very soon!  Speaking of the holidays, this would be a perfect soup to make with leftover turkey meat and turkey stock made from the turkey carcass from Thanksgiving, so keep it in mind.

1 3/4 pounds meat from one Costco rotisserie chicken; breast meat on the left, dark meat on the right

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I mentioned the other day that my dear friend, Peggy, and I went to lunch and the she had a corn chowder that she loved and wanted to recreate at home. After much tweaking, tasting, and retweaking – I think I finally got it!

One issue I was having was the viscosity of the soup. Mine was not as thick as the restaurant’s version. I’m sure the chef used heavy cream and I didn’t want to go there… so I used my standard fat free half-and-half. And although it lends a nice richness to the chowder, it won’t add that thick consistency. There are two options to get there; the first is to do as I did and make a paste of softened butter and flour to thicken the mixture, this is called a Beurre Manié. It is similar to a roux, but unlike a roux, it is not cooked until added to the dish. The second and healthier way would be to take a portion of the solids (about 1/4 to 1/3 of the solids in this case) from the soup just before serving and puree in either a food processor or a bender, then stir that back into the soup. Honestly, that is the technique I generally use, but I thought it would be useful to demonstrate and explain the Beurre Manié this time.

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