Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup.....

..... the only thing better when you are feeling low may be chicken noodle soup, although I have heard of that fall back of all Jewish Mums, Jewish Penicillin, or Chicken Soup that will take a few hours to achieve. Well sometimes you don't have hours, when someone you love says 'I's sick, I got da flu', you immediately think 'Chicken Soup', and so that was the case this afternoon, the youngest is down, not well, got the flu, so Chicken and Sweetcorn was a must.

This is the line up of the vital ingredients, Sweet Corn, of course, some kind of bony chicken, being the end of the day, the butcher only had wings so that is what we are using here, an onion, well half is all that was needed and a small clove of garlic, and lets not forget the salt and pepper.

Oh yeah, and the oil, pour about half a tablespoon into a heavy based fry pan and heat over medium heat.

Oh and yeah, don't forget the carrot, use half a carrot, peel and cut in half length ways, place in pan and allow to start browning

then add the half onion, roughly chopped into fairly largish pieces, here I cut it into wedges, and the clove of garlic, peeled and cut in half. Lastly add the chicken wings.

The idea is to give everything only a little browning, not too much, just enough to bring out the flavours and to add a hint of colour.

Lift everything into a saucepan and de-glaze the fry pan with about 1/2 cup water, stirring around to lift any brown bits off the bottom of the pan.

Pour into the saucepan with the chicken and vegetables. Add enough water to cover the chicken. Stock would be better than water but this was an emergency and stock was not in the freezer.
Add salt and pepper, cover and bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for about half an hour.

Meanwhile, cut the kernels from 2 cobs of corn, these were large cobs and I only used the kernels from 1 1/2 cobs. Don't forget to scrape the juicy bits of the kernels from the cob using the back of a knife.

After the chicken etc has simmered away for 30 - 45 minutes, strain into a large bowl, reserving chicken and stock.

Wash the saucepan and return the strained stock to the pan, check the seasoning, add the corn kernels and return to a simmer, simmer for approx 10 Min's, or until corn is cooked.

Remove the pan from the heat and then blend the corn and stock together, here I used a stick mixer but a blender or food processor would work just fine.

Return the pan to the heat and bring just to the boil, bubbles will start to emerge at the sides of the pan.
While waiting for corn and stock to come to the boil, mix 2 teaspoons cornflour with a scant 1/4 cup water, when bubbles appear, use a whisk to stir corn and stock briskly and gently pour cornflour into corn mixture.

Stir until mixture returns to boil, turn heat down and allow to gently simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, strip the chicken from the bones at the fleshy end of the wings, and if you have pets as we do, you might as well strip all the rest of the flesh and skin from the wings, keep the yummy plump bits for the soup and pop the other into a separate pile, this will be doggie dinners for the evening and greatly appreciated doggie dinners at that.

Now just squish those plump pieces of chicken - yep I used my fingers - you don't want great lumps in your soup.

Add squished chicken to corn mixture and Viola!!

Chicken Sweet Corn Soup! - Just go ahead and pour it into a bowl, maybe even sprinkle a few slivers of green onion on top and serve with some nice bread or even garlic toasts.

And I'm sure you will feel much better. This also freezes well for a couple of months, great to have in the freezer for those winter chills or even when you just can't seem to manage to find the energy to face the kitchen.

What I used for 2 servings

4 chicken wings

1/2 medium sized onion

1 small clove garlic

1/2 medium carrot

approx 1 tablespoon oil - I used olive oil

corn kernels from 2 small or 1 1/2 larger corn cobs

2 teaspoons cornflour

1/4 cup water

approx 1 1/2 - 2 liters water extra.

Salt and Pepper