Cold Corn Soup

From the Washington Post:

This is a distilled flavor of high summer. The coconut milk accentuates the sweetness of the corn.
Serve with salad and a glass of chardonnay. The soup tastes better with a day's refrigeration.

4 servings
Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons sweet butter
• 3 or 4 medium shallots, cut into thin slices
• Pinch curry powder
• Kernels from about 8 ears white corn (4 cups)
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 4 whole black peppercorns
• 6 whole coriander seeds
• 3 stems parsley
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, preferably low-fat (may substitute whole milk)
• Salt

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in an uncovered Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are softened but but not browned. Add the curry powder and cook for 1 minute, stirring to coat evenly.
2. Add the corn and chicken broth, stirring to combine.
3. Tie the peppercorns, coriander and parsley in a small cheesecloth bundle, then add to the soup. Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.
4. Stir in the coconut milk. Cover, and let the soup rest for 20 minutes.
5. Discard the cheesecloth bundle.
6. Reserve 1 cup of the soup. Puree the remaining soup in a blender (working in batches) or with an immersion (stick) blender until smooth.
7. Set a strainer over a bowl; strain the pureed soup, gently pressing on any solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Add the reserved 1 cup of unpureed soup to the bowl (for texture); mix well. Season with salt to taste, keeping in mind the soup will be chilled.
8. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled before serving.

RESULTS:
This wasn't all that much different from the other cold corn soup that I posted up here a while ago and am too lazy to link to now, but I did really like the combination of coconut, coriander, and ground ginger (which I used because I didn't remember that I had curry powder until just typing this sentence now...). I thought the whole cheesecloth thing was unnecessarily fussy, so I just tossed the spices in there and figured, if I get a whole peppercorn, so be it.