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A thin corn soup thickened only by grating half the cobs instead of cutting them.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, pork.

Ingredients

• 6 corn cobs
• 300 g pork belly, in small dice
• 1.2 litres water
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 40 g fresh ginger, in matchsticks
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 100 g moringa leaves
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 0.5 teaspoon black pepper

Method

1. GRATE HALF THE COBS AND CUT THE OTHER HALF. The grated cobs release their starch and milk and thicken the soup with nothing added; the cut kernels give you something to bite. All cut, it is water with corn in it. All grated, it is porridge.
2. Grate three cobs on the coarse side of a box grater, right down to the core, and scrape the cores with the back of a knife to get the last of the milk out.
3. Cut the kernels off the other three with a knife, in strips rather than individually.
4. Fry the pork in the oil over a medium heat, 8 minutes, until the fat has run and the dice have browned.
5. Garlic, onion and ginger in, 4 minutes.
6. Fish sauce, then the water, then the grated corn. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring now and then -- the starch settles and catches.
7. Cut kernels in, 8 minutes.
8. Heat off. Moringa leaves in, lid on, 2 minutes in the residual heat. Simmered, they go bitter and the soup turns khaki.
9. Pepper. It should be the thickness of single cream, not of a chowder.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes