Ultimate comfort food - Sweetcorn Soup

A friend of mine was feeling a bit under the weather, and I remembered we had had a conversation about how much she used to love Sweetcorn Soup as a child when she was unwell. Luckily, I also remembered that my Mumsy had recently told me about how ridiculously quick and easy it is to make it. So on my way out to visit my friend, it was onto the parental bat-phone and a quick recap of the recipe. Here's what she told me:


Mumsy's Sweetcorn Soup

Empty one 420g tin/canful of creamed corn into a small saucepan.
Using the conveniently empty tin, add a 1:1 amount of water (ie one tinful).

{Add meat* if required at this stage}

Bring to the boil. {If using meat, wait until meat is cooked/heated through}
Meanwhile beat an egg.
Once saucepan contents are cooked/boiling, turn off heat and immediately vigorously stir in the beaten egg, it should cook and flake up instantaneously.
Add salt and/or pepper to taste.

Serve piping hot to patient on couch, preferably with some rubbish daytime television to watch on the side.



*Meat variations (Mum reckons no more than 10g/a couple of tablespoonsful):

1 - Shred some cooked chicken (eg store-bought BBQ chicken breast or leftover cooked chicken)
2 - Buy a small tin of pre-cooked crab meat
3 - Marinate some pork or beef mince/dice with a splash of soy sauce, a pinch of sugar & powdered garlic (and some dry white or sherry)


[Bonus recipe:


Mumsy's "Diced Pork and Sweetcorn Rice"

Mum also says this recipe can easily be made into a delicious casserole-y type sauce to serve on rice.
Simply omit the water, brown diced or minced marinated pork or beef first in a tiny touch of oil then add the can of creamed corn and finish with egg as above.
The resulting consistency should be "kind of like bolognaise sauce".]

I remember having this a lot as a kid. Who knew two dishes for which I have such fond memories could be so easy to reproduce!?

Vongole (or let's be honest, any shellfish) Linguine (or let's be honest, any long pasta)

Here's a time-travelling one for you. I recently had a conversation with my lovely bestie Woffles. I'm not entirely sure how we gave her that name between today and all those years ago in Year 5, but it is definitely spelled with an "o" as in the Woffles, the talking rabbit in the Enid Blyton books - not with an "a" as in the foodstuff; and it certainly suits her. Anyhow, I was out walking with her by the river and we were talking about my love of molluscs, in particular bivalves - I often go to the markets and buy the freshest live mussels or clams that I can find and work my dinner plans around them. A very useful recipe I have tucked away in my recipe file is this gem for Spaghetti Vongole - yet another Neil Perry / Qantas Magazine recipe. My preferred long pasta is Linguine with Vongole but Fettucine (good with mussels) or Spaghetti or otherwise works just as well. I also refer to this recipe when cooking shellfish and just use the first part of the recipe as a reminder of cooking times and accoutrements. I can't seem to find my picture of the first attempt (and thus most faithful to recipe version) but will look through my other computer just in case. In the meantime here's an adjusted, musselicious & pastaless version of the recipe:

I believe these were live Mornington Peninsula mussels purchased that day from South Melbourne Markets in honour of a parental visit... and quite delicious, if memory serves...