Corn Chowder with Chorizo and Chiles

We wanted a recipe that delivered everything we sought: velvety texture, unambiguous corn flavor, plentiful kernels, and delicacy. Here’s what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• We began with fresh corn. You’ll need a half dozen medium ears—use a chef’s knife to cut the kernels off the husked and silked ears.
• For depth, cook the onions, chiles, cumin and corn in the rendered chorizo fat. This technique intensifies the cumin and adds toasty, slightly caramelized flavors to the corn and by extension, the chowder.
• For added heat, don’t bother to seed the jalapeño chiles.
• Tasters preferred red potatoes in the chowder, which retained their shape and added a pretty gleam of pink.
• To thicken the chowder and intensify flavor, instead of a traditional flour and butter roux, we pureed canned corn with some chicken broth. This produced a golden, satiny chowder base with a vibrant, fresh corn taste.
• Some recipes call for milk, but we preferred cream, which underlined the chowder’s velvety texture.
• Reserve the corn cobs to toss into the simmering chowder, and fish them out before serving. They contribute subtle but significant corn flavor.