Corn and Crabmeat (or Crawfish or Shrimp or Andouille) Soup

1 lb jumbo lump crabmeat (or one pound of crawfish,shrimp or andouille)***
1/4 c butter
2 c chicken stock
seasonings to taste (salt, garlic powder, white and/or red pepper)
1 c fresh yellow corn
1/4 c all purpose flour
2 c half and half (you can use cream if you want it richer or thicker or fat free half and half, if you're trying to cut the fat)
white onions, chopped fine (sorry, I don't measure these. I would imagine I use about 1/4 c minimum)

Cut fresh corn off the cob, but only about half way through the kernels. Then scrape the cobs for milk.
Set aside.
*I generally microwave each cob for about 1 minute before I cut them. You can't boil this soup too much
and it takes a long time for the corn to cook on simmer. You can actually cook the corn all the way if you like.
As long as you cut the kernels half way and scrape the cobs, you will have a good corn flavor. I sometimes
put the cobs in the liquid and simmer for about 20 minutes before I add the seafood. The scraped cobs
add a good bit of flavor. Remove before adding corn kernels and scrapings and seafood.

Melt butter in a saucepan, add flour and blend well. Add chicken stock, stirring constantly. Cook until thick
and smooth. Stir in half and half, corn, onions and seasonings. Cook over low fire until corn is tender. Add
seafood and simmer for about 10 minutes to marry flavors. It's best when made the day before and reheats just fine, though you must be careful of reheating seafood and you may wish to add that after the reheat.

** I don't have a note as to how much this makes. My guess is about 8 cups with the seafood in it.

***For Corn and Andouille soup, use 1 lb of andouille. Boil water in a pot large enough to hold the andouille. While the water is boiling, add the whole andouille and turn the heat off. Let the andouille sit for about 15 minutes to release some of the grease. Drain and chop the andouille. Follow the recipe directions the same way as you would for the seafood.

***For shrimp, you may want more than a pound since the shells take up a bit of the weight. If you're shrimp are large, you may which to cut them in chunks.

Hey Mouton, can I stop now? I'm done.

This post was edited on 5/18/08 at 3:02 pm