About 8 or 9 years ago when I was first exploring online recipes, I came across the Top Secret Recipes site. The basic premise is that this guy takes popular restaurant items for which there is no known public recipes and deconstructs them to determine the ingredients and cooking techniques. I remember reading his account of how he did this with a particular Baja Fresh salsa as though I was reading a mystery novel… I swear I think that he camped out near the restaurant to analyze the trash or something crazy like that. In any case, this is a soup, not salsa, blog and one of the recipes that I copied down from the site was California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) Sedona White Corn and Tortilla Soup. Confession: I never had eaten the real deal at the restaurant—but it was vegetarian and sounded promising (with Sedona in the name what wouldn’t be appetizing?). Oops- just saw that you needed to pay $0.79 for this recipe on his site (I think that some of them are still free though??). In any case, this is essentially the same recipe (but I use veg. stock instead of the chicken). That CopyKat site looks like the same thing… and apparently the Top Secret recipes aren’t so top secret after all!
In any case, this recipe continues to be a favorite of mine. I think that the charred corn tortillas that end up soaking in the soup before being pureed into the mix are part of what makes this a unique pot of soup. This is one of those recipes that I definitely will only use the high end frozen corn (or, in the summer fresh corn is delicious!). The corn, cumin, tomato, and slightly spicy kick from the jalapeno are the main flavors, and the consistency is sort of meal-y—but in a good way.
I actually only made a half recipe this afternoon as my week will be a bit off kilter with spring break for our students, so my eating may be off schedule too. In any case, I enjoyed a bowl of this for dinner, along with a really delicious peanut kale salad. Yum!
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