Corn Soup with Rivels - Midwest Heritage Recipe

There is nothing like reading a vintage cookbook to give you a time and feel of a place. I inherited my grandma's first edition copy of Mennonite Community Cookbook and have found myself immersed in early 20th century recipes. To my thinking, this is about the perfect age for a cookbook because it is modern enough for me to mostly understand the terms and directions, but old enough that the cookbook hasn't embraced too many brand name products or convenience foods.

But behold...here is a convenience food of the early 1900s made with ingredients from the farm.

Rivels are made as a sort of 'shortcut' noodle - no rolling out or cutting required. It's easy to picture a farm wife, tired from a long day's work turning to a recipe like this to feed herself and her family quickly, and well. While most soups benefit from a longer simmer, this one is actually best served within a few minutes of the rivels getting done, which only takes about three minutes. When your kitchen is stocked with basic staples and you have a root cellar of vegetables that need a long braise, a recipe like this is a godsend when you need a quick meal. This is the simplest of dishes, made up of ingredients from the farm or easily acquired locally...corn, flour, an egg, a little milk, and some salt will give you a nourishing and hearty soup.

This soup would work well with additional veggies - carrots, onions, and celery all would fit - but you could quickly find yourself encroaching on its status as a convenience dish. Adding dried chives and herbs is a good way to get extra flavor and nutrition without much additional effort. If you've got a little extra time and some corncobs, you could make a quick stock by covering your cobs with water and cooking for no more than 30 minutes.

Corn Soup with Rivels

Adapted from Mennonite Community Cookbooks

4-6 corncobs*

2 quarts water

2 cups fresh or frozen sweet corn
1 tablespoon dried chives

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1 egg

1 cup milk

1-1/3 cups flour
Salt

Cover your corncobs with the water in a large pot, add half teaspoon or so of salt. Bring to a boil and simmer, for 10-30 minutes. Remove the cobs, then add the chives, herbs, and sweet corn. Bring to a gentle boil.

Mix together the egg, milk, flour, and a 1/4 tsp or so of salt. 

With the soup just barely boiling, slowly drizzle in the rivel batter off of a spoon. The colander method works well too, depending on the design of your colander. Slowly drizzle in the batter to get bite sized rivels. Cook gently for about 3 minutes. Rivels will be pasta like when finished. Add more salt if you like. Remove from heat and serve right away.

*I keep a couple of bags of corncobs in my freezer. When you're freezing sweetcorn or just cutting corn off the cob, stick the cobs in a large bag and freeze. They are a great addition to broths or soups throughout the winter! If it happens to be corn season when you're making this, use the same technique with fresh cobs.