Suam na mais is a Kapampangan corn soup: fresh white corn scraped straight off the cob, cooked with shrimp paste and a handful of greens until the broth turns thick and milky on its own. There is no cream in it and no flour – the body comes from the starch in the corn, which is why the variety of corn and the scraping of the cob matter more here than anything else in the recipe.
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Recipe
Suam na Mais
Ingredients
Method
- Begin by shucking the corn cobs, removing the husks and silks. Cut the stem ends with a sharp knife.
- In a large bowl, stand an ear of corn upright and, using a small knife, thinly cut the kernels from top to bottom. Rotate the corn after each section to access the next.
- Scrape the sides of the cobs in a small bowl using a spoon to extract any remaining pulp and milky juice.
- In a pot over medium heat, heat oil. Add onions and garlic, cooking until softened.
- Add shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until the color changes.
- Introduce shrimp paste and continue to cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Add the cut corn and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 to 3 minutes or until corn becomes translucent.
- Pour in water and bring it to a boil, skimming off any scum that floats to the top.
- Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 7 to 10 minutes or until the corn kernels are tender.
- Add the scraped corn pulp and juice, stirring to distribute. Simmer for an additional 3 to 5 minutes until the soup thickens.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Add spinach, pushing down the leaves into the broth. Turn off the heat, cover, and allow the residual heat to wilt the spinach. Serve hot and enjoy!
Step by step, in pictures
Six moves, from the cob to the last handful of greens.
Cut the kernels down off the cob.- Scrape the bare cob for the pulp and milk.
- Soften the onion and garlic.
- Add the shrimp, then the shrimp paste.
- Add water, boil, then simmer and skim.
- Push in the greens off the heat.
What kind of corn should you use?
Native white glutinous corn – mais lagkitan. It is the one ingredient worth going out of your way for, because its starch is what thickens the soup. Yellow sweetcorn tastes fine but stays watery, and you will end up thickening the pot some other way.
Outside the Philippines it turns up frozen in Asian supermarkets, usually labelled glutinous or waxy corn. Pepper.ph and Wikipedia both use the waxy-corn name for the same thing.
If all you can get is ordinary sweetcorn, the standard fix is a cornstarch slurry – one tablespoon of cornstarch slaked in a quarter cup of water, whisked into the simmering broth until it thickens. It gets you the consistency; it does not get you the flavour.
Why you scrape the cob
Because half the soup is still on it. Once the kernels are off, the cob is left coated in pulp and a milky juice, and that liquid is where most of the thickening starch sits. Scrape it down with the back of a spoon into a separate bowl and add it near the end, after the kernels have already softened.
Skip this step and you get a thin corn soup with kernels in it. Do it and the broth turns cloudy and slightly sweet without anything else being added.
What does “suam” mean?
It comes from Hokkien, and means roughly “to cook rice broth” – a trace of Chinese influence on Kapampangan cooking, recorded by Pepper.ph. There is no rice in this version, but the name stuck to the method: something simmered until the liquid thickens.
The dish itself is from Pampanga. Wikipedia lists it as ginisang mais in Tagalog and sinabawang mais in the Visayan languages, along with the spellings suam mais, sinuwam na mais and suwam na mais. It is eaten hot, and usually in the rainy season.
Shrimp paste, and what else can go in
The seasoning here is bagoong alamang, raw shrimp paste, rather than fish sauce. Kapampangan cooks name the shrimp paste, not fish sauce, as the traditional flavouring for this soup. It also does something fish sauce cannot: it is thicker, and it browns slightly when you fry it off before the liquid goes in.
The protein is flexible: this version uses shrimp, and pork or chicken are both common alternatives. So are the greens – spinach here, but malunggay (moringa), chilli leaves or Malabar spinach are all traditional, and Wikipedia names bitter melon leaves too. Whichever you use, they go in off the heat and wilt in the residual warmth.
More Filipino corn and vegetable dishes
Corn turns up more often in Filipino sweets than in savoury food. Ginataang mais is the corn and coconut rice pudding, and binaki is the steamed corn tamale. For another brothy vegetable soup there is law-uy or ginisang munggo, and for a soup built on coconut water rather than corn starch, binakol.
Suam na mais FAQ
What are the ingredients in suam na mais? Fresh white corn, onion, garlic, shrimp, shrimp paste, water and leafy greens, seasoned with salt and pepper. The full list with amounts is in the card above.
What is suam in Tagalog? Suam is not a Tagalog word – it comes from Hokkien and refers to cooking a broth until it thickens. In Tagalog the dish is called ginisang mais.
What kind of corn can you use for suam? Native white glutinous corn (mais lagkitan) for the proper texture. Sweetcorn works for flavour but will not thicken the broth on its own.
Can I make it with canned or frozen corn? Frozen glutinous corn on the cob is the closest substitute and is what Asian supermarkets stock. Canned kernels are the weakest option, because there is no cob left to scrape and the scraping is where the body of the soup comes from – expect to thicken it yourself.
Can I use pork or chicken instead of shrimp? Yes. Both are common in this soup. Brown the meat after the aromatics and give it long enough to cook through before the corn goes in.
