Instructions: Melt the butter and fry the onion and garlic, without browning, until soft.

Blend tomatillos until smooth. Add to the onion/garlic and fry over a high flame for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Put the corn into a blender/food processor (in batches if necessary) with 1-2 C. broth and the peas, coriander, chiles, and lettuce, and blend until quite smooth. Add to onion/garlic/tomatillo and cook over fairly high heat for about 3 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan constantly, since the mixture tends to stick.

Add the remaining broth and the salt, and cook the soup over low heat until it thickens and is well seasoned - about 20 minutes.

Serve in soup bowls garnished with a large spoonful of sour cream and a sprinkling of tortilla pieces for each serving.

Makes 6 servings.

[In honor of the occasion, I added 2 serrano chiles last Saturday just so there would be at least a detectable pungency in the final result, but I normally make it just as specified in the recipe above. Clearly this isnt a soup based primarily on chiles. Also, of course, I didnt bring the crispy tortilla garnish (sorry, folks, but then we usually dont add this, either) or sour cream (which we never add, tasty though it might be).]

We usually eat this soup with garlic cheese (jack cheese) bread - it seems to complement well.

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