Prepare a homemade chicken stock (see recipe here) or used canned or carton. Set stock aside.

Use shredded chicken from your homemade chicken stock, or roast your own chicken, or buy a large rotisserie chicken and remove meat from the bones and shred. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and line a sheet tray with parchment paper.

Lay out 16 corn tortillas on your cutting board and slice into thin strips. Spread out on the sheet pan and coat with a drizzle of olive oil just too moisten.

Bake for 20 minutes, tossing every five minutes. If getting too brown, remove before the 20 minutes is up. Separate one quarter of the cooked tortillas as a garnish for serving. Set the remainder aside for later in this recipe.

In a 5-6 quart heavy bottomed soup pot or Dutch oven, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Once hot, add the onions, jalapeno, garlic, cumin, coriander, white pepper and gumbo filé powder if using.

Stir and saute for five minutes.

Add the stock, creamed corn, diced green chilies, the cooked tortilla strips from earlier and the corn meal (see note below on corn meal) and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook five minutes.

While soup is simmering, drain the canned tomatoes and discard the liquid.

After five minutes, use an immersion blender or table top blender and puree the soup until smooth. Check for thickness. If you want it thicker, add more cornmeal. If too thick, dilute with more stock or water. When adding corn meal, it needs five minutes of cooking to bloom and thicken the soup so don’t add too much at once.

Add the drained tomatoes and Worcestershire sauce then taste. Only add salt now if you think it needs it. It may or may not depending on how salty your chicken stock was.

Shred the chicken and add to the soup.

Serve immediately with any or all of the listed toppings including the cooked tortilla strips reserved from earlier.