Seafood Chowder plus a Wonderful Way to make it even better!
In this post ...
You know when you have a little of this or that leftover and it’s ‘not worth keeping’? Well it is, so there!
I keep several collecting boxes in my freezer; bread scraps, meat scraps and fish scraps, for instance. This last collection came delightfully into play today when I made myself some Seafood Chowder.
Seafood Chowder was a good idea I had when I was cooking at the Tamarind Club in Tortola. In theory it was a cunning plan to use up all the fishy scraps we had left over after preparing whole fish for other dishes. Sadly it became so popular, especially after I had My Other Good Idea, (see below) that we were making gallons of the stuff two or three times a day.
Creamy Seafood Chowder
2 medium onions – coarsely chopped
2 carrots – coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks – coarsely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil.
3 medium potatoes – peeled and thinly sliced
light stock or water
a collection of fish scraps
milk or cream
~ In a large soup pan cook the vegetables in oil stirring frequently till starting to turn golden.
~ Add the sliced potatoes and enough stock to just cover.
~ Bring to the boil, cover, turn down the heat and simmer till the potatoes are tender.
~ While this is cooking prepare your fishy scraps. As I say this was originally a use up recipe and we had, to my mind, three categories of fish to use up: 1) raw fish, 2) raw shellfish, 3) cooked fish and shellfish. So, whatever you have of these categories, cut into similar sized pieces but keep separately in their groups.
~ When the potato is tender mash till almost smooth but a little chunkiness remains.
~ Add more stock plus milk or cream to make a rich, thick soup.
~ Taste and season.
~ Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and add the raw fish scraps.
~ Return to only just boiling, add the raw shellfish, return to only just boiling one more time and add cooked fish and shellfish.
~ Immediately turn off heat and allow the chowder to sit a few minutes to allow the last addition to heat through.
If using later REHEAT VERY GENTLY.
My Other Good Idea was to serve the chowder with a pretty glass bottle of “Pepper Wine” (which, oddly, has no pepper or wine in it!) for drizzling purposes. In this case, as is often the way in the Caribbean, pepper means chilli and wine means rum. A little really contrasts with and enhances the creaminess of the soup.
Caribbean Pepper “Wine”
Just bung some dried chillies or even pepper flakes in a bottle of rum and wait a few weeks.
After this went on the menu there was no going back!
This is such a brilliant method for making soup that I have written an entire soup cookbook, containing 60+ delicious soup recipes based on one easy flexible key recipe together with instructions for stock making, guidance on adding herbs, spices and other flavourings plus additional recipes for roasted garlic, pepper coulis, frazzled leeks, compound butters and other garnishes and accoutrements.
See here for what to do with leftover soup, particularly Seafood Chowder.
Suzy Bowler
Having been a somewhat itinerant chef for over 30 years I was amazed, on my return to the UK, at the blatant food waste that now seems to be rife in the country; amazed and irritated. So much so that I decided to start a blog about spontaneous cooking from leftovers to show people that there are great alternatives to throwing food away.
