Shellfish Chowder With Fresh Thyme Food

THICK AND CREAMY SEAFOOD CHOWDER

Steps:

• Cook the vegetables: Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed, large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the celery and cook, stirring for 8-10 minutes. Add the potatoes. Add enough water to the pot to just cover the vegetables with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender but not too soft, about 10-15 minutes (depending on the size of the dice). Remove from heat.
• Poaching Liquid: In a second pot, heat the 4 cups of water with a bay leaf and the 1/4 onion until just before boiling. Maintain temperature just below boiling and add the sole and scallops. Cover and cook just until seafood is opaque and tender. Remove fish and and scallops to a bowl with a slotted spoon or strainer, reserving the poaching liquid for your stock. Discard the bay leaf and quartered onion.
• Soup: Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour, stirring to make a smooth paste. Cook for about 1 minute. Gradually whisk in the reserved poaching liquid until you have a smooth mixture. Cook until it begins to thicken. Return the pot with the potatoes to medium heat. Slowly add the the butter/flour/poaching liquid mixture to the pot with the potatoes. Add the fish and scallops. Continue cooking and stirring until chowder thickens. Add the cream and stir until heated through, but do not boil. Season with a pinch of nutmeg and a generous amount of salt and black pepper, to taste.

SEAFOOD CHOWDER

Steps:

• Cut the shrimp, scallops, and monkfish into bite-sized pieces and place them in a bowl with the crabmeat.
• In a heavy-bottomed pot, melt the butter; add the carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, and corn and saute over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are barely cooked, stirring occasionally. Add the flour; reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Add the Seafood Stock and bring to a boil. Add the seafood; reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 7 to 10 minutes, until the fish is just cooked. Add the heavy cream, if desired, and the parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
• Warm the oil in a stockpot over medium heat. Add the shrimp shells, onions, carrots, and celery and saute for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook 2 more minutes. Add 1 1/2 quarts of water, the white wine, tomato paste, salt, pepper, and thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour. Strain through a sieve, pressing the solids. You should have approximately 1 quart of stock. You can make up the difference with water or wine if you need to.

SEAFOOD CHOWDER WITH BACON AND THYME

Steps:

• In a large pot, bring about 5 cups of water to a boil, add the potatoes, and simmer until potatoes are cooked through but firm, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain potatoes over a large bowl, reserving cooking liquid. (If making chowder ahead of time, let potatoes cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until ready to serve soup.)
• Meanwhile, in a large 5-quart pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add bacon, stirring occasionally, until fat is rendered and bacon begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Add celery, leeks, and garlic, and cook until vegetables are translucent, about 6 minutes. Stir in reserved potato cooking liquid, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and thyme. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn down the heat, cover, and simmer until liquid is opaque and flavorful, about 30 minutes.
• When ready to serve, bring soup base to a boil over medium-high heat. Add cooked potatoes, reduce heat to medium, and simmer. When potatoes are heated through, gently add the fish and the clams, nestling them in the broth. Cover the pot and simmer until clams open and fish is opaque and cooked through, 7 to 9 minutes. Add cream and pepper and bring to a simmer again. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish chowder with parsley and serve with crusty bread.

SEAFOOD CHOWDER

Steps:

• In a large stockpot over medium heat, cook the bacon until browned. Add the butter and onions, and cook for 10 minutes. Add the flour and stir until well combined. Add 2 to 3 cups broth. Then add the potatoes, thyme, pepper, and salt and bring to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are almost fork tender, about 10 minutes. Add the clams, haddock, shrimp, scallops, and oysters and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the half-and-half and heat through (do not bring to a boil or the chowder will curdle). When finished add parsley and serve.

SHELLFISH CHOWDER WITH FRESH THYME

Steps:

• Drain clams, reserving juices. Sauté salt pork in heavy large pot over medium heat until golden, about 7 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer pork to paper towels. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons fat from pot. Add onion to pot; sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add flour; stir 1 minute. Gradually mix in water and clam juices. Bring to boil, stirring often. Add potatoes, thyme and bay leaf. Reduce heat; cover pot and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Discard bay leaf. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill chowder, clams and salt pork separately. Bring chowder to simmer before continuing.)
• Add milk to chowder and bring to simmer, stirring occasionally. Add scallops and reserved clams and simmer until scallops are opaque, about 2 minutes. Season with white pepper and salt. Ladle chowder into bowls. Garnish with salt pork.

DANIELLE'S SEAFOOD CHOWDER

Steps:

• Melt butter with olive oil in a large pot over medium-low heat; stir in onion and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Whisk flour into butter mixture; whisk in half-and-half and juice from drained clams.
• Stir Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese into onion mixture until melted, about 2 minutes; stir in potatoes, cream-style corn, corn kernels, and cherry tomatoes. If soup is very thick, stir in water, about 1/2 cup at a time, as desired; bring soup to a simmer and cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Season with sea salt and pepper.
• Stir drained clams, haddock, and shrimp into soup; simmer until haddock and shrimp are fully cooked for 5 minutes. Stir in lobster and its juice; cook just until heated through.

FRESH CLAM CHOWDER

Steps:

• NOTE: Chowder Clams: 1 dozen, Cherrystones: 2 dozen, Littlenecks: 3 dozen.
• Rinse and scrub clams well.
• Soak clams in a large bowl of water with 1/4 Celsius salt and cornmeal. This helps to remove the sand from the clams.
• Combine water, onion, garlic, celery tops, bay leaf and a sprig of thyme & parsley in a soup pot. Cover and bring to a boil.
• Add clams and cover again. Bring to a boil and let cook 10-15 minutes manipulating the clams every few minutes to ensure they all get hit with the heat so they can open. As soon as there are clams that are open wide, remove them with thongs allowing any unopened ones to remain over the heat. Discard any clams that do not open as they are not safe to eat.
• Once all clams have been removed, set aside and let them cool enough to be handled.
• While the clams are cooling, strain the broth removing all sediments and set the broth aside in a separate bowl.
• In the soup pot that you used to make the broth, melt the butter over medium-high heat.
• Add potato, celery and carrot plus a pinch of salt and pepper.
• Saute for about 7 minutes and add the wine. Once wine is absorbed, add broth back into the pot. Add 1/2 T. fresh thyme, cover and bring to a boil. Let cook until potatoes are tender, about 10-15 minutes. While this is boiling, mince the cooled clams that have been removed from the shell.
• When the potatoes are done turn the heat to low-medium, add clams and cream. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt and fresh pepper to taste.
• Garnish with chopped, fresh parsley and oyster crackers if desired.

CLAM CHOWDER

Steps:

• Rinse the clams in several changes of cold water and drain well. Tip the clams into a large pan with 500ml of water. Cover, bring to the boil and simmer for 2 mins until the clams have just opened. Tip the contents of the pan into a colander over a bowl to catch the clam stock. When cool enough to handle, remove the clams from their shells - reserving a handful of empty shells for presentation if you want. Strain the clam stock into a jug, leaving any grit in the bottom of the bowl. You should have around 800ml stock.
• Heat the butter in the same pan and sizzle the bacon for 3-4 mins until it starts to brown. Stir in the onion, thyme and bay and cook everything gently for 10 mins until the onion is soft and golden. Scatter over the flour and stir in to make a sandy paste, cook for 2 mins more, then gradually stir in the clam stock then the milk and the cream.
• Throw in the potatoes, bring everything to a simmer and leave to bubble away gently for 10 mins or until the potatoes are cooked. Use a fork to crush a few of the potato chunks against the side of the pan to help thicken - you still want lots of defined chunks though. Stir through the clam meat and the few clam shells, if you've gone down that route, and simmer for a minute to reheat. Season with plenty of black pepper and a little salt, if needed, then stir through the parsley just before ladling into bowls or hollowed-out crusty rolls.

SEAFOOD CHOWDER

Steps:

• Melt butter in 3-quart saucepan over low heat.
• Saute' celery and onion until tender.
• Add cayenne pepper, thyme, marjoram and flour or baking mix and stir until smooth.
• Add milk and condensed soup and stir until piping hot.
• Meanwhile clean and chop seafood as you like.
• I usually halve the shrimp and then cut one half in half and leave the other half whole.
• If using extra large scallops I usually quarter them.
• When soup is piping hot add seafood and stir on medium heat until seafood is cooked through.
• Serve in bowls topped with some fresh parsley along with some crusty bread or oyster crackers and a nice salad.