NEW ENGLAND SEAFOOD CHOWDER

This recipe is a favourite of one of our chef’s. It also has a couple of twists along the way, but on the whole it's a traditional New England seafood chowder.

SERVES 6

Like most recipes you find, particularly for classic dishes, the recipes will differ along the way, depending on where you look, this recipe is no different, but basically New England chowder is a chunky, creamy soup full of seafood and potatoes. You can make it with all clams to become a clam chowder but most will use a mixture of seafood like I’m doing today.

In my top tip below I’ll show you how to make a fantastic accompaniment for your chowder, another real taste of America. I’ll show you how to make fantastic corn bread which when served warm with butter makes the most amazing garnish for a bowl of New England seafood chowder.

  • 1 potato peeled and diced
  • 300g un-dyed smoked haddock fillets
  • 1 shallot halved
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 6 rashers bacon chopped
  • 1 onion finely chopped
  • 900ml full-fat milk
  • 40g unsalted butter
  • 1 onion chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves finely chopped
  • 200g sweetcorn kernels
  • 6 scallops sliced
  • 24 cooked mussels
  • 250g White fish (haddock, cod, hake, Pollack etc.) diced
  • 200g raw king prawns
  • 1 tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • Freshly ground black pepper

 

Place the smoked haddock in a pan with the bay leaf and shallot and cover with the milk. Bring to a simmer for a few minutes, then take off the heat and leave in the milk to finish cooking.

In a large pan, gently fry the onions, thyme and bacon in the butter until softened. Stir in the garlic, potato and sweetcorn.

Lift the haddock out of the milk with a slotted spoon, place on a plate then tear into pieces. Strain the milk through a sieve into the onion, bacon and potato mixture and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Add the cooked haddock, sliced scallops, mussels, white fish and the prawns and warm through for a few minutes then stir in the parsley and season with black pepper.

 

TOP TIP

The perfect accompaniment for this chowder is some corn bread served warm from the oven and slathered in butter. To make this is really easy!! Mix together the following ingredients in a large bowl, 375g plain flour, 225g cornmeal, 1 tsp salt, 4 tsp baking powder, 110g sugar, 480ml blue milk, 2 free-range eggs, 110g melted butter and a small tin of sweetcorn. Now butter a baking tray or dish and pour the mixture in, bake at 199c for about 20-25 minutes then remove, allow to cool slightly and cut in to large chunks before buttering and serving with the soup. Delicious!
Michael Kilkie, UK NPD Chef

SMOKED HADDOCK AND BLACK PUDDING

Scotland's is often said to have the world’s finest larder, and it's actually pretty hard to disagree.
The fantastic thing about good quality produce is that you don't need to do too much to it, you can let the ingredients speak for themselves, so that's what we’ve done with this recipe but you don’t have to be from or based in Scotland to enjoy it!

VIEW RECIPE

MELTING MIDDLE FISHCAKE

Something that has made an appearance in all the major supermarkets over the last year or 2 is fishcakes, but not your run of the mill fishcakes, fishcakes with a soft, melting centre. Our guess is that the first person to come up with them and take them to the supermarkets, got the idea from a chocolate fondant. This fishcake is almost like a savory version of a chocolate fondant, where the fondant has warm chocolate sauce in the centre surrounded by chocolate sponge, our fishcake has gooey, melting cheese middle surrounded by a delicious mix of fish and potato.

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LOBSTER MAC ‘N’ CHEESE

Macaroni cheese is possibly the ultimate comfort food, and this dish is no exception to that rule but with a little bit of a twist by adding lobster.

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