Seafood Chowder & Pepper "Wine"

~   Menu   ~

Seafood Chowder without …

Hot and Potent Pepper Wine!

Croutons

A glass of Sauvignon Blanc

You know when you have a little 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. 

This 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, that we were making gallons of the stuff two or three times a day. 

Seafood Chowder

Useful Pinterest friendly image ~ give it a go!

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

fish stock or water

a collection of fish scraps

~   Gently sweat the onion, carrot and celery in the oil till softening and just starting to colour.

~   Add the potatoes and add just enough water or stock to cover. 

~   Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, cover and cook till the potatoes are tender.

~   Whilst 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 with a potato masher (grumpy or not!) so that they are almost smooth but a little chunkiness remains.

~   Taste and season and add milk or cream or a mixture to make a rich thick soup.

~   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 GENTLY.

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.

My Other Good Idea was to serve the chowder with a pretty glass bottle of “Pepper Wine” 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!

Soup Fritters!

This chowder featured in possibly the most bizarre thing I have ever cooked – soup fritters.  We had a very on/off function pending and, eventually, it was off,  Then suddenly one Sunday afternoon, half way through a busy brunch, I was told it was on again.  Eighty people were due in a couple of hours hoping for up-market nibbly bits.  I would have liked to panic but didn’t have the time. 

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What I did do was make fish cakes out of the remains of the seafood chowder.  I can’t remember how but if I had to do it today this is what I would do.  

Strain the chowder, reserving all lumps, and bring the juices to a boil.  Thicken quite substantially with a beurre manie (flour and butter munged together) and whisked in.  Cook a few minutes and cool a while.  Mix in reserved fish etc. and enough breadcrumbs to make a malleable consistency.  Taste and flavour up – lime zest and hot sauce spring to mind.  Spread onto a cooled shallow dish and chill to firm.  Roll into balls, flatten, coat in breadcrumbs (panko are great) and shallow fry to crisp and golden.   They were such a success people asked for the recipe but I was too embarrassed to tell them.

What to do with Leftover Soup!

~  Menu  ~

Spicy Roasted Tomato & Fresh Coriander Scrambled Eggs

Toasted Ciabatta

Red Wine

Homemade Cookies from a Friend

Coffee

We haven’t been food shopping for almost 2 weeks due to the aforementioned bout of ‘flu but I like to think I keep a tight ship, doncha know, so there’s been no problems.  

Today I was a bit lost for something to get me cheerful about lunch but a quick glance in the fridge helped tremendously.

A couple of nights ago I had roasted tomato and chilli soup but still being a little under the weather was so pathetic I left a little.  Really a little; less that 2 tbsp but I couldn’t throw it away.  For some reason, perhaps you are the same, if I throw something away immediately I feel guiltier than if I leave it in the fridge a few days and then throw it away! 

Lunch then was this modicum of soup heated up, 2 eggs broken in plus some chopped fresh coriander, scrambly, scrambly – toasted Ciabatta, red wine.   All’s well.

Handy Tip when making Scrambled Eggs

Incidentally a good tip for making extra delish scrambled egg (which I didn’t do today) is when the egg is just how you want it add a knob of butter or a splash of cream which not only enhances both taste and texture but also cools the eggs down so they don’t keep on cooking whilst you serve them. Scrambled eggs can be buggers that way.  I think that officially this idea is credited to Julia Child although I am sure lots of people must have realised the same thing independently.

See here for lots of information on cooking eggs.

If you click through to the Roasted Tomato Soup Recipe you will find another tasty way to use up soup remains.  Of course much depends on the flavour of your leftover soup but here are some other ideas:

~   add to more soup!

~   use to deglaze a pan to make a sauce
~   use as a sauce!
~   put a spoonful of warmed leftover soup into a buttered ramekin, crack over an egg, drizzle with a little more soup or some cream and bake at 350ºF/180ºC/160°C fan/gas 4 till the egg whites are set and the yolk just perfect: approx 20 mins.

~   add to casseroles and pasta bakes

~   mash into potato

~   stir into mayonnaise – see here for all sorts of ways to flavour mayonnaise 

~ fry it! …

Soup Fritters!

The most fabulously impressive thing I ever did with leftover soup was make fritters! For a several years (not all of them consecutive!!) I ran the kitchen of The Tamarind Club in Tortola and, as anyone who knows Tortola will understand, Sunday’s at the Tamarind Club are hugely busy and no time for mucking about. Well …

… we had a group of regulars who for several days had been verging on having a celebration, I can’t remember what. Suddenly just as we were serving the last brunch dishes and cleaning down they decided they needed a party with nibbles that very afternoon. So I added handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs to the last couple of portions of the Seafood Chowder, chilled it, balled it up and fried till crisp. People, as is typical of People I find, asked for the recipe. They only do this when it is almost impossible to give one.

Several of these ideas are included in The Leftovers Handbook. If these are just some of the suggestions I can think of for leftover soup don’t you wonder what ideas I have for the other 450 potential leftovers?

Here, apropos of nothing, is a picture of some lilies my Real Man brought home yesterday.  If you feel he can’t be that real-mannish buying flowers I would point out they were one helluva bargain!