{"id":696,"date":"2014-10-07T15:11:43","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T20:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcandres.com\/?p=696"},"modified":"2015-11-06T14:56:48","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T20:56:48","slug":"my-very-own-fish-story-seafood-chowder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/?p=696","title":{"rendered":"My Very Own Fish Story: Seafood Chowder"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fthesoupblog.com%2F%3Fp%3D696&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=true&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;width=450&amp;height=30\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width: 450px; height: 30px;\"><\/iframe><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_697\" style=\"width: 320px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/bread-bowl-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-697\" class=\"wp-image-697\" title=\"bread bowl 2\" src=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/bread-bowl-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"310\" height=\"464\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/bread-bowl-2.jpg 171w, https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/bread-bowl-2-100x150.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 310px) 100vw, 310px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-697\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Soup That Got Away<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The soup this week is Seafood Chowder, but I\u2019m not exactly sure why.<\/p>\n<p>Clam chowder is a great soup and definitely belongs in the culinary canon but I don\u2019t have any particular emotional attachment to the stuff.\u00a0 My brother was the big chowder fan growing up, but outside of lunching on cans of Snow\u2019s every once in a while, the soup didn\u2019t make a big impact on the rest of us.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it\u2019s because clams weren\u2019t readily available for soup making.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s because soup making in my formative years consisted mainly of opening up cans of soup (see my <a href=\"..\/?p=216\">chicken soup<\/a>, I\u2019ve still got to do a straight tomato soup.)<\/p>\n<p>Seafood was definitely available.<\/p>\n<p>I have vivid memories of the fish market down at the Redondo Beach pier and lowering drop lines down into the water when I was still in single digits. Later my brothers and I would catch opaleye (perch) off the rocks below <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Surfin%27_USA_%28song%29\">Haggerty\u2019s mansion of <em>Surfin&#8217; USA<\/em><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Surfin%27_USA_%28song%29\"> fame<\/a>.\u00a0 We would also occasionally fish for bonito in King Harbor (a great fight even with our twenty pound test) and later still my brothers would go out in a friend\u2019s boat and catch the occasional halibut, including a thirty-two pounder that was lost to a freezer mishap.<\/p>\n<p>So we ate a fair amount of seafood.\u00a0 The Pacific was right there, after all.\u00a0 Our meals consisted mostly of steaks and fillets with the rare shellfish dish thrown in.\u00a0 I also have some vague recollection of my mom making <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicurious.com\/tools\/fooddictionary\/search?query=bouillabaisse&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;submit=submit\">bouillabaise <\/a>or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicurious.com\/tools\/fooddictionary\/search?query=paella&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;submit=submit\">paella <\/a>or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicurious.com\/tools\/fooddictionary\/search?query=jambalaya&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;submit=submit\">jambalaya <\/a>or something like that, but I wasn\u2019t a real seafood lover at the time, so it didn\u2019t make much of an impression.<\/p>\n<p>And again, no chowder, which means that my thoughts about the dish aren\u2019t really anchored down.\u00a0 I have feelings about corn chowder, but those are mostly through the lens of my mom\u2019s schoolgirl memories.\u00a0 For clam chowder?\u00a0 Nothing.<\/p>\n<p><em>Note: Before I continue, I want to make clear that I\u2019m talking about New England clam chowder here, not that nonsense they make in Manhattan.\u00a0 I\u2019m willing to admit that New York has a special gift for pizza and cheesecake, even massive loan fraud, but that red stuff they put clams into is not chowder.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not even <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicurious.com\/tools\/fooddictionary\/search?query=cioppino&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;submit=submit\"><em>cioppino<\/em><\/a><em>.\u00a0 Not to knock cioppino or anything, but you get the idea.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I guess it all comes down to a problem of supply.\u00a0 You can get clams outside of New England, but you have to special order them.\u00a0 They\u2019re not front and center in the fish section of the local market.\u00a0 I discovered that when I tried to make clam chowder earlier.\u00a0 My uncle had requested I make a chowder back in the spring, but he had to settle for corn.\u00a0 This time he\u2019ll have to settle for general seafood. (<em>Sorry Don!)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>My seafood chowder starts much like my corn chowder did, with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicurious.com\/tools\/fooddictionary\/search?query=bechamel&amp;submit.x=0&amp;submit.y=0&amp;submit=submit\">b\u00e9chamel <\/a>(see <a href=\"..\/?p=360\">Corn Mother<\/a>). Although instead of making the roux with butter, I use bacon fat.\u00a0 Then I add milk, half &amp; half, an onion, bay leaves (not a complete <a href=\"http:\/\/www.food-dictionary.com\/definition\/onion-cloute.html\">clout\u00e9<\/a>) and nutmeg.\u00a0 Once the sauce is done, I stir in sliced celery, diced potatoes and seafood (<em>I found a nice medley of frozen shrimp, scallops and calamari rings at Trader Joe\u2019s)<\/em>, simmer for a while, let it relax and it\u2019s done<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It turned out great although I should have heated it up a little more before service. Still everyone had nice things to say about it.\u00a0 Specifically, my wife loved it, one daughter liked it but didn\u2019t eat much of it and the other said it wasn\u2019t her favorite but she liked it.<\/p>\n<p>High praise indeed.<\/p>\n<p>One day I\u2019ll feature a real clam chowder on these pages, for now, though, I\u2019ve got bigger fish to fry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Seafood Chowder<br \/>\n<\/strong>(serves 6-8)<br \/>\n6 oz bacon<br \/>\n4 T flour<br \/>\n6 cups milk<br \/>\n2 cups half &amp; half<br \/>\n2 bay leaves<br \/>\n\u00bd onion<br \/>\npinch nutmeg<br \/>\nSalt &amp; pepper, to taste<br \/>\n8 oz celery, sliced<br \/>\n1 lb, potatoes, peeled &amp; diced<br \/>\n1 lb, assorted seafood pieces (fresh or frozen, you know what I used)<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Fry bacon in a 3 quart stock pot and set aside.<\/li>\n<li>Stir flour into the rendered bacon fat and cook over low heat for 5-7 to make a roux.<\/li>\n<li>Add the milk, half &amp; half, onion, bay leaves, nutmeg and seasonings and set it to simmer for 20-30 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Now that you\u2019ve made a b\u00e9chamel, it\u2019s time to turn it into chowder.\u00a0 Add celery, potatoes and seafood, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Let the soup cool for an hour or two before serving.\u00a0 This gives it a chance to really thicken up.\u00a0 Remember to remove the onion and bay leaves before service.<\/li>\n<li>Serve with crusty bread or, if you\u2019ve got it, inside a nice sourdough bread bowl.\u00a0 I never got to have soup in a bread bowl growing up and it sent me down this crazy road.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let that happen to you.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Image Credit: Empty Sourdough Bread Bowl, A still from the Clip Art files.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is my first entry into the long dormant seafood category.\u00a0 Let me know how it turned out.\u00a0 Actually, it might be better better if you sent photo documentation.\u00a0 Anyone can talk about fish chowder, it\u2019s not the same thing as doing it. \u00a0I\u2019ll be reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> responding, and would love to hear.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The soup this week is Seafood Chowder, but I\u2019m not exactly sure why. Clam chowder is a great soup and definitely belongs in the culinary canon but I don\u2019t have any particular emotional attachment to the stuff.\u00a0 My brother was the big chowder fan growing up, but outside of lunching on cans of Snow\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,6,10,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chowders","category-fish","category-pork","category-potatoes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2241,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesoupblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}