Creamy Southern Seafood or Fish Chowder
- Ready In:
- 1hr 5mins
- Ingredients:
- 22
- Serves:
-
8-10
ingredients
- 2 large onions, diced fine
- 1 ham hocks or 3 slices bacon
- 1⁄2 cup wheat flour or 1/2 cup white flour
- 4 cups diced potatoes, diced small (I used white new potatoes, but peeled Russets or red potatoes will work)
- 1⁄2 cup butter (olive oil will work, though heat slowly with flour)
- 2 small carrots, diced small
- 8 ounces frozen corn
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 celery ribs, diced small
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3⁄4 lb tilapia fillet, cubed bite sized
- 1⁄2 lb shrimp, pealed and deveined
- 1⁄2 lb salmon fillet, skin and bones removed (use any combination of seafood you like, so that it adds up to about 2 lbs, clams and scallops would)
- 2 cups soymilk or 2 cups milk
- 1 cup vegetable stock (fish or chicken stock can be substituted)
- 1⁄2 cup heavy whipping cream (optional)
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1⁄2 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
- 1⁄2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
directions
- Cook ham hock, bacon or salt pork until some fat is rendered, and then remove meat. Salt pork is more traditionally New England, but I just wanted a little smokey pork fat in my dish so I went with the ham hock.
- Pour off as much fat as you like and add butter or olive oil.
- In large pot add stock, milk, ham hock, bay leaves, pepper, thyme, Old Bay, salt and diced potatoes and bring to a simmer. If using bacon or salt pork, you can wait to add until the end.
- Sprinkle flour over butter and mix until light yellow (blonde) in color and flour is lightly cooked.
- Add onions, carrots and celery to roux and cook down for about 15 minutes until onions have lost a lot of their water and carrots are soft. The mixture should be quite thick, and will need to be stirred frequently at medium high heat.
- Add garlic to onion mixture and cook for a few more minutes.
- Once potatoes are starting to soften, but are not yet done, add onion and carrot mixture and stir.
- Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat to medium to simmer. At this point of the mixture looks too thick you can add some more vegetable stock. I like to taste at this point to adjust salt etc. as well.
- Mix in corn and cook until corn is warmed.
- Add seafood mixture to pot and mix in lightly.
- Add cream and cheese and mix in until just smooth.
- At this point turn the pot to low or medium low, and as soon as the seafood is cooked it's ready to eat.
- This is definitely better the next day or after it's sat for a while, so you can leave it on a very low heat for a few hours or stick it in the fridge and reheat on the stove slowly the next day.
- You can remove the ham hock, or pull some of the meat off of it and add it inches.
- Serving it up with some crusty bread was perfect!
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
I'm a chemistry grad student with a passion for cooking in my spare time. I'm not vegetarian, but have been and love to explore ways to take typical recipes and make them vegetarian.