New England Style Seafood Chowder

Cold nights = Hot soup. It is a no brainer. Now, I understand that most of you are in the northern hemisphere wondering what in the world I am talking about in the middle of July. Save this one for when winter rolls in, okay? It took me three tries before I finally got this recipe perfected so I have been eating a lot of seafood chowder lately. It is just so hearty on a cold winter night. I do try to get a bit of swim in every now and again to justify such excessive chowder consumption.

I know a lot of of you will turn your nose down upon my use of frozen seafood marinara mix here. It does work perfectly well in this recipe and makes it easy enough for a weeknight. For those of you that can't find seafood marinara mix, try any assorted seafood that you like - mussels, squid, shrimp, octopus - the world is your oyster! 

Yield - Serves 4
Prep Time - 20 Minutes
Cook Time - 40 Minutes

Ingredients

1 LB Seafood Marinara Mix
3 slices Canadian Bacon
1 small Onion, diced
1 Carrot, diced
3 large Potatoes
3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
Chicken Stock
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
1 Tablespoon Oil 
Salt, to taste

Method

First, the prep - Dice the onions and carrots. Cut the potatoes in a very small and even dice. Cut the bacon up in 1 to 3/4 inch bits. 

In the deep soup pot, heat some oil and cook the bacon. If the bacon you're using is very greasy, you may not need to add any oil. Remove any bacon fat if you need to. You're an adult. I'll let you make your own judgement on this.

Once the bacon is browned slightly, add in the diced onion and carrot. Cook till the onion starts to sweat. Add a bit of salt to help it along if you like.

Add the diced potatoes and thyme. Stir it all through for another minute or two. Take care to not burn the vegetables. That's just no good. 

Add the flour in. Stir it with the vegetables and keep cooking till the flour is 'cooked' so that it doesn't taste raw. Remove any lumps. About 3-4 minutes.

Add the chicken stock slowly while gently stirring the soup. Keep stirring to make sure that the flour is thoroughly combined and isn't lumpy.

Reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes. This is the longest step. The soup will start to thicken and the potatoes will soften.

Once you're happy with the thickness of the soup, add in the frozen seafood mix and stir it through. It doesn't take very long for this to cook and it turns rubbery super quick so once you add this in you have about 5 - 7 minutes to finish it all up. 

Add the cream.

(Note - I like the chowder quite thick so when I get to this stage and I think that it is still a little runny, I might add a tablespoon or so of instant mashed potatoes. Oh my god stop judging me - I don't do it every time! But you can take this information and do what you want with it!)
Enjoy!

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