wherein Liz makes scallop chowder
I did not get around to making the scallop chowder yesterday -- I caught up on some lost sleep instead -- but I tackled the project tonight.
I kind of mashed five recipes together and made vague gestures in the direction of measurements, so I don't know how usefully I can reproduce my process. It went kind of like this:
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Liz's Half-Assed Scallop Chowder
1. Chop 1-2 onions (depending on size) and some celery. Sauté in butter along with some minced garlic and bacon bits.
2. When that mix gets clear-ish and soft (5-10 minutes), dump the results into a pot along with 1 to 1.5 lb of cubed potatoes (unpeeled because vitamins!), a bunch of seafood stock [or clam juice and chicken stock, apparently? I have no idea where one acquires clam juice], some white wine, ~1 tsp salt, ~1 tsp black pepper, and some chili/cayenne pepper to taste.
3. Bring all that mess to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are cooked -- minimum of 20 minutes, probably. Add flour if it looks too goopy. If you have some pre-made mashed potatoes, you can also dump those in as a thickener!
4. While the potatoes are cooking, rinse and drain 1 to 1.5 lb scallops and sauté in butter, sprinkling with some flour as you go to absorb excess moisture. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
5. When the scallops and potatoes are both ready, pour ~1 pint half & half into the soup and stir until creamy. [This should probably be more like 3 cups of half & half, or maybe use heavy cream instead.]
6. Chuck the scallops into the soup and cook until flavors meld. Sprinkle/sift in flour as necessary to thicken.
7. Serve and/or package for later.
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Somehow, despite simmering them for well over half an hour, my potatoes did not cook all the way through. :(
Also I think I needed more half and half -- I got the broth to thicken tolerably well, but it's less creamy than would be ideal. :((
This took for-freaking-ever to cook, but I now have five tupperware containers of about 1.5-2 servings each chilling in my fridge, in addition to the bowl I ate for a very belated dinner, so it produced a good amount of soup. :)
Tangentially, I discovered I do not have a large enough pot to cook a standard batch of soup. So I had to split between two saucepans, which was... um... an interesting experiment in slight variations on the same recipe, I guess?
But hey, it's a pretty tasty soup, and it definitely has more vegetables (onion and celery) than are in a lot of commercial chowders, so all in all I will count this a success. :D If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
I kind of mashed five recipes together and made vague gestures in the direction of measurements, so I don't know how usefully I can reproduce my process. It went kind of like this:
---------------
Liz's Half-Assed Scallop Chowder
1. Chop 1-2 onions (depending on size) and some celery. Sauté in butter along with some minced garlic and bacon bits.
2. When that mix gets clear-ish and soft (5-10 minutes), dump the results into a pot along with 1 to 1.5 lb of cubed potatoes (unpeeled because vitamins!), a bunch of seafood stock [or clam juice and chicken stock, apparently? I have no idea where one acquires clam juice], some white wine, ~1 tsp salt, ~1 tsp black pepper, and some chili/cayenne pepper to taste.
3. Bring all that mess to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are cooked -- minimum of 20 minutes, probably. Add flour if it looks too goopy. If you have some pre-made mashed potatoes, you can also dump those in as a thickener!
4. While the potatoes are cooking, rinse and drain 1 to 1.5 lb scallops and sauté in butter, sprinkling with some flour as you go to absorb excess moisture. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
5. When the scallops and potatoes are both ready, pour ~1 pint half & half into the soup and stir until creamy. [This should probably be more like 3 cups of half & half, or maybe use heavy cream instead.]
6. Chuck the scallops into the soup and cook until flavors meld. Sprinkle/sift in flour as necessary to thicken.
7. Serve and/or package for later.
---------------
Somehow, despite simmering them for well over half an hour, my potatoes did not cook all the way through. :(
Also I think I needed more half and half -- I got the broth to thicken tolerably well, but it's less creamy than would be ideal. :((
This took for-freaking-ever to cook, but I now have five tupperware containers of about 1.5-2 servings each chilling in my fridge, in addition to the bowl I ate for a very belated dinner, so it produced a good amount of soup. :)
Tangentially, I discovered I do not have a large enough pot to cook a standard batch of soup. So I had to split between two saucepans, which was... um... an interesting experiment in slight variations on the same recipe, I guess?
But hey, it's a pretty tasty soup, and it definitely has more vegetables (onion and celery) than are in a lot of commercial chowders, so all in all I will count this a success. :D If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)