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seafood chowder recipe served in a bread bowl
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📋Seafood Chowder Bread Bowl

This seafood chowder recipe is a reproduction of the chowder I discovered on my first trip to Ireland, creamy and packed with large chunks of seafood. Mussels, cod and salmon chowder to eat in a bread bowl or with a nice slice of Irish brown bread.
Course Soups & Stews
Cuisine Irish
Keyword chowder in bread, Irish chowder, seafood chowder
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 44 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 14 minutes
Servings 4 people
Calories 538kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

Prepare the mussels

  • In a frying pan, stir fry 1 sliced clove of garlic.
  • Put in the mussels and stir fry covered until they are all open.
  • Stir from time to times
  • Add 1 cup of white wine and let it simmer for 1 minute until it evaporates
  • When they are ready, remove the mussel but keep the water.
  • Strain the water through a paper cloth and let it rest so that any residual sand will fall at the bottom. The water from the mussels is naturally salted and will be used instead of salt to season the Chayote mousse.
  • Clean the mussels and put them aside.

Boil the potatoes

  • Peel and chop the potatoes and put them in a casserole
  • Add the milk, the cream and the bay leaf
  • Bring to boil, then simmer for 20 minutes

Preparing the seafood chowder

  • In another casserole stir fry with butter the chopped onion, carrots and celery stalks
  • Once the onion is translucent, add the bacon
  • Let the bacon crisp a little then pour in the casserole the boiled potatoes with the milk
  • Add 1 cup of the filtered mussels juices
  • Simmer for another 5 minutes
  • Add the chunks of cod and salmon, stir but make sure you don't break the chunks
  • Once the cod and the salmon are cooked add the mussels and stir
  • The chowder is ready to be served, taste and adjust for salt if necessary

Serving the chowder in a bread bowl

  • Cut the top of the bread loaf, and remove the inside leaving the crust
  • Fill in the bread with the chowder
  • Decorate with edible flowers Agastache

Video

Notes

  • Make sure the fish you buy is fresh
  • Use large chunks of cod and/or salmon
  • For shellfish you can use clams, razor clams or mussels, make sure they are fresh
  • Never overcook seafood, always add at the end
  • Add the juices of the shellfish but make sure it is filter and sand is removed
  • To make the chowder creamier boil the potatoes for 10 minutes longer

Tips for the mussels (or clams)

  • Mussels can be a dangerous source of seafood poisoning if not chosen correctly.
  • Buy them only at your trusted fishmonger and ask them to clean them
  • Try to avoid them during the hot season
  • Fresh mussels should be cooked alive, once dead they will be infected.
Here is how to make sure fresh mussels are alive:
      • Fresh mussels should always be closed and cannot be open no matter how hard you try
      • Discharge any open or broken mussels
      • Rinse them under running water one by one and throw away any open or broken mussels
      • If they are open but when you touch them they close and will not open if you try, they are fine to eat.
  • Fresh mussels are naturally salted, you do not need to add any salt
  • When cooking the mussels, keep the pan covered and turn them every once in a while to make sure they will all open
  • Once open the mussels are cooked
  • Do not overcook the mussels, 2 to 3 minutes are enough. If some mussels are still not open remove the opened one and cook only the closed ones.
  • Any mussels that remain closed even after cooking it should be discharged
  • Remove any broken open mussels after you have cooked them, but do not worry if you find some once you finished cooking them. The rest of the mussels will not be infected.

Tips for the bread bowl

  • For a bread bowl use sourdough or rustic bread
  • Make sure the bread has a crunchy thick crust so it can hold the food and will not get too soggy once you fill in with the chowder.
  • I would always prefer to serve it in a large bowl to avoid any possible spilling on the table.
  • Normally you can use the top of the bread to dip it into the soup, and that would be already quite filling.

Nutrition

Calories: 538kcal | Carbohydrates: 13g | Protein: 24g | Fat: 43g | Saturated Fat: 18g | Cholesterol: 127mg | Sodium: 541mg | Potassium: 740mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 5937IU | Vitamin C: 9mg | Calcium: 144mg | Iron: 3mg