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
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.