Recipe development in action : Smoked Haddock Chowder

It had been some months since I last cooked my Smoked Haddock Chowder.  Now I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'd forgotten how to do it, but I definitely needed to have a look at the recipe on Rhubarb & Ginger here.

A quick squizz down the recipe reminded me of how it went, what the ingredients were and I was away.  Or so I thought.

It is amazing how, when you've been cooking something for long enough that you don't need the recipe to follow, how you can often develop that recipe just because you're not restricted by following the steps!

I suddenly found myself creating what was the same soup, but in a significantly quicker and less involved way - and without the butter!  All of which resulted in a slightly healthier, delicious end product with no adverse effects from the new method.

I also left out the frozen peas, as I felt that they added a certain amount of unwanted water to the mix.

So, in order that I don't forget what I did (which is always possible) and to pass on to you this new, quicker, way of creating what has become a family favourite - here's how it goes!

January 2019 and here's the latest incarnation of this recipe.  Yum.

SMOKED HADDOCK CHOWDER  (serves 4)

Ingredients :

a small glug of rapeseed oil
3 rashers of streaky bacon, fat removed as much as possible and chopped finely
1 onion, finely chopped
1 medium potato, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
1 leek, quartered, then sliced finely
2 pints full cream milk
200ml fish stock (I used Essential Cuisine fish stock powder, mixed with hot water)
a generous pinch of cayenne pepper
freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 tbsp plain flour
140g tin of sweetcorn
500g smoked haddock fillets, skin removed and cut into large chunks
sea salt to taste
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley.

Method :

In a large, deep saucepan, gently heat the rapeseed oil and add the bacon pieces.  Fry until the bacon is cooked through, but not crispy.

Add the onion and potato and continue to fry until the onion is transparent and the potato is beginning to take on colour.

Add the leeks and continue to cook until softened.

Place the flour into a small bowl and wet it down with as little of the milk as it takes to achieve a wet, lump-free paste.

To the pan, add the stock, cover the pan and bring to a lively simmer.  Cook on until the potato is cooked through and the leek is tender.  Add almost all the remainder of the milk (leave around 2-300ml), the cayenne and black peppers plus the sweetcorn.  Before heating through, add the flour paste and stir through.

Increase the heat under the pan and, continuing to stir, heat until the soup has thickened significantly and is simmering nicely.  You can add a little more milk as the soup thickens, if you feel it is required.  You can't leave the soup from this stage, without removing it from the heat, or you'll find it stick and burn at the bottom of the pan.  So watch it like a hawk and stir, stir, stir!

Once the soup is the consistency you want, taste for seasoning (remembering that the fish will add salt) and adjust if necessary.

Stir through one tablespoonful of the chopped parsley and add the chunks of fish.  Reduce the heat to a minimum.  From henceforth in, stir very gently, so as not to break the fish too badly.  Allow to cook for another 3-4 minutes and test your fish chunks.  Once they fall apart and are done, you are ready to serve.

Sprinkle each bowlful with a little of the remaining parsley and serve with warm crusty buttered rolls.

Printable version

Back in the comfort zone - this week's menu plan

For all that I'm always very glad to get into salad weather, I will admit to finding it difficult to ring sufficient changes where salad is concerned.  We do tend to get pretty darned bored with it.  I've tried warm salads, fruity salads, green salads, mayonnaise salads (such as pasta or potato), but it seems as though when the weather starts to take a turn for the autumnal I breathe a sigh of relief as I start thinking casserole and stew.

Autumn always has been my favourite time of year.  When I still had the horses, I loved those mornings when the sun came up across the dew-laden field and the horses, still bare-backed and rugless but just starting to grow their thick winter coat, would leave trails as they brushed through the grass on their way in to breakfast.  The spiders webs would be jewelled with dew and everything smelled freshly washed.  Such a relief from the baked and parched dustiness of the mid-summer field.

Just this morning, son & heir commented on a spider's web that we passed on the way to school.  On any other morning you would never notice it, but the sun had caught its threads and turned them silver and there it was, in all its complex and fragile beauty.

Sounds a bit like me, "complex and fragile" - especially in the morning.

So Autumn is ordinarily a time of bounty.  A time when the plants and trees are putting out their best seeds and fruits.  However, I wonder how much damage has been done by the weird summer we had, as I've already noticed a Blue Tit checking out our seed feeder on several occasions.  I'd have thought that, ordinarily, there'd be plenty of natural feed for the likes of him - but perhaps not, if he's already looking to augment his diet.  Perhaps a hint of food shortages to come for all of us!

Anyway, for this week's menus, I've taken a large step away from the salads and into more robust - but hopefully still fairly healthy (on the whole) - foods.  Here's what's on the list :

Tues : Smoked Haddock Chowder and crusty rolls

Weds : Chipotle meatballs in tomato sauce, with pasta

Thurs : Steak pie with broccoli, parsnips & carrots

Fri : Pulled pork rolls with BBQ sauce and curly fries

Sat : Minced Beef Wellington with savoy cabbage, turnip and carrots

Sun : Slow cooker beef cobbler, with roast parsnips, broad beans, savoy cabbage and celeriac

Mon : Sausage casserole, with mashed potato and peas.

I doubt that there's anything on that list that would stop the culinary world in its tracks (is there ever?), but its all food that we'll enjoy eating and I have no doubts about.

Tonight's Smoked Haddock Chowder is a family favourite that we haven't had since the winter.  I've refined the recipe a little over the years, to make it suitable for hubby's dislike of potato (I used Canellini beans instead) and dislike of thin soups (I make sure it is considerably thicker than most Chowders appear to be, from their pictures).  The soup is now a perfect candidate for a main course soup, as by the time you've eaten an entire bowlful you definitely are warm from the inside out - and certainly aren't hungry any more!

Tomorrow's Chipotle meatballs and pasta are an opportunity to use some of the Sainsbury's Speciality Ingredients' chipotle paste.  Son & heir loves his meatballs in tomato sauce and we haven't had those for ages, so he'll be happy and I'll get to try out the chipotle paste.  Seems like a done deal, to me!

Me, by the time I get home  :)

Thursday's Steak Pie will be a shop-bought pie, as there is every possibility that we'll be taking a drive to Southampton to visit the Apple Store there (think computers, not fruit).  We'll need something that doesn't involve lots of cooking processes after that sort of drive.  It's not a difficult drive, but I certainly know I've done it by the end of it!

I'm looking forward to Friday's Pulled pork rolls, as I've seen so many recipes go by for pulled pork and they have - to a man - made my mouth water.  I just need to find a roll that is robust enough to cope with the pork without dissolving.  I'll be serving them with some of Mic's Chilli's El Loco BBQ sauce and have a yen for some apple sauce, too.  Of course there'll be curly fries served alongside, it just wouldn't be right without them!

Om nom nom!  No wonder we like it!

There's another blast from the past scheduled for Saturday - Jamie Oliver's Minced Beef Wellington.  I've made this on a couple of occasions and it always went down very well with the family throng.  It's a good hearty meal that contains lots of "hidden" veggies - not to mention the veggies that I'll be serving alongside - and is a good excuse for some more gravy made with Knorr's extra beefy stock pots.

There's another excuse for rich beefy gravy on Sunday, too!  Yay!  I remembered a recipe that I'd seen in Clarissa Dickson-Wright's "Potty" (a cook book of one-pot dishes) for a Beef Cobbler made with ale and walnuts.  I'll be cooking the beef in the slow cooker, only adding the cobbler scones for the last couple of hours - so it should be absolutely gorgeous.  We'll have roast parsnips, savoy cabbage and celeriac with it - and some broad beans if I think it needs them.  The cobbler will have lovely slow cooked carrots in it, so it's very definitely a good autumnal warmer.

Next one up on the schedule is a good old Sausage casserole, which is just perfect for soaking up all the little bits of leftover vegetables and clearing your fridge out.  Being on Monday, if we're a bit light on bits of leftover vegetables, a quick stop at the supermarket will soon furnish us with a few to bolster the numbers.  I don't think that there is a definitive "Sausage Casserole" recipe, it seems to me to be a "brown the sausages, cook onion, add in chunks of whatever you like, add gravy, cook in oven until tender" job.  Add to the plate some lovely fluffy white mashed potato and a few peas and the job's done.  Perfect!

I should open a "British Comfort Food" restaurant.  I bet it'd do well as there has to be more than just me out there who loves this type of food!

Now, a couple of little points of interest for you - or I hope they'll be points of interest for you!  Firstly, Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger has just passed its second birthday!  It happened on the 22nd August, while I was busy thinking about other things.  So happy belated birthday, blog - here's to many more!

Secondly, another bit of good news is that I looked on the Alldishes rankings this morning, to see whether things had improved since getting back in the blogging saddle after my illness - and we're up to number 10!  Yay!  So thank you all for sticking with me while I was being extremely slow in updating - here's to next year, when hopefully I won't be struck down by some nasty August virus!

What was on the menu list last week!

I'm really not quite sure what happened to last week, in terms of being able to blog about what was on the menu list, anyway.  I seemed to perpetually be one or two days behind what was happening - but then, this is what happens when real life takes up time you could have spent writing about that real life.

Last week's menu was an odd collection - and this week's is turning out that way, too.  However before we turn our attention to what's going to happen, perhaps we could have a little look at what has happened!

I began last week with the lovely, lovely Smoked Haddock Chowder, with crusty bread.  Well, ordinarily it's lovely lovely.  This one wasn't bad - but it wasn't unctuous and glorious like it should have been.  I have found that, amazingly, if the cook isn't feeling 100% then - very often - the food won't turn out to be 100%.  No matter how hard you try.  Still, everyone ate it all up and maybe it wasn't as bad as I imagined.  Maybe!

A slightly less rich colouring - but very moreish nonetheless

Wednesday was the inaugural trot-out of a Lamb Pilaff originally blogged by Twitter pal @thegrubworm.  I was instantly intrigued by his recipe, as it included just about everything I like to eat - and in a seemingly authentic style.

As is always my way, I made a few changes to his recipe as - and most crucially - I discovered I didn't have any saffron at the last minute.  However, it was too late to change horses mid-course, so I just did my best with it.  I'd also added a leek to the meat mixture to increase the veggie quota and instead of using cubed lamb shoulder, I'd opted for the cheaper lamb mince.

Well, I can only imagine how the embellished saffron-infused version must taste, as the non-saffron version tasted jolly flipping good!  I won't blog the recipe, as you can go to his blog and pick it up from there, simply by clicking on this. 

Thursday had to be an easy dinner, as I'd been back to work after a few days holiday and anticipated that I wouldn't really be feeling like cooking.  Amazingly, we'd again run out of an integral ingredient for Devilled Sausages, sweet potato wedges and baked beans.  This one was down to bad luck, however, as we'd managed to pick up a jar of peanut butter which some disgusting oik had poked a finger into, then re-sealed.  Yuck.  Devilled sausages just aren't right without peanut butter included in the devilling (I'll blog the recipe the next time we have them and you'll see I'm right).


So, I freestyled a dish of oriental glazed sausages (soy sauce, oyster sauce, marmalade and chilli) together with sesame & orange sweet potato wedges - all with the poor old baked beans.  However, I have to report that orange zest goes oddly well with baked beans.  Who knew?

Good Friday brought about a return to a more structured approach to a meal, in the shape of Spirali al Forno, which utilised four cheeses.  Goodness, but this one was good - so much so, it warrants a blog post all of its own - so look out for it!


Easter was upon us by now - and Saturday involved lots of cleaning, organising and preparation for my parents' visit for lunch on Easter Sunday.  I took the easy way out - and we had pizza.  You can't knock it, when you're busy doing other things!

Easter Sunday, as I told you in the quick post to let you know I hadn't run away, was a lovely day with a lovely meal.  The Ottolenghi Fennel & Cherry Tomato Gratin I have blogged already, but I shall definitely blog the recipe for the Boulangere Potatoes, as it was one of the better ones I've tried.

I've also written a blog post for the Bournemouth Echo which deals with the day in detail, so I won't duplicate too much here.  Once the post is up on the Echo pages, I'll post it here so that we can all catch up.

One thing I didn't blog is our dessert on the day.  Hubby had requested we have some kind of creme brulee.  During discussions, he suggested that it would be possible, to save time and effort, to use pre-prepared custard and simply brulee the top.  Bearing in mind that Ruby, our rhubarb, had been growing fit to bust ever since it had stopped snowing - the concept of Rhubarb & Custard Brulee was born.


The execution of said concept didn't quite come off - although the desserts were very nice and the tops did brulee in the centre.  The custard proved too heavy for the rhubarb layer in the base of the ramekin and forced the rhubarb juice up between the side of the ramekin and the custard.  Consequently, when I sprinkled the sugar on and blowtorched it, a percentage of the sugar melted instantly and disappeared without trace.  However, the crunchy brulee top was achieved and everyone appeared to approve.  Next time, I'll definitely make a lighter weight custard and allow it to set with a skin on top.  That'll definitely help the blowtorching!


I think we should skip lightly over discussing Monday's dinner.  You see, I'd taken the chicken out of the freezer the night before and left it in the fridge.  I came to it on Monday evening to make the Sultana Chicken that I'd listed - and the chicken was still frozen solid.  So, we went to Macdonalds.  *blush*  Needs must, and all that.

Now, before I wrap this post up, I have something very important to report.  I recently bought my very first jelly mould.  So, I give you - a jelly!  Complete with wobble.

So proud - now all I want is one shaped like a rabbit.

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You've heard about it - now here's the recipe! Smoked Haddock Chowder.

I've been building up a little collection of Smoked Haddock recipes, such as Kedgeree, or Russian Fish Pie, because we all really enjoy that type of fish - and, it can often be a very economical price.

The Smoked Haddock Chowder took a few goes to perfect.  First couple of goes, it was too thin for hubby's preference.  He likes his Chowder to be really thick and creamy, which is fair enough, as having tasted the two versions I have to agree.  The thick and creamy version is way more indulgent than it's alternative.  Having cracked that aspect of it (by increasing the amount of flour), he then announced that the potato in the soup was unpalatable for him.  So, out went the traditional potato and in came Cannelini beans.  I have to say that I'm happy with it either way, but the Cannelini beans are a perfect replacement for the potato, so that's fine.

From the cook's perspective, I love making this soup.  It's a one-pot deal (well, if you don't count heating up some bread!) which, provided you get all your preparation done before you start cooking, means that you can stand (or sit, in my case) and stir and add lovely ingredients, then stir some more, then add some more, tasting all the time.  The soup, once you're past the roux stage, tastes great but just keeps on getting better with every new ingredient you add.  Until, the culmination of them all, you add the fish and suddenly the flavour is just out of this world.

I've decided that, if ever I'm called upon to demonstrate any cooking skills, this is the one I'd make!  It is one of those soups that, once the family start eating, all that can be heard is "mmmmn...".

I have, since posting this, developed the recipe a little.  For the new, healthier and quicker version (complete with printable recipe) see here!

SMOKED HADDOCK CHOWDER  (serves 3-4)

 Ingredients :

• knob of butter
• 3 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 leek, sliced fine
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 2 pints full cream milk
• 200g tin of Cannelini beans in water, drained
• 400g skinned & de-boned smoked haddock fillets (about 2)
• 140g sweetcorn from a tin or frozen
• a handful of frozen peas
• 100ml fish stock (cube is fine)
• lots of freshly ground black pepper
• a pinch of cayenne pepper
• salt
• chopped parsley, to serve

Method : 

Heat the butter in a large saucepan. Tip in the bacon, then cook until starting to brown. Add the onion, cook for 2-3 mins, then the leek and sweat until soft.

Sprinkle over the 3 tbsp flour and mix through.  Cook for 1 minute or so.

Pour in the stock and whisk gently, adding the milk bit by bit, stirring like mad to remove any lumps.

Add the beans and bring to the boil, stirring all the time to prevent it sticking and ultimately burning.  Season, including adding the cayenne pepper, to taste.  Simmer for 5 mins stirring all the time.

Add the sweetcorn and peas and cook for 2-3 minutes, bringing back up to heat, still stirring. You may well find that you need to keep adding milk as you go, to maintain the consistency you like.  I usually have around a quarter of a pint left from 2 pints.

It is good if the soup is slightly thick when you add the fish, as sometimes it can release water.  So, add the haddock, turn the heat right down to tickover, then leave to gently poach for another 5-10 mins. As it cooks, break it into large chunks and slowly increase the heat to bring back up to temperature – but don’t forget to stir!

Scatter over parsley, if using.

Serve in warmed bowls, with plenty of crusty bread.

Gorgeous!

Printable version
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Tuesday again and the new week's menu is up!

Oh, I had such a job organising this week's menu list!  I had two dishes that I really wanted to do, but after that .. nothing.

In a "usual" week, I cook on a Tues/Fri/Sat/Sun and hubby cooks on a Wed/Thurs/Mon.

This routine has come about because I ordinarily work on the days when hubby cooks - he's good enough to relieve me of the task of setting to after what can, some days, be a somewhat brain boggling day (well, 4 hours) at work.  For those of you reading this who are thinking "four hours?  She's got it made!", can I just say that I've done my time of working from 8.30am through to 8.30pm and it darned near killed me at the time and having very nearly been given my honorary harp and cloud again, some two years ago, four hours three days a week is plenty for me thankyou.

Anyway, I digress.

So there I was with five day left to fill, two of which were "my" days.  I immediately consulted my "Recipes I haven't tried yet, but want to" folder and found one candidate.  That left my "Tried and Tested Recipes" folder, where I found another admirable candidate.  Next stop was hubby, to see what he fancied cooking.  Unfortunately, he had even less idea than I did (which is odd, because normally we've each got at least two recipes hovering on the background).  One day was easily filled owing to our local Supermarket having meatballs on special offer.  The next was a stroke of brilliance on hubby's part.  Having suggested the age-old Chilli Con Carne (*groan*), he had the bright idea of making some Cornbread to go along with it instead of the rice.  What a cracking idea!  I used to make Cornbread a few years ago and I loved it, especially with Chilli.  So that was a definite.  That just left one day to fill.  We pondered on what we'd got lurking in the cupboards, what was on special offer at the supermarket - trying desperately to find something other than the ubiquitous Spaghetti Bolognese, which is our usual fallback position.  After much deliberation as to the relative merits of home-made -v- shop bought, (price -v- quality, the usual story), we opted for the price argument and decided to have shop bought Cornish Pasties.  Hey ho!

So, here's what we're having this week :

Tues : (today) Smoked Haddock Chowder.  This is just a bowl full of gorgeousness, which I'll blog about during the week.

Wed : Cornish Pasties, potato waffles and beans.  Ah well, at least hubby and son like them!

Thurs : Chilli and Cornbread.  Yay!

Fri : Prawn & Peanut noodles.  I've a few reservations over this one, but I've put my trust in BBC Good Food and hopefully it'll be lovely.  If nothing else, it'll soothe my desire for a noodle stir fry!

Sat : Honey & Lemon Chicken, carrots, peas & broccoli.  Oooh, now this is a really delicious meal, which uses two lemons together with chicken portions and potatoes.  Everything comes out all caramelised and sticky.  Makes my mouth water just thinking about it!

Sun : Pot Roast Chicken, roast potatoes & parsnips, carrots and peas.  I've never done a pot roast chicken, so now's my chance!

Mon : Meatballs and Spirali Pasta.  It's a meatball, tomato and cheesefest.  Who wouldn't like it?

Failure on the compatibility front

Lancaster & Spitfire at Bournemouth's Air Festival 2010

I know the aircraft don't have anything to do with food, but I liked the photograph so much, and it's representative of what was going on over the week!

This blog post first appeared in the Bournemouth Echo's online pages, here.

Well, I can safely say that I had a collection of really nice dinners this week – well, all excepting the Sicilian Style Fish Stew, but more of that later. However, I’m not really sure that the remainder of my family enjoyed them so much.

Son's bowl of chowder, complete with bite missing from bread.
(Photograph taken by son)

We kicked off the week with a Smoked Haddock Chowder, which always goes down well with everyone. This was no exception and made a great start to the week.

Next came what was billed on the Menu as “Tuna & Sweetcorn Salad” and was one of Hubby’s cooking nights. However, it transmogrified into a Tuna Salad Nicoise (albeit made with tinned tuna) and was really gorgeous. I loved the lemon vinaigrette dressing on the salad leaves and with some crusty bread, it made a handsome meal. Unfortunately, our son has decided that he doesn’t like tuna any more. This is peculiar as tinned tuna was, along with fish fingers, the denomination of fish we used to get him started with eating it. He will now eat most types, other than smoked mackerel – and tuna, now it seems. Darn! Foiled again.

We soldiered on and menu item no.3 appeared, which was Meatballs & Pasta. Now we’ve both made meatballs in various incarnations and with varying levels of success, to the point where now we can’t really face the lengthy process of mixing and rolling the little devils, nor the difficulty of finding room in the fridge for them to chill. I seriously think that other people must have two fridges, or alternatively nothing in their fridge to begin with. However, Hubby had come up with a blinder of an idea, which was to use some “extra special” sundried tomato & herb beef burgers which he broke into meatball sized pieces, rolled into a ball and hey presto – meatballs. What a triumph! I can recommend this procedure to all those Mums & Dads out there who are also suffering from meatball making fatigue. Perfect.

You’re probably all thinking “well, that all sounds successful, what’s she on about?”. You see, it all began to go downhill from hereon in.

 Next up on the menu list was the “Sicilian-style fish stew” for which I’d bought some fresh cod fillets and frozen them in advance. Never again. We have now decided that recipes including fresh fish shall only ever feature on a Tuesday or a Friday (both of which are shopping days, and don’t require the fish to be frozen).

Looks innocent enough, doesn't it?

The dish looks a picture, and indeed I really enjoyed the broth, but the fish tasted muddy and not right and the red kidney beans were like bullets, so much so that Hubby and I both got worn out trying to chomp our way through them. Hubby declared his portion inedible and son managed to do his best with it, but more went into the bin than ever got eaten. Still, one bright note was that the brown crusty rolls we had with it, were yummy!

Saturday’s dinner was Braised Chicken & beans, served with a carrot/swede mash. I chose this one, because we were keen to try a few dishes that used white wine, and this one did. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get our usual standard of chicken breast and had to settle for the supermarket’s own brand, which was salty, watery and rubbery. Not a good start. Hubby declared the carrot/swede mash inedible, although neither son nor I could detect any problem with it. Son found himself somewhat challenged by the white wine in the sauce, but I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner – problems with the chicken excepted.

Owing to the failure of the last few dinners and the dismal day, I’d decided to make the most of our crop of rhubarb in the garden and made a Rhubarb Cobbler. It isn’t the standard type of cobbler, with “cobbles” placed upon the rhubarb and baked, it is a type where you mix together a batter (made with – American cup sizes – half a cup of sugar, half a cup of plain flour, half a cup of milk, 1 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt) and pour it over the rhubarb. I cooked the rhubarb for 3-4 minutes in the microwave, with a couple of tablespoons of sugar added, then poured the batter mix on top and baked at 180deg (fan) for 35-40 mins. The result is almost like a sponge, but with a gorgeously chewy texture. Add that to our beautiful rhubarb, and everyone had forgotten their dissatisfaction with their first course.

I can only hope that if the Sausage & Lentil Casserole I have planned for tomorrow goes wrong, the family is as easily cheered up by the Pineapple I’ve got for dessert!