Yeesh, I’ve been so busy at work lately I’ve been neglecting that which I truly enjoy doing: cooking and posting about what I’ve cooked. I’m going to make soup tonight as well, so I have to get this out of my backlog before it’s all about soup!
A few weeks ago now, BB made some delicious bacon & corn chowder for the potluck. It was good. Of course, as soon as I realized I had everything I needed in my fridge already to make some, I whipped up my own batch. I did make my own tweaks, but basic recipe can be found here. Honestly, I made this over two weeks now, so I can’t recall exactly what I tweaked besides the addition of green peppers (because I had them on hand) and using regular canned sweet corn niblets as opposed to creamed corn.
When BB had brought over the soup, we’d discussed the thickness of the chowder, and everyone agreed that the soup was good, but a soup nonetheless. I toyed with what I could use to thicken it; I generally use the cornstarch/cold water mixture to thicken things, but I’d never used it in a cream-based soup/sauce and had noticed on Food Network, when thickening creams/milk based items, the cooks always use the butter/flour (roux) mixture. So I shrugged it off and decided to whip up a roux by melting butter in a small pan and dropping a spoonful of flour in there, stirring it, then dropping it into the simmering chowder.
As you can see (if you click on both pictures to enlarge and examine more closely), the result is a much thicker, heartier chowder. Much more satisfying and filling, although the first is still good. Mmm. And in a few days’ time, I’ll be adding chopped clams to the same recipe to make… clam chowder! *happy sigh* Despite living in Manhattan and growing up in NYC, there’s only one real clam chowder to me, and that’s New England style. (Brief aside: a random memory just came to me. As a kid, my dad used to make this or something similar and we’d put it over spaghetti. How I loved that; but now I’m very mixing-carbs-averse…)
Happy eating!!!
SkippyMom says
[psst…don’t you mean “drop flour in the melted butter” ?]
the Squirrel is thrilled! We are having this for dinner tomorrow night…yummmm…we love soups in the winter.
Tell BB we said thanks for the recipe and kudos to you for tweaking it….yummmy….now about a good cornbread recipe…
hmm?
Hugs!
[and you can’t nominate for bloggies anymore in 2007 – but you can vote for the winner – at least they are supposed to post themtoday.. when they finally post them today….I did nominate you for “Best Food” and “Best Kept Secret”….fingers crossed the nominating committee picked you as a finalist!!!
Hugs!
six2six says
coolness, i’ll try adding roux next time. did i tell you i did a trial-run before the potluck? i didn’t have cream on hand then, so i used milk- gosh was that thin. i also had carrots in the first batch, but deemed it too sweet when combined with the corn and celery. next time, i’m gonna try it with some chilis for a kick. good to have the cook back in the kitchen. =P