Easy peasy Seafood Chowder

Hi everyone

I had a request for easy recipes from a friend and a seafood chowder recipe specifically. So this one is for you Gill :)

I found the basis for this recipe when in Hawaii on one of the remote islands. Ingredients bar seafood were limited so there was no point trying to make the chowder from scratch. This seafood chowder is simple and takes about 10-20 mins to prepare and about the same to cook.  The secret is using a base soup in this case a potato concentrate e.g. Campbells or Watties.

Ingredients are:

1/2 cup butter
1 stalk celery, minced 
1 small onion, minced
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (or fresh I love fresh thyme)
3 tablespoons flour
3 1/2 cups milk (or more if you like a thinner soup) or if you prefer a creamier soup you can reduce the milk by half or just a half a cup and add cream instead.
2 cans condensed cream of potato soup (undiluted) - if you can't find plain potato then potato and leek is yummy too
Seafood - peeled shrimps, mussels, fish (go with fish thats more likely to hold together e.g. gurnard or snapper), scallops etc 
Salt and pepperchopped fresh parsley (to garnish)

So its all pretty easy. Melt the butter in a big saucepan and sauté the onion and celery until tender (leave the celery out if you have someone that hates the taste of celery in my case both husband and son). 

Add cayenne and thyme along with flour and stir until smooth making a roux of sorts. Don't let it burn!

Add milk (cream if using) and condensed soup. Stir until hot. Clean and chop seafood as you like. When soup is hot add seafood and stir on medium heat until seafood is cooked through. Season.

Serve in bowls topped with a sprinkle of parsley and enjoy

Me xx