There is no stock in Hairy Bikers smoked haddock chowder, just 750ml of milk. One Pot Wonders publishes it as smoky fish chowder, built on 200g of smoked haddock and 300g of white fish with leeks, potatoes and sweetcorn. Four bowls take about 55 minutes at 475 calories each.
They write that it came from cullen skink, the frugal Scottish dish they cooked years earlier, brought up to date with a hint of luxury. They also left the bacon out on purpose, because the smoked haddock already brings the smoke.
Floury potatoes are specified for a reason. They fall apart under light pressure and release starch into the milk, which is the only thickening in the recipe, so there is no flour and no roux anywhere in it.
Hairy Bikers Smoked Haddock Chowder
Description
Both kinds of fish go in near the end and need only three or four minutes. Before that, leeks, onion and potato soften in butter, white wine boils away and milk goes in to simmer. Double cream and a handful of chives finish this Hairy Bikers smoked haddock chowder.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Soften the vegetables: Heat the butter in a large saucepan and add the onion, leeks and potatoes. Cook over a low heat for several minutes, until the onion looks soft and translucent.
- Add the aromatics: Stir in the garlic, tarragon and bay leaf and cook for a couple more minutes.
- Boil off the wine: Turn the heat up and pour in the wine. Bring to the boil and let most of it boil away.
- Add the milk: Season with salt and pepper and pour in the milk. Turn the heat up, and when it is close to boiling, turn it down and simmer until the vegetables are tender.
- Mash lightly: Crush the potatoes very lightly against the side of the pan, just enough to break them down a little and thicken the soup.
- Add the fish: Tip in the sweetcorn, white fish and smoked haddock. Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, until the fish is just cooked through.
- Finish: Stir in the cream and heat through. Scatter over plenty of chives and serve at once.
FAQs
Why is there no bacon in it?
Because the smoked haddock is already doing that job, and the book says so outright.
Most chowder recipes reach for bacon or pancetta without asking whether the pot needs it. Put both in and the smoke doubles up, which flattens the tarragon and the sweetcorn underneath it.
What white fish should I buy?
Anything firm that holds together in chunks. Cod, haddock, pollock and coley all work, and the recipe simply says white fish without naming one.
Buy the smoked haddock undyed if you can find it. The bright yellow sort is coloured rather than more heavily smoked, and in a pot of milk that dye leaches straight out and tints everything.
Why milk rather than stock?
Because milk is what makes a chowder a chowder rather than a fish soup. The smoked haddock poaches in it and seasons it as it goes, so the milk finishes tasting of the fish.
Use whole milk, since semi-skimmed comes out noticeably thin. Keep the pan below a boil once the milk is in, because milk splits at a hard boil. Their chicken and vegetable soup shares the same potato, leek, tarragon, wine and cream base, built on stock instead.
What is cullen skink?
A Scottish soup of smoked haddock, potato and onion in milk, named after the fishing town of Cullen on the Moray coast. It is thinner and plainer than this one, with no wine, no sweetcorn and no cream.
The book calls it frugal and describes this recipe as that dish brought up to date. What got added is exactly those three things, plus the tarragon, which is the hint of luxury they mention.
Can I make it ahead?
Not really, and this is the one soup on the site I would cook to order. Fish that has been cooked and then reheated goes dry and shreds apart, and milk-based soups split when they come back to the boil.
Make the vegetable base as far as the mashing step and chill it. Adding the fish, sweetcorn and cream when you reheat is four minutes of work. Their french onion soup is the opposite case, better on the second day than the first.
