My mother made this Seafood Curry Chowder three New Year’s Eve’s ago. My whole family loved it! Since then I have not been able to get it out of my head and wanted to do my best to recreate it at home. This New Year I finally did it! This chowder is very special and worthy of a special event or celebration. It’s chock full of different seafood, creamy, and has a wonderful background of curry. The addition of curry to a chowder may sound unorthodox, but it pairs beautifully with sweet seafood.
Since it’s a seafood chowder, it can be a bit on the expensive side to make it. In this recipe, I used shrimp, grouper, and crab meat, but it can be tailored to your price range, as you just need 1 3/4 lb of whatever seafood you like or is on sale.
Seafood Curry Chowder
Author:
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
- 1 quart chicken stock
- 1/3 cup of butter (plus 3 tbsp), or 1/3 cup of reserved bacon fat (from about 5 slices of bacon)
- 2 stalks celery about 3/4 cup chopped
- 1 medium onion about 1 3/4 cup chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 large Yukon gold potato (about 2 cups), diced
- 1 tbsp curry powder
- 3 tbsp flour
- 2 cups milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 3 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 3/4 lb large shrimp (reserve shells for stock), cut into thirds
- 1/2 pound firm white fish, chopped into 1' pieces
- 8 ounces pound crab meat, picked through for shells
- chopped green onions for garnish
Instructions
- Remove the milk and cream from the fridge. Taking the chill off will help it warm up quicker in the soup.
- *Optional step*. Add the reserved shrimp shells and chicken stock to a pot. Cover with a lid and place over low heat to simmer. This will help infuse the stock with additional seafood flavor.
- In a large dutch oven or heavy bottom pot, melt 1/3 cup of butter or bacon fat over medium heat. Add celery and onions. Saute over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Add garlic, potatoes and curry powder. Saute for 2-3 minutes or until very fragrant.
- Add 3 tbsp butter to the pot, once melted, add flour. Saute for another 2-3 minutes, or until the flour starts to take on a golden color.
- Strain shrimp shells from the chicken broth and add the hot broth to the pot with the veggies, stir to combine. Reduce heat to low and simmer until the liquid starts to thicken about 5-7 minutes. If you skipped the step of infusing the shrimp shells into the stock and your stock is not hot, it may take longer to thicken.
- Turn the heat up to medium-low, and add milk, cream, frozen corn, salt and black pepper. Simmer for about 20-30 minutes or until the liquid thickens and coats the back of the spoon.
- Finally, add the fish, and then after 2 minutes, add the shrimp. Stir to combine. The fish will be cooked through after it turns opaque, about 3-4 minutes, and the shrimp will be finished once they are pink, after about 1-2 minutes. Finally, stir in the crab meat. Taste for seasoning, add a little more salt or pepper if you like.
- Serve hot in bowls with a garnish of chopped green onions.
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