Whenever I buy fish, I trim some off and stash it away in the
freezer. Some things, like shrimp and bay scallops, are frozen and
bagged and available anytime anyway. After a while, you have a good
supply of random seafood to make chowder out of. (Of course, you can
just buy some if you want a particular kind, but I like the variety).

Also, whenever I open a *can* of canned seafood (tuna, baby shrimp,
clams, salmon), I disappoint the cats and drain the liquid into a
freezer container and stash it too.

When that reaches some level, say a pint or two, it's time to make
seafood chowder, which I did the night before last.

Seafood stock (i.e. the saved canned juices)
Milk
(Raw) Seafood, cut into bite size (White fish, salmon, shrimp, bay
scallops, shark, whatever floats your boat)
Onion, roughly diced
Carrot, finely diced
Celery, finely diced
(sometimes) Red Bell pepper, medium dice
Fennel bulb, sliced
Some of the fennel fronds for garnish
Potatoes, cut into bite size
Butter
Seafood seasoning (e.g. Old Bay)
(optional) cayenne
Salt and pepper (white, if you're a purist)
Cream

Soften the vegetables (except potatoes) in butter in a large pan. Add
the potatoes and cook until slightly tinged with brown. Add the
seafood stock and cook until potatoes are soft (enough for you). Add
milk and bring to a soft boil. Add seafood and seasonings and simmer
a few minutes until seafood is cooked through. Remove from heat and
stir in some cream at the end for some additional, ah, creaminess.

Served with homemade partial whole-wheat (oxymoron?) rolls.
Outstanding.

Now ...

I had way more seafood than I needed for that, so it was time to try
an experiment, which was part of last night's dinner:

Seafood Sausage

A pound or two of random raw seafood
Half a large dinner roll (or the equivalent of ~1/3 cup of fresh bread
crumbs)
1/3 cup of chopped dill
1 egg
1 tsp sherry
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp seafood seasoning (e.g. Old Bay)
Salt and pepper

Get out your food processor. Whiz the half dinner roll and 1/3 cup of
dill until you have crumbs. Set aside some of the seafood,
particularly the stuff that is most noticeable, like salmon, scallops,
and shrimp. Take the rest and whiz it, the egg, sherry, butter and
seasonings with the bread crumbs and dill until you have a coarse
paste. Toss the reserved seafood in and pulse until it is broken up
into small, but still identifiable, chunks.

Bring a wide pot of water to a boil.

Lay a long piece of plastic wrap out on the counter. Rub it lightly
with oil. Spoon the goo in the food processor out into a long strip
that, by eyeball, will be an inch or inch-and-a-half cylinder when you
roll it up. Then ... roll it up. The short dimension of the plastic
wrap should wrap several times around the sausage. Twist the sausage
every (say) 6 inches and tie it off (and the ends) with twist-ties.

Turn down the heat on the water so that it barely simmers. Carefully
set the rolled-up sausages into the pan. Cook for ~15 minutes.
Drain, let cool until it can be handled and remove plastic wrap.
Believe it or not (I was skeptical!), it worked! (I figured I might
be picking little bits of melted plastic off the sausages or that I'd
have a roll of total mush on my hands, but no! Plastic came right off
and sausages were perfectly firm.)

Pan fry the sausages in a little oil and butter until lightly browned
on all sides.

We just ate 'em as they came from the frying pan and they were great
but you could doctor them up with whatever condiments you like with
seafood. I will be doing this again!

Enjoy.

--
Silvar Beitel

On 1/10/2013 1:24 PM, Silvar Beitel wrote:
>
> Seafood stock (i.e. the saved canned juices)
> Milk
> (Raw) Seafood, cut into bite size (White fish, salmon, shrimp, bay
> scallops, shark, whatever floats your boat)
> Onion, roughly diced
> Carrot, finely diced
> Celery, finely diced
> (sometimes) Red Bell pepper, medium dice
> Fennel bulb, sliced
> Some of the fennel fronds for garnish
> Potatoes, cut into bite size
> Butter
> Seafood seasoning (e.g. Old Bay)
> (optional) cayenne
> Salt and pepper (white, if you're a purist)
> Cream
>
> Soften the vegetables (except potatoes) in butter in a large pan. Add
> the potatoes and cook until slightly tinged with brown. Add the
> seafood stock and cook until potatoes are soft (enough for you). Add
> milk and bring to a soft boil. Add seafood and seasonings and simmer
> a few minutes until seafood is cooked through. Remove from heat and
> stir in some cream at the end for some additional, ah, creaminess.
>
> Served with homemade partial whole-wheat (oxymoron?) rolls.
> Outstanding.
>

Sounds delicious to me! I'd serve it in hollowed out toasted "bread
bowls". I just saw a recipe for seafood chowder served that way in a
recent catalog.

I always serve my potato-leek soup in small toasted sourdough bread
bowls. It's one of my signature dishes.

http://www.recfoodcooking.org/sigs/J...d%20Bowls.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/bx748j2

Jill

Jill