Thursday, February 16, 2012

A fabulous fast and easy recipe

If you like seafood, this is a great recipe.

It is quick, easy, variable, and so creamy and delicious it just gives me chills.

I was asked to make a soup for a teacher's dinner at my son's elementary school. I knew right away I wanted to make this because I love it so much!

(you can jump to the bottom for the ingredients list)

I grabbed my camera so I could share with you.:) Here's how I make this:

I start with a large stock pot.





What comes after that is freehand.

You can do it how you want, alter amounts, add ingredients or omit them.














I add butter and chopped onion




in this case, a whole vidalia.










Add to that chopped celery












and freshly minced garlic


Season with salt and pepper
















Let that saute until everything is soft.













While that is cooking I take a firm fish (here I used Tilapia) . . . . . .













Cut it into chunks and toss it in the pan. 

















 Give it a stir to coat the fish with the yumminess already going on in there. Let is cook a minute or two so the fish really picks up those flavors.










Then I pour in some white wine and sherry.
























Continue to cook until the fish is white, almost opaque.
 
Next (pardon my lack of photos here) comes milk, or cream, or milk and cream, half and half - whatever and however you want to do it.

I also add some Old Bay seasoning. (this is a MD thing, or at least a regional thing. I think)I allow this to simmer for a bit letting all the flavors so far get nice and happy together.




Next to the party is the lump crab meat.












Stir to mix thoroughly and break up the lumps JUST a little.


Let this simmer a few minutes while you......








 rinse and peel, and rinse again your shrimp.












 

and peel and rough chop some potatoes.

Throw the potatoes in boiling water (you can cook them right in the stew, but I was pressed for time and wanted to be sure the potatoes didn't dissolve into nothing since I was making this for others). I'll serve much to my family but not to the teachers of CLES!





Somewhere along in here I taste the soup and add more milk/cream/wine to increase the volume and obtain desired flavor.



and throw the shrimp in the stewpot -  These only take a short time to cook, but you can let this simmer on low for hours if you want.


mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Look at that color !

Look at those beautiful shrimp!

We're nearly done...........






Drain the potatoes and gently stir them into the soup.

Again, you can let this simmer for along time, or you can give a final taste and seasoning and serve!
As noted, there aren't any definite proportions, you can add what you want - green pepper might be nice in here and I've made it with corn before.

You can adjust seasoning. In my case I added sherry and wine several times and I re-salted after the potatoes (they really suck up salt).

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

ENJOY!

General ingredients I used here:

butter to saute veggies
salt to taste
pepper to taste
Old Bay Seasoning
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves carlic, chopped/minced
1-2 stalks celery, finely chopped
white wine (? 1/2 cup added up ?)
sherry (? 1/2 cup added up?)
1 lb firm fish
1 lb shrimp
1 lb crab meat
half and half (a little more than a pint)
milk (have no idea how much, sorry!)