Irish Seafood Chowder in a creamy sauce

Irish Seafood Chowder is a hearty soup made with seafood and cream. It’s crammed with vegetables for extra flavour. Serve it with crusty seeded bread or Irish soda bread for a meal that will warm the cockles of your heart!

Traditional Irish Seafood Chowder

My first taste of authentic Irish Seafood Chowder was in on a cold rainy day in a pub in the Temple Bar area of Dublin.

My daughter and I had taken the ferry from Hollyhead to Dublin for a quick holiday weekend in Ireland. I love going on a ferry. Even though you are travelling, it’s as though your holiday starts the moment you board.

You can sit and relax next to the windows and watch the sea roll by. Or you can go outside onto the upper deck and let the cobwebs get blown away by the strong bracing wind coming off the Irish Sea.

By the time the ferry docks in Dublin you are ready for all the sights that Dublin has to offer.

So we were quite disappointed on our arrival to find that it was raining.

I should have known. I once spent 6 months living and working in Dublin, commuting Monday and Friday from England (by air, not ferry). And it rained. Every. Single. Day. Maybe not the entire day and maybe just a shower. But every single day in Dublin for the 6 months I was there it rained for at least part of the day.

A traditional Irish bar

On the day my daughter and I arrived however, it wasn’t a gentle shower, it was a torrential downpour. Sightseeing was out of the question. So after checking into the hotel we grabbed a taxi and made our way to the Temple Bar area, and ended up at the Oliver St John Gogarty Traditional Irish bar.

We walked in through the doors, out of the rain, into the most amazing atmosphere. The place was jam-packed with people talking and laughing. In the corner of the room a band was playing traditional Irish music. One brave soul was doing an Irish jig in front of them. We managed to find a table to sit at, took a look at the menu, and both of us decided on a bowl of Traditional Irish Seafood Chowder.

We weren’t disappointed. The chowder was brimming with seafood, creamy potatoes and chunky carrots. Little pops of sweetness were provided by juicy corn kernels. And it was all swimming in a delicious thick, creamy sauce. It was served with seeded Irish soda bread, which we used to wipe every last drop out of the bowl.

That was when we decided we had to make our own version of Irish Seafood Chowder at home. So we searched our handbags for a pen (luckily one of us had one) and wrote down the ingredients we’d identified, on a paper serviette. And this is the result. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Ingredients for Irish Seafood Chowder

You can get the complete recipe on the printable recipe card below.

To make Irish Seafood Chowder you will need the following ingredients:

• 1/2 cup chopped Celery
• 1 cup chopped Carrots
• 2 cups chopped Potatoes
• 1 small tin good quality whole kernel sweetcorn including the liquid – I like to use Green Giant because it is so sweet, and has a lovely crunchy texture.
• 250 g frozen mixed seafood mix
• 100 g frozen cooked prawns (or shrimp if you live in the US)
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 100 g butter
• 2 cups milk
• 125 g fresh single cream – pouring cream not whipping cream
• 2 heaped teaspoons cornflour – mixed to a paste with 2 Tablespoons water
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to your own taste.

How to make Irish Seafood Chowder

Prepare the vegetables

• Peel the carrots and potatoes.
• Chop the carrots and celery into 1/2 inch (1cm) chunks and the potatoes into 1 inch (2cm) pieces.
• The reason for this is the potatoes cook faster than the carrots and celery, so making them a bit larger ensures the vegetables are all cooked at the same time.

Melt the butter and coat the vegetables

• Melt the butter over a low heat in a saucepan and saute the garlic briefly to release the flavour into the buter.
• Add the chopped vegetables and stir well to coat. Put the lid on the saucepan and allow the vegetables to sweat gently in the butter until they start to soften. This should take about 8 minutes. Keep the heat low – you don’t want to brown the vegetables, they should just steam in their own juices.

Add the milk and seasoning

• Remove the lid from the pan and add the milk, salt and black pepper.
• Crank up the heat until the milk starts to boil, then reduce the heat back to a simmer and leave for about 10 minutes.
• Don’t put the lid back on the saucepan at this stage or the milk WILL boil over.

Add seafood and sweetcorn

• Keep testing the vegetables to see whether they are cooked.
• As soon as they are soft you can add the mixed seafood, the prawns (shrimp) and the sweetcorn (with the liquid from the sweetcorn).
• Bring back to the boil then turn the heat down again to a simmer.
• Stir in the cream, taste for seasoning and add more salt and/or pepper if necessary. I think this dish benefits from a lot of ground black pepper.

Thicken the chowder

• To thicken the chowder drizzle in the cornflour and water mixture while stirring over a low heat.
• Let the chowder simmer for a further 1 minute to give the cornflour time to cook.
• Serve in a soup bowl with lots of crusty bread to mop up the last delicious mouthful.

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Recipe – Irish Seafood Chowder

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Irish Seafood Chowder

A creamy broth of shrimp, calamari, mussels and clams with potatoes, carrots and celery

Prep Time10 mins

Cook Time30 mins

Total Time40 mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Irish

Servings: 4 people

Calories: 630kcal

Author: VJ

Equipment

• Sharp Knife
• Chopping Board
• Garlic press
• Large saucepan
• Soup bowls for serving

Ingredients

• ½ cup chopped celery (½" dice) approximately 1 large stalk
• 1 cup chopped carrot (½" dice) approximately 1 large carrot
• 2 cups chopped potato (1" dice) approximately 3 large potatoes
• 1 small tin whole kernel sweetcorn (198g tin)
• 250 g frozen mixed seafood pre-cooked not raw (approx 2 cups)
• 100 g frozen whole prawns (shrimp) pre-cooked not raw (approx 1 cup)
• 2 cups (1 pint) milk
• 125 ml (5 fl oz) fresh cream single cream or pouring cream (½ cup)
• 100 g butter
• 2 cloves garlic finely minced
• 2 teaspoons cornflour mixed to a paste with 2 Tablespoons water
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

• Chop the carrots and celery into ½" pieces and the potatoes into 1" pieces
• Melt the butter over a low heat in a large saucepan
• Add the garlic, saute for 1 minute then add the chopped celery, carrots and potatoes.
• Mix well to combine with the butter. Cover with a lid and allow to sweat gently over a low heat for 8 minutes until the vegetables start to soften.
• Remove the lid from the pan and add the milk, salt and black pepper. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer with the lid OFF for about 10 minutes.
• Taste the vegetables to ensure they are fully cooked. If they are still a little hard, continue to simmer until they are soft.
• Add the mixed seafood, prawns (shrimp) and sweetcorn (including the liquid from the sweetcorn), mix to combine and bring back to the boil.
• Reduce the heat to a simmer and stir in the cream.
• Taste for seasoning and add more salt or pepper if necessary.
• Drizzle in the cornflour/water mixture stirring continually. Simmer for a further 1 minute.
• Serve in a soup bowl with slices of crusty seeded bread or Irish soda bread.

Notes

When adding the vegetables to the butter, stir them well to make sure they are well coated with butter.  Then steam them gently with the lid on to allow them to soften.

Once the milk is added, make sure you remove the lid from the pan – otherwise the milk will boil over.

When adding the sweetcorn, add the sweetcorn liquid as well.  This adds to the flavour of the chowder.

Make sure the vegetables are soft enough before you add the cream.  You don’t want to continue boiling once the cream is added.

The calorie count is based on 4 servings.

I am not a nutritionist. The nutrition information has been calculated using an on-line calculator, and is intended for information and guidance purposes only.  If the nutrition information is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.

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