Creamy Seafood Soup
Ingredients
2 servings
- Frozen seafood mix (“seafood cocktail”) 250 g
- Onion 1
- Carrot 1
- Celery root and parsnip 50 g
- Parsley root optional
- Green peas 100 g
- Cream or milk 0.5 l
- Butter 50 g
- Flour 2 tbsp (20 g)
- Water ⅓ cup + 150 ml
- Salt, pepper to taste
- Dried herbs (basil, marjoram, savory, oregano) to taste
Step-by-step recipe
Preparation
Choose the seafood mix. A frozen seafood mix usually contains octopus tentacles cut into small pieces, squid rings, mussels, shrimp tails, bits of scallop and other sea creatures. It should be well frozen with no visible traces of frozen water; that’s a sure sign it hasn’t been thawed.
Choose the roots: celery root, parsnip and carrot, plus parsley root if you like, in equal parts by weight. How many vegetables go into the soup is up to you. By the way, a dried mix of soup roots containing all the roots you need works well too. They cook down nicely in the soup.
Peel the celery root, parsnip, carrot and onion. Cut the onion and roots into small cubes, about the size you’d cut for Olivier salad or a little smaller.
Vegetables
It’s handier to make this seafood soup with vegetables and cream in a small deep sauté pan, although soups are usually made in a pot.
Melt a piece of butter and fry the chopped onion in it until soft.
As soon as the onion starts to brown, add the chopped carrot, celery and parsnip, and the green peas; they don’t need to be thawed. Fry the vegetables for 10 minutes over medium-high heat, stirring.
Turn down the heat. Season with salt, pepper and dried herbs. Add a third of a cup of water (200 ml) and simmer the vegetables under a lid until they’re almost done.
Seafood
It’s best to prepare the seafood mix for the soup first.
Put the frozen seafood in a small saucepan and cover with water so the water covers the shellfish completely. Bring the water with the seafood just to a boil; there will be a lot of foam and the water will turn cloudy. Immediately rinse the thawed seafood under running water. Cut all the shellfish into small pieces.
Cream and thickening
Beforehand, whisk 2 tbsp of flour (20 g) with 150 ml of room-temperature water in a cup. It should be a very thin batter. Strain the flour mixture through a tea strainer to get rid of lumps.
Add the shellfish to the vegetables in the sauté pan.
Simmer the vegetables and seafood for 1–2 minutes, no longer, and immediately add the hot milk or cream.
As soon as the milk in the pan starts to boil, start pouring in the flour mixture in a thin stream, stirring the soup quite vigorously. Flour thickens the soup very quickly and well, so the consistency, which depends on how much flour you add, is entirely up to you.
When the soup is as thick as you want, stop adding the flour mixture. Bring the soup to a gentle boil and let it simmer under a lid for 2–3 minutes.
Serving
Serve right away while the soup is hot. You can serve it with fresh white bread or salted crackers.
If you want something exotic, get small (saucer-sized) plain or sourdough bread rolls; they’re sold in large supermarkets. Cut off the bottom crust with a knife and pull out the crumb with your hands. Put the bread in a deep plate and pour the seafood soup into it.
Calories and macros
905 kcal
Serving ≈ 600 g
- Protein32 g14% of kcal
- Fat70 g71% of kcal
- Carbs33 g15% of kcal
100 g150 kcalProtein 5.3 gFat 11.7 gCarbs 5.5 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
To Get It Right
Most important: don’t make it too thick
Seafood soup shouldn’t be too thick: it should be like kissel, a thin fruit jelly drink. Pour in the flour mixture a little at a time and stop slightly early: the soup thickens more during the 2–3 minutes of boiling. Readers who used 4 spoons of flour instead of two ended up with something close to aspic.
Which seafood mix to buy
Buy the seafood mix for the soup well frozen, with no ice crust or traces of frozen water, which means the mix hasn’t been thawed. Once the seafood goes in with the vegetables, keep it on the heat for 1–2 minutes, no longer: overcooked squid and octopus turn tough.
What to use instead of peas
A chowder recipe repeated to the letter is synthetic, and I don’t like it that way. You can leave out the peas or swap them: readers use frozen cauliflower or a Mexican mix (peas, corn, sweet pepper).
What to serve it with
The sourdough bread bowl that chowder is served in does its job as a plate, but the roll itself is no good; I didn’t eat it either. A regular plate and salted crackers or fresh white bread are better.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Questions and answers
What is a creamy seafood soup called?
Chowder. The best known is New England clam chowder: a thick clam soup made with cream, no tomatoes, with potatoes, onion and celery. This seafood mix soup is inspired by it.
How long do you cook a frozen seafood mix for soup?
Just a few minutes. Cover the frozen mix with water, bring it just to a boil and rinse right away; in the soup, simmer it with the vegetables for 1–2 minutes and let it boil 2–3 more minutes after thickening. No need to thaw it first.
Can you make seafood soup with milk instead of cream?
Yes: the recipe calls for cream or milk, 0.5 l. With cream the soup is more delicate and rich, with milk it’s lighter. Add the milk hot.
Can you add potatoes to the soup?
Yes: real chowder has potatoes. Cut 1–2 potatoes into small cubes and simmer them with the roots until soft.
How do you make seafood soup with cheese?
At the end, after thickening, add 1–2 processed cheese portions and stir until they melt. You’ll need less flour, since the cheese thickens the soup too. A similar soup is cheese soup with shrimp.