Green chile seafood chowder! Yes! It has been a little while since I prepared a chowder. The chilly temperatures outside was the main source of inspiration for this recipe yesterday.
Flour No Flour In My Chowder!
With all the people following a gluten free regiment, this recipe can be adapted easily! There are two ways you can make this recipe gluten free. The first way would be to cook some extra potatoes until fork tender(maybe 3 large white potatoes). Transfer them to the blender and add some heavy cream, milk or half and half. Blend until smooth and mix in to the soup base. The second option would be to mix a cornstarch slurry. A cornstarch slurry is simply cornstarch mixed with cold milk or water until there are no lumps. For this amount of soup, I would whisk 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cornstarch with cold milk. As the soup base comes up to a simmer. whisk in the slurry. It will thicken as it comes up to a boil.
Why Not Add A Mexican Twist?
Honestly. I don’t feel comfortable calling this a Mexican seafood chowder just because I added green chiles. We will just say it has a few Mexican ingredients and it’s delicious! There was a time a while back that I was really interested in fusion cooking. Mixing my love of Mexican food and recipes with other popular foods like Indian, Asian, Italian and more. There are some recipes still on the blog like this. Why not, it’s fun and tasty too!
Green Chile Seafood Chowder (Sopa de Mariscos)
Ingredients
- 2 lbs medium shrimp, cleaned
- 4 large poblano peppers remove stems and seeds
- 2 large jalapeños remove stems
- 12-16 oz bacon, chopped small
- 1 large carrot, finely diced(1 cup)
- 1 large stick of celery, finely diced
- 1 med. red bell pepper, diced
- 1/2 med. white onion, diced
- 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2-4 bay leaves
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 4 cups shrimp shell broth from cooking shells
- 2 large white potatoes, diced
- 1/2 cup heavy cream or half & half
- 3 tbsps parsely, finely chopped
- 2 10 oz cans baby clams with liquid
- 1 med zucchini, diced
- a couple of dashes of your favorite hot sauce!!
Instructions
- Place cleaned peppers on baking sheet lined with a metal rack. Place about 6 inches under broiler set to high. Broil for 10-12 minutes per side. Remove from broiler and place in plastic bag to steam and cool.
- While peppers are roasting, clean and peel shrimp. Rinse under cold water and keep chilled until ready to use. Transfer shells to a filled with 4 cups of salted water. Cook at medium until shells turn pink. Remove from heat and reserve.
- In a large pot, at medium heat, cook chopped bacon until crispy.
- While bacon cooks, prep all the vegetables.
- When ready, using a slotted spoon, remove the bacon onto a plate lined with paper towels. Reserve for garnish.
- In that same pot with bacon grease, add the carrots, celery, bell pepper and bay leaves. Season lightly with salt and pepper and saute for 3 minutes. Add onions and garlic. Saute for three more minutes.
- To the pot stir in 1/2 c of all purpose flour. Cook, stirring constantly for 1-2 minutes. Pour in 4 cups of broth. Using a wire mesh strainer, pour in all the broth from the cooked shrimp shells. Mix in the heavy cream and parsley.
- Bring up to a boil and cook until potatoes are fork tender. Mix in the 2 cans of baby clams with liquid. Mix in zucchini. Taste for salt and pepper. Mix in a couple of dashes of your favorite hot sauce. If you don't prefer to add any more heat, you could add some apple cider vinegar instead for a touch of acidity.
- Once zucchini is tender, mix in all of the reserved shrimp. Remove entire pot from heat after 1 minute. The shrimp will continue cooking in the hot soup for the next 4-5 minutes. Serve right away. Garnish with your favorite shredded cheese, green onions, bacon and more hot sauce. Serve with crusty bread on the side or serve chowder in small bread bowls.
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Instead of the potato or corn starch substitute you might want to try the wonderful arrowroot. My go to thickener as it adds no taste.
Thank you for the tip Tim. I guess I didn’t think of that because I personally have never used arrowroot before. Typically most of us will have a few extra potatoes or cornstarch on hand. Will try arrowroot sometime. Gracias!
I found your green chile seafood chowder recipe on the Hispanic Kitchen website, but it was slightly different recipe (no heavy cream, no carrots/zucchini/jalapenos, sausage instead of bacon). I liked that it didn’t have heavy cream, but only milk, and it turned out great! I cut the recipe in half (just my wife and I), added carrots, hatch chiles, and also increased the shrimp because we didn’t have any crab on hand. It was still great. Next time I’ll create a blend of the two recipes. Thanks!
This recipe was inspired by my original recipe on HK. That’s the beauty of cooking is that we can experiment with the recipes and change them to suit our taste. I always opt to avoid the heavy cream too, but I really wanted to taste it in this recipe. Plus I was preparing it for friends that are crazy about seafood chowder, lol! No skimping! Thank you for taking the time to write.