smoky fish chowder

Terry doesn’t always pay attention when I’m watching one of my DVR’d cooking shows, but when I was watching Sara’s Weeknight Meals, Sara Moulton’s recipe for Smoky Fish Chowder caught her attention. In fact she even made a trip thirty minutes south to get the required smoked trout at Trader Joe’s.

Of course I deviated from the recipe as I usually do. I excluded the onions as Terry is allergic. I chopped the celery and potatoes and put them in the saucepan, then covered them with the liquids, rather than the other way around as Sara did. I added granulated onion. I used regular bacon (of the applewood variety) as opposed to Canadian Bacon because I failed to get Canadian Bacon at the store even though it was on my shopping list. I thought the applewood gave the soup a nice taste, though perhaps it fought with the smoked trout for precedence in a way that Canadian Bacon would not have. My version turned out a lot thicker and chunkier than Sara intended, I believe.

I topped my chowder with green onions from Terry’s container garden and I added garlic cheese bread on the side for both of us, not part of Sara’s recipe.

The bottom line, however, is that Terry loved it. That’s what really counts.