Bermuda Fish Chowder

Ingredients

3 tbsp butter

1 ½ cups diced onion (about one large)

½ cup shallots, diced

½ cup leeks, trimmed and diced (white with some green), optional

2 stalks of celery, diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

¾ tsp whole fennel seed

10 whole black peppercorns

3 whole cloves

¼ tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

½ tsp herbes de provence or dried thyme

¾ tsp curry powder

3 cups canned diced tomatoes

4 cups clam, fish or shrimp shell broth

4 cups beef broth

3 tbsp tomato paste

½ cup dry sherry

¼ cup dark rum

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

½ lb sea scallops, diced fine

1 lb cod, haddock or halibut, diced coarse

1 lb flounder, diced coarse

sherry peppers, optional (see notes)

Directions

Toast the whole spices (fennel, black pepper, cloves) for a minute or two in a dry pan until fragrant, then grind in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Saute the diced onions, shallots, leeks, celery and carrots all together in butter over medium heat for five or six minutes until soft but not brown. Add the freshly ground spices, along with the red pepper flakes, herbes de provence and curry powder, to the vegetables and saute a minute or two longer.

sauteed chowder vegetables

Add the canned diced tomatoes, sherry, rum, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Bring all to a simmer for a few minutes to evaporate the alcohol. If the tomatoes are chunky, break them up a bit with a potato masher. Add the broths, bring to a medium boil and reduce by about a quarter, until slightly thickened.

Add all the diced fish and scallops and simmer ten minutes more, until fish flakes easily. Break the fish up a bit more, if needed, with a wooden spoon or potato masher - there should be some shreds as well as chunks. Taste for seasonings. Serve with extra dark rum, sherry peppers, or other hot sauce.

diced fish and scallops

<BR><BR>Gratuities

Bermuda fish chowder is the only fish soup I know of that uses beef broth. With the tomato, it actually adds quite a bit of depth. I know I've tossed in a lot of herbs and spices here, but they add a lot to this dish and bloom in the spoon, as it were.

It's impossible to serve this in Bermuda without small shaker bottles of dark rum and the ubiquitous Outerbridge's Sherry Pepper Sauce. Outerbridge's is OK. I'd buy it at the airport, but I wouldn't pay $15 for it on Amazon. You can add a half cup of sherry to any type of sliced hot red peppers (the original uses bird peppers but is only mildly hot) and a bit of salt, let it sit overnight in a jar, and you'll be fine. Or just set out Tabasco, or the heat of your choice.

About fish or clam broth - I've never bought one I wouldn't pour into the ocean rather than incorporate into a dish for me and mine. What I do is freeze the drainage from my own steamed clams, mussels, and lobsters, and boil it up at some point with water, a little white wine, salt, bay leaves and leftover shrimp shells. Shrimp shells, even cooked ones, add a lot.

There is something very British colonial about this dish, very fluted-columns-on-the-veranda, but it's hearty and somehow nostalgic, even if you've never had it. I've spiced the classic recipes up a bit to bring this more in line with my own taste, as well as to copy the favorite - and most Caribbean - of the many versions I've had there.

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Bermuda Fish Chowder