Manhattan Style Roasted Vegetable and Seafood Chowder

 

Serves 6 -8

Start by roasting the vegetables.

Chop into bite sized pieces:

½ fennel bulb
1 medium red onion
2 carrots
2 parsnips
1 red pepper
2 stalks celery

Toss the vegetables in 3 tbsp olive oil, season in salt and pepper and bake in a single layer on a cookie sheet for 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees F or until the vegetables are slightly browned and fork tender. Turn the vegetables once during cooking.

In a sauté pan, cook to crisp

6 slices of bacon chopped in small pieces

In the last few minutes of rendering the bacon, add

3 ounces of chopped chorizo sausage

Drain off the fat and deglaze the pan with some of the soup stock and add to the soup pot when adding the bacon and sausage.

In a large pot sauté

3 cloves minced garlic
1 large shallot finely chopped
in
2 tbsp olive oil
Add ¾ cup white wine
Boil gently until reduce to about half the volume.

Add the roasted vegetables along with

Previously cooked bacon and sausage
3 cups tomato juice
3 cups fish stock (or chicken stock if you prefer)
3 cups vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
2 tsp fresh thyme
2 tsp marjoram
Salt and pepper to season

Simmer very gently for 20-30 minutes before adding:

1 ½ to 2 pounds of seafood of your choice, cut into bite sized pieces
3 chopped Roma tomatoes

Simmer very gently for another 5 to 10 minutes until the fish is cooked. Any combination of shrimp, salmon, halibut, cod, mussels, clams etc all work well. Remove bay leaf. Serve with a sprinkle of fresh chopped Italian parsley or dill. Personally, if I am adding shrimp and scallops, I prefer to pan sear these separately and add them to the chowder bowls when serving.