Souper Bowl Sunday – Week 6

Yesterday’s soup was Chrissy’s Crab Chowder that I came across on the Food Network web site. I love crab meat and I was looking for something different than from what we’ve tried in the past. I’ve made a Maryland Crab Soup before, but I wanted to try something more comforting. So I chose this Chowder. I will post her original recipe, and as usual I’ll post underneath what changes I made. I made several changes to lighten up a little bit.

• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 4 ounces (1 stick) butter
• 3/4 cup flour
• 10 slices bacon, soft cooked and chopped
• 5 medium potatoes, peeled, diced and par-boiled for about 5 minutes
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/8 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/8 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 teaspoon seafood seasoning
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 quart milk
• 1 pint heavy cream
• 1 can corn
• 1 pound Maryland blue crabmeat

In medium soup pot, saute the onion and celery on medium heat, with butter, until translucent, about 2 minutes. Turn heat to low, add flour, and mix well until pasty. Using a whisk, stirring slowly, add soft cooked bacon, diced cooked potatoes, parsley, paprika, garlic salt, celery salt, white pepper, seafood seasoning, and salt and pepper, to taste. Mix, and then slowly add the milk and cream, stirring constantly. Add the corn, and finally, gently fold in the crabmeat. Stir slowly. Serve hot.

MY CHANGES:

• I used half of the amount of butter – so I used 4 tablespoons. I wanted to lighten the recipe up a bit, and I didn’t think a full stick of butter was necessary (although I’m sure it would’ve been tasty!)
• I used 3 stalks of celery instead of 2. I wanted to make sure it was thick-n-chunky!
• I added in 3 carrots – I thought it would add some nice color to the chowder.
• In addition to the yellow onion, I added in a few shallots.
• Instead of the flour, I used corn starch. I mixed the corn starch with some water and I added it in after I added all of the other ingredients. It thickened up very nicely. I prefer corn starch to flour when I’m in need of a thickening agent.
• I used 7 slices of bacon instead of 10 slices. I LOVE bacon, but again, I was trying to lighten this up a bit.
• I used more than 1 teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning. 1 teaspoon was definitely not enough in my opinion.
• I used 1 quart of 2% milk – you can probably use whatever milk you want.
• Instead of heavy cream, I used light cream. I probably could’ve gotten away with just using 2 cups of milk in place of the cream, but I wanted to try it out this way first. In the future I will probably use all milk to lighten it up even more.
• I used 1 cup of steamed corn instead of canned – I don’t like canned corn. Although next time I may omit the corn as Mr. CurlyFry wasn’t a huge fan of it.

So with all of the changes I made, we really enjoyed the soup! I’ll  definitely keep it in my recipe box for the future. It was very flavorful and it was enough crab meat so that you get some in every bite.