Mid-week meal: Seafood chowder

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 1 fillet of smoked haddock
• 200g hake
• 200g new potatoes
• 2 handfuls of mussels
• 2 bottles cider (we’d recommend Cranborne Chase Cider)
• 125g button mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 1 large, chopped onion
• A handful of bay leaves
• Sprig of fresh thyme
• Juice 1/2 lemon, to taste
• Dash of double cream just prior to serving
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 200g greens
• 1/2 leek

Method:

1. On a medium heat, sweat the onions until soft but not browned. Skin the fish and bring 1 and 1/2 bottles of cider to the simmer with the leek, mushroom stalks and peppercorns. This creates a very quick and flavourful fish stock.
2. Now add the mushrooms to the onions and continue to cook. Add the strained cider stock and start to reduce with half of the bay leaves and thyme. You can blanch your greens in this, so you don’t lose any of the nutrients into a boiling pan. Once blanched, remove greens and put to one side.
3. Add the quartered potatoes and simmer for 8 minutes. Now you will have time to drink the 1/2 bottle of cider left over from the recipe!
4. Add the diced fish and turn the heat down, so the fish poaches lightly. Just before the fish is cooked, add the mussels and then your greens to ensure they are piping hot.
5. Remove all the goodies from the sauce and distribute between 4 preheated bowl plates. Turn the heat up, add the last half of your aromatics, add a dash of cream, season and reduce to your preferred consistency, then pour over the delights in the bowls.

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