Crab Chowder

January 23, 2014
Food,Recipes

Remember the crab boil from Tuesday? Well, if you’re anything like me, you probably prepared more crabs than any sane person could eat. I love making a chowder with left over crab. To me the perfect chowder consistency should not be watery but also not thick and goopy. This soup has the perfect consistency and, better yet, each spoonful is full of softened potatoes and crab. I ditched the typical oyster crackers for a biscuit-sized piece of buttery puff pastry that I dusted with salty parmesan because I had some extra frozen puff pastry laying around after I made this galette. I think it goes without saying that the addition was totally awesome. On a side note, yesterday was National Clam Chowder Day– as if you needed another reason to make this!

Crab Chowder

Chowder ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups of crab meat
  • 3 cups of shellfish stock, or alternatively chicken stock
  • 1 large yukon gold potato
  • 1 leek, trimmed
  • 1 small yellow onion or half large
  • 2 stalk of celery, trimmed
  • 2 cups of frozen white corn (of course, use fresh if corn is in season!)
  • 2 tablespoons of flour
  • 3 tablespoons of butter
  • 1 pint of heavy whipping cream
  • Kosher and sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Shellfish stock ingredients:

  • 6 cups of crushed crab shell (or shrimp shells)
  • 2 quarts of water

Puff pastry tops ingredients:

  • 1 sheet of puff pastry, defrosted
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • small handful of grated parmesan

Crab chowder ingredients

To make the shellfish stock, place the crab shells in a large ziplock and break down into smaller pieces using a hammer.

Crab chowder

Fill the stock pot with 2 quarts of cold water and bring to a simmer.  Simmer for 1 hour. Salt to taste and strain.

Shellfish stock

Finely dice the celery stalks and onions. Thinly slice the leek. Sautee them over medium heat with the 3 tablespoons of butter and cook until softened, about 10 minutes.

Celery

Add flour to the vegetables and stir constantly, cooking the flour, for about 3 minutes. Add the stock and heavy cream and bring to a low simmer. Finely dice the potatoes and add to the soup.

Crab chowder

Simmer until potatoes are cooked through and soft. Then, add the crab meat and corn and simmer in low heat for another 5 minutes. Remove from the stove. Salt and pepper to taste.

To make puff pastry tops, roll out defrosted puff pastry and cut into circles. Brush the tops with a beaten egg and sprinkle with grated parmesan. Bake at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Crab chowder with puff pastry

Top soups with puff pastry.

Crab chowder 1

Dig in!
Crab chowder bowl

And enjoy!

Crab chowder 2

(images by HonestlyYUM)

Conversation

I just made this for my daughter and myself for Valentine’s day. Very yummy and full of love!

I’m making this recipe tonight, I’m reading through the steps and I can’t seem to find celery in your ingredient list but you mention it in the blog? Am I missing something?

Just found your site and LOVE it. The photos are beautiful, the recipes look heavenly. My husband has been asking me for clam chowder, but I haven’t made it to the market to get clams. I do, however, have some crab meat in the freezer from a recent sushi party. BUT, I’m afraid its not real. Would this totally kill the recipe, or do you think it would still taste okay?

Excited to start following you!

I’m just getting into the whole blog thing, but feel free to check out my blog @ lovinglink.wordpress.com

Thanks again for the beautiful posts.

Thanks so much! I’ve never made it with mock crab meat but always worth a try!

Looks rad. Where do buy your crab from?

From a local seafood market. Try Chinese or Asian markets as they’ll often have live crab!

This looks absolutely perfect for this weekend. Crab and corn are so good together!

They are! Too bad their seasons don’t coincide in California. But still, even frozen corn, so good together!

Its even chilly in Florida so this is perfect comfort food. Can’t wait to try this recipe, it looks amazing! I’m going to cheat with the puff top pastry though and just buy already made croissants 🙂

Oooh absolutely loved the crab pictures from the crab broil post and this looks like the perfect way to make the most of the delicious flavours in the crab shells. Even better is that I now don’t need to wait for summer to give me the excuse to splash out on some whole crabs

Oh goodness, yes! It’s incredibly cold here today and I could go with this for a hearty soup of choice. x

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