How many soups are out there and since when have we even cared? Let’s just make a tasty fish chowder and let the world take care of the rest!

Soups are one of the most ancient form of food preparation methods that spans back to tens of thousands of years in human history.

How was soup made?

Although soup making wasn’t always as sophisticated as today, archeologists found evidence of early soup making in hollowed tree barks, stones or in woven baskets. These findings, may be fascinating, won’t tell the whole picture as soup can be made with tools that couldn’t stand the test of times and found by archaeologists, such like animal hides.

A simple container made of animal hides could be used to make soup over the open fire without any problem. As long as there is liquid inside that dissipated the heat of the fire, the leather will withstand quite a few cooking sessions.

Why to make soups?

Probably our ancestors weren’t really after the perfectly clear body of Consommé as the French call the rich amber or yellow colored purified stock but rather looked for a way to use leftover cuts or simply make otherwise inedible food ready to be consumed.

We still use some of those techniques today, although with very little background knowledge about the whys, but lentils, beans or cassava aren’t soaked and cooked only to make their texture softer and easier to chew on.

What to put into the soup?

As time went by and humans developed more advanced tools, like a clay vessel and later the iron cauldron then soup making became all the rage, besides of the stew when meat was in the plenty, which was almost never the case.

Without herbs, spices, and vegetables soup wouldn’t be able to conquer the heart of so many. Although some had quite a success with stone soups other may found it difficult to achieve similar results.

Some pieces of meat on bones simmering in water may help us get the protein we need but wouldn’t make the hearts of many cheers for a dinner like that.

How many type of soup are there?

It seems that the French took the reins in the soup world too, establishing two main categories and several sub levels in soup making. The world followed in their footsteps as there weren’t really anywhere else to go so every soup, we make nowadays falls into one of the two categories namely Clear soup or Thick soup.

Although most of us in the western part of the world probably well acquainted with the latter, clear soup is also wide and vary in the world, apart from the well documented Bouillon, Broth (AKA Stock) and Consommé.

Once we get into the territory of thick soup, things get a bit muddy and we can’t really make a clear distinction anymore between one or the other, as we can thicken the soup in so many ways, using various techniques with the same dish.

What are chowders?

We can try separate one from another along lines of imagined or real characteristics but that may be just the very destruction of what soup stands for in the first place, namely using soup as a vessel to carry otherwise wasted nutrition’s to our body.

Chowder that fits into the thick soup category -and also into every other sub level, depending on whom we ask and where we are- is a clear or rather murky example of the usefulness of soup in our repertoire.

As chowder isn’t officially recognized by any food governing body, its ingredients could roam free in the wild, constantly adapting to its environment. Nowadays, we can make chowder from anything as long as we pour some cream in it and the ingredients are roughly chopped in there.

What is fish chowder?

Hence fish chowder is a creamy fish soup that can be thickened simply pouring some cream in it or if we don’t count carbs and calories, beef it up with roux and milk.

We aren’t restricted what sort of vegetables we need to add if any so those on keto can go for carbs free without longing for something, they couldn’t have while others can throw in everything, they aren’t ashamed of.

Chowder is the ultimate embodiment of the soup kingdom that stand here today through the test of time as a food for all. The least we can do is stand there for the chowder and enjoy!

Ingredients

- 1lb / 500g Fish
- 5 cups / 1L Water
- ½ cup / 100ml Butter or Cooking oil
- 2 Onions (finely diced)
- 1 Carrot (finely diced)
- 1 stalk Celery (finely diced)
- 1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
- ½ cup / 125ml White vine (optional)
- Optional vegetables (8oz / 200g total)
  - Broccoli
  - Cauliflower
  - Peas
  - Sweetcorn

2 cups / 500ml Heavy cream

How to make Fish chowder

Gut and clean the fish.
Remove the head and the bones as much as it is possible then slice up the fish fillets.
Rinse the head and bones then add them to a pot of water.
Bring it to boil then simmer until the meat separates from the bones for about 30 minutes.
With an immersion blender, or puree the fish and the bones as much as possible.
Run the fish stock through a sieve to remove remaining fish bones. Scrape through as much fish as possible. This is a rather ungrateful part, even if we have a special equipment to make it easier.
Melt butter in a frying pan then saute the diced onion, carrot, celery and salt on high heat until the onion gets a glassy translucent look for about 5 minutes.
Reduce the heat then slowly fry the vegetables until they caramelize for about 15 minutes.
Increase the heat then add the optional vegetables and the fish chunks.
Stir fry for about 3 – 5 minutes. (If frozen vegetables are used more time is needed but not for the fish.)
Add the fish stock and cream then bring it to boil. Take it off heat, let it cool a couple of minutes then serve.