Each New Year's Day reminds me of my great-grandmother, Lena. She lived next door to us when I was growing up. She is one of my cooking inspirations and memories of her kitchen are always fresh in my mind. I remember New Year's Day at her house very, very well. She was quite superstitious. On New Year's Day, my sister and I were not allowed to be her first visitors, its bad luck. Good luck is for your first visitor of the day to be a man. So, if we wanted to go see her or needed to take her something, Dad had to come with us and go in first. Walking into the back door of her house brought us straight into the kitchen where she was usually propped up on a stool by the big white porcelain sink. On the stove would be a pot of black eyed peas for New Year's Day, another tradition that, if eaten, would bring you good fortune for the year. She made everyone eat some, even my sister who was quite a picky eater back then, had to have a small spoonful.
Well, on this New Year's Day, I didn't make black-eyed peas (does playing their music in the background count?) but I did make Jamie's Shrimp and Sweet Corn Chowder (pg. 294) for my family. This recipe impressed everyone once again and I craved the leftovers until lunchtime the next day.
New Year's Day is not only a day "for auld lang syne" but for thinking of our more recent past. 2010 gave me this project and this blog. Thanks so much for joining me for the first part of this journey. I hope you'll stick around for a few more weeks to see if I finish.
I also hope you'll give the chowder a try and tell me what you think….
Shrimp and Sweet Corn Chowder
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
pg. 294
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
• 1 large leek washed and chopped • 1 pound of potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 inch chunks • 1 quart chicken broth, Jamie says, "preferably organic" • Olive oil • 6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon sliced • 1 2/3 cups sweetcorn • 1/2 pound large shrimp, peeled • 1 1/4 cups heavy cream • sea salt and pepper • 1 fresh red chili de-seeded and chopped (I didn't have one and the chowder was great without it)• 6 cream crackers crushed
To Cook
Pour the chicken broth into a saucepan and bring to a boil
Add bacon rashers to casserole type pan with olive oil, cook until golden and crispy. Using tongs transfer cooked bacon to a plate leaving the fat in the pan.
Add the leek and potatoes to the pan and cook for 3-5 min.
Add sweetcorn and shrimp. Add hot broth and cream.
Add a good pinch of salt and pepper. Stir.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 min until potatoes are tender.
Remove off heat and blend. Season again to taste.
Serve with chopped chili, crackers and bacon on the side. (the pictures in the book also appear to have parsley and not chili, I used that instead.)
Recipes cooked: 105
Recipes left: 68
Days left: 63
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hi amy! 1) what's a rasher? 2) what are cream crackers? 3) when you say "remove off head and blend" do you mean blend as in stir together or blend as in put it in a blender?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Great questions, Marie! You asked a lot of the same questions I did. After a bit of googling and a bit of guessing here's what I found out...
ReplyDelete1. A rasher is a strip of bacon.
2. Not completely sure what a cream cracker is but I've used either Ritz or Club crackers when his recipes call for them and both seem to work great.
3. Yes, remove off heat and blend. I happen to have an attachment for my electric hand mixer that you can use in pots to blend and that's what I used. But for a few of the soup recipes I've kept them chunky. Either is fine. I imagine you could use a blender or food processor too.