Seastew

It's not very common, but occasionally Brian Jacques would expand on the ingredients of a dish, rather than just simply giving the name. In the book Triss, the badger Sagax has seastew: "The seastew was rare good eating, comprised of many types of shrimp and shellfish, thickened with cornflour, and full of mushroom, potato, leek, and carrot." I did my best to come up with a recipe that followed this guideline and think I did a fairly good job. The "shellfish" probably should be clams, oysters, or mussels instead of crab, but I don't like any of those and I do like crab so I made a tiny change there. I did really mess up one thing, though: my local grocery store doesn't sell chunk crab meat. It also doesn't sell shrimp in smaller quantities than two pounds, so I tried to buy 8 ounces of canned meat of each. What it turned out I was buying was 8 ounces of canned shrimp puree and 8 ounces of canned crab puree...so be cautious not to make the same mistake I did.

Seastew

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes

Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp butter or olive oil
• 1 leek
• 3 carrots
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 1/2 pound potatoes (preferably Yukon gold)
• 6 cups seafood stock (If you can't get it, vegetable stock is fine)
• 2 cups dry white wine or sherry
• 6 oz tomato paste
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp cayenne
• 8 ounces whole button mushrooms
• 8 ounces cooked shellfish meat (chunked crab, oysters, clams, etc)
• 8 ounces cooked shrimp (de-shelled and de-tailed)

Directions

1. Roughly chop the leek, and carrots and peel the garlic.
   
2. Roughly chop the potatoes. 
   
3. Melt the butter (or heat the oil) in a large soup pot and saute the leek, carrots, and garlic for 5 minutes or until the leek is soft.
   
4. Add the potatoes and saute another 5 minutes
   
5. Add the stock, wine, and tomato paste and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
   
6. Meanwhile, dissolve the cornstarch into the milk.
   
7. When the soup is done simmering and the potatoes are tender, puree using an immersion blender or a regular blender in batches.
   
8. Stir in the milk/cornstarch mixture, the Worcestershire, the pepper, and the fish. Simmer until fish is heated through.