Smoked Salmon Chowder

I’m a little bit of a lazy cook. Anything that takes longer than 30-45 minutes to cook, or requires my sole attention, often gets put into the ‘too hard basket’. Which is why I think I caught Luke a little off-guard when I suggested that I might make a salmon chowder the other weekend. Notwithstanding the fact that I had never attempted a seafood chowder before, the entire process is quite labourious. Preparation involves a lot of fine chopping, not to mention that this isn’t exactly the type of soup that you want to leave bubbling away on top of the stove. Seafood chowder may not be synonymous with summer, but it served as the perfect warming meal on a stormy Sydney evening.

Given that Luke declared the chowder the ‘best thing I had made ever’, I couldn’t help but share the recipe with you all. I used a recipe from Pinch of Yum, which is a great starting point if like me, you’ve never cooked a seafood chowder before. It calls for smoked salmon, which you can pick up from your local deli or supermarket, making it a super easy twist on the classic chowder. I didn’t have any dried thyme lying around so I chose to use a generous bunch of fresh thyme instead. If you choose to go for fresh thyme over dried, I’d recommend tying this so that the sprigs are easy to remove once you’re ready to serve. While not every recipe you find online turns out quite the way you would expect, this one is definitely getting tucked away for winter next year.