Long Island-Style Seafood Chowder With Roasted Red Pepper Recipe

With both a tomato base and plenty of cream, Long Island chowder lands smack dab in the middle between Manhattan chowder and New England chowder, much like the eponymous location itself. In restaurants, it is often a gimmick, where a bowl is simply made with a ladle of each variety, but not so here. This recipe is built from the ground up to be the best of both worlds, a seafood chowder with the deep umami of tomatoes, the smoky sweetness of roasted red peppers, and a silkiness that only cream can provide. No matter which of the dominant Northeastern chowders you prefer, this one is sure to please your palate.

On top of the clever combination of styles, this recipe is made hearty with plenty of potatoes, onion, garlic, and, of course, seafood. For the protein here, we eschewed the traditional clams, choosing instead a medley of complementary flavors. Succulent shrimp, tender pieces of cod, and luscious scallops gently poached in the flavorful broth create a perfect melange of flavors, making this a recipe that you'll come back to again and again.

For this recipe, you will need russet potatoes, bacon, onions, garlic, roasted red peppers, tomato paste, vegetable or shrimp broth, clam juice, shrimp, cod, scallops, a bit of half and half or cream, and a touch of apple cider vinegar. Once you have these ingredients together, it is just a few steps and a little simmer before you'll be chowing down on a complex and delicious bowl of chowder unlike anything you've had before.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and parboil the potatoes for around 8 minutes, or until tender. Drain and set aside.

Bring a large, heavy-bottomed pot to medium-high heat and cook the bacon until crisp, then remove and set aside.

Add half of the diced onion to the pot and cook for around 4 minutes, until it's just turning translucent.

Add the tomato paste, roasted red peppers, and half of the parboiled potatoes to the pot and cook, stirring often, for around 3 minutes, until the tomato paste begins to stick to the bottom.

Pour in the clam juice and broth, and scrape the fond from the bottom of the pot.

Puree the soup using an immersion blender.

Add the shrimp, cod, scallops, garlic, and the remaining onion and potatoes, and bring back to a boil. Simmer for around 10 minutes, until the seafood is cooked through.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cream and cider vinegar.

Serve hot, garnished with the bacon pieces and minced parsley.

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In short, absolutely. Clams may stand out here as the obvious absence, as both New England chowder and Long Island chowder are typically built around that particular bivalve, so feel free to add them in. Quahogs are great for clam chowder, but you can really use any of the many types of clams. The easiest way to add them to the soup is simply to steam them separately and then add them near the end — so they don't cook any more than they need to — either whole or chopped. And as a bonus, that steaming water can serve the role of the clam juice in the recipe, meaning you don't need to buy it in a bottle.

But don't limit yourself to that traditional avenue either. The beauty of a seafood chowder is that you can use whatever you have on hand. Feel free to swap out the cod for another type of whitefish and the scallops for another shellfish. Mussels could be treated the same as clams, or you could even get creative and add some crab or lobster. With this seafood chowder recipe, the world is your oyster, as they say, and a few of those poached in this delicious, creamy soup wouldn't be half bad either.

We all love a nice, thick soup, as evidenced by the many ways we've concocted to accomplish the task. When it comes to tips for making a creamy soup, this recipe already contains a couple, but there are plenty more than you can use to get it extra velvety. In addition to the use of cream, which obviously makes this chowder thick and silky, the pureed potatoes add their own thickening power, as the starches gelatinize when simmered. But if you want things thicker, you have some options. The obvious option for an extra creamy bowl of Long Island seafood chowder is just to increase the quantities of cream and potatoes. More pureed potatoes and a little extra bit of cream will thicken things right up, lending the chowder an even heartier, even silkier texture. If that still isn't enough, consider adding some more starch in the cooking process.

One age-old method for this is to add a little bit of flour. When the onions are cooked, stir in some flour and cook it for a few minutes, until the onions start to brown around the edges. Once you add the broth, this will be just another layer of gelatinized starch to give the chowder a thicker texture.

Alternatively, if you cook the whole recipe and then decide you want to change the texture, a cornstarch slurry is one of the best ingredients to thicken homemade soup. Just mix a little cornstarch and water together, then stir that into the pot and allow it to cook for a minute or two. When the chowder noticeably thickens, the starch is cooked, and you are ready to eat.

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