Corn and Crab Chowder Aga Style

Corn & Crab Chowder

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60 minutes total time 40 minutes active time yields 3 quarts  Costs less than $12.00

You will need a 4qt heavy bottomed pot, a 2qt pot, 2 sheet pans, a steel bowl, whisk, mesh strainer

• 2 onions, small dice about 2 cups
• 4 celery stalks, peeled, small dice about 1 cup
• 1/2 bag of fresh spinach stemmed and rough chop
• pinch of thyme, fresh or dried
• 1 1/2 lbs of red potatoes 1/2 inch dice more or less
• 32 ounces total of clam broth/juice
• 1 lb good frozen corn, about 3 cups
• as much good frozen crab as you can afford. 2 cups is good start. Shrimp or lobster are good substitutions
• 1 1/2 cups cream, milk
• 1/2 to 2/3 cup of flour depending of how thick you want your chowder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Cook potatoes Aga style. In a 2qt pan add potatoes, pinch of salt and enough water to cover. Bring to boil on Boil Plate. After a full boil drain water using the pan lid to hold back potatoes. Its OK to have a little water left in the bottom. Put lid on and into the Baking Oven. Set timer for 7 minutes and check doneness. When cooked thru layout on sheet pan to cool and to stop cooking.

Dice onion and put in 4qt pan with a little veg oil. Place on Boil Plate and stir. When the pan is hot and onions are noisy add a tablespoon or so of water, a pinch of salt and scrape all the onions into the center, off the edge of the pan and place in the Roasting Oven. Peel and dice celery then add the celery and spinach to the onions along with the pinch of thyme. Mix and scrape off of the sides. Place back in the Roasting Oven about 5 more minutes or until the celery and onions are soft and translucent.

Place corn on sheet pan and into the Roasting Oven for around 7 minutes. We are drying out the corn, not roasting it.

Add 24 ounces of clam broth/juice to onion mixture and into the Roasting Oven for 10 minutes or so. Mix flour with remaining 8 ounces of clam broth in a steel bowl. Whisk out as many lumps as you can. Bring the hot broth out of Roasting Oven and onto the Boil Plate. When the broth comes to a boil (should be about 15 seconds) pour flour/broth mixture (slurry) thru a mesh strainer into the boiling broth whisking the whole time. Once soup thickens place in Baking Oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven add cream, corn, potatoes and crab. Stir and taste, adjust seasoning if needed.

Reheat to serve, garnish with a little extra crab if you have it.