InsaneJournal

Really really filling MacGyvered Fish Stew/Soup/Stew
Ideal recipe, as cobbled together from a few online recipes:
Some kind of firm white fish
Fish stock & milk
2 cans cream of potato
condensed tomato soup
1 large pepper
1 m onion
3-4 slices of bacon
corn
oregano, thyme, Old Bay

The recipe as I ended up making it:
1 3/4lb frozen cod (cod because it’s what was available, frozen because $6/lb is a lot more reasonable than $15/lb)
1 can condensed cream of potato
1 can condensed clam chowder
1 can whatever-was-handy potato soup (I think it was baked potato + bacon—the f'n store only had one can of plain cream of potato)
1 orange pepper (or whatever color pepper[s] strike your fancy)
2 small yellow onions
4-5 slices bacon
about a cup of corn
1 to 1 ½ cup DIY kamikaze seafood stock (about 2 cups water, lobster shells, oregano, thyme, onion or garlic powder if you’re determined, and Old Bay seasoning; boil it down for a little while)
Sake, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce.


Get a decent-sized deep pot—this makes a lot of soup.

Chop up the bacon and throw it into the pot over medium heat. Slice up the onions and toss them in with a splash of Worcestershire once the bacon’s about half done. Seed and dice the pepper (stir the onion/bacon mess occasionally while you’re doing this, too—burnt onions and bacon is a sad thing) and once the onions look about done, toss in the peppers as well. Cover it all up & fry until the peppers just start to get tender. (Mushy peppers are sad, too.)

Remove; put in a bowl on the side.

Chop your fish up into about 1” chunks, toss it in the same pan from the bacon mess, and put it back on medium heat to cook. The chunks’ll break up some while you stir them. I threw some sake—probably a tablespoon—in on the fish while it was cooking. Some people might like sherry, but I don’t have (or like) sherry so whatever. :-P The fish was frozen, which left some extra water in the bottom of the pan and resulted in me not having to use quite as much stock.

When the fish looks cooked, dump in your cans of condensed soup and as much stock as it takes to get to a reasonable consistency. (Any person trying to make this needs to taste-test. Lots.) Add in the bacon/onion/pepper OT3 mix and the corn, squeeze & stir in a tablespoon or two of ketchup, heat till bubbling and hold it there for a few minutes to be absolutely certain everything's cooked through, and with the addition of a big chunk of crusty Italian bread you’re good to go.



Results are tasty. :D