While at the library recently, as my baby girl was pulling random books off the shelves, she picked out a children’s cookbook (Professor Cook’s Dynamite Dinners) which we decided to try out.

Our first recipe was a Smoked Haddock Chowder and it was DELICIOUS! Admittedly children’s recipes are often very bland so I have added a few spices, but overall it’s a very nice recipe so I thought I would share.This one is designed to be served in a bread roll soup bowl, which is also fun, though impractical, as the bread roll is so small you can’t fit much actual soup in it. However it’s also yummy in a bowl with a crusty roll on the side! Sadly I forgot to take a picture of it though…

Ingredients

• 6 Crusty Cob bread rolls (we only bought two and froze the excess soup)
• 1-2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 500g potatoes, peeled and chopped into small pieces
• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped into small pieces
• 1.2 litres of milk (I only used a litre but it wasn’t enough – definitely needs the full amount)
• 1 garlic clove, crushed (I added more garlic as I needed a bit more flavour!)
• 300g tinned sweetcorn, drained
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped into small pieces
• 450g smoked haddock fillets (skinned)
• Handful of parsley, chopped
• Salt and pepper

I also added 1 vegetable stock cube (though a fish stock cube would probably work too) and a few of pinches of paprika to taste.

Steps

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180c
2. Cut the top off the rolls and pick out the soft bread, leaving the “bowl”, brush the inside with olive oil and put into the oven for 15mins to seal the bowl.
3. Put the chopped potatoes and onion into a large saucepan with the milk and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins.
4. Stir in the garlic, peppers, sweetcorn, and fish fillets (whole). Simmer for another 5-10 mins until the fish flakes easily into pieces.
5. (At this point I also added a stock cube, some paprika, and plenty of salt and pepper to taste). Add the chopped parsley at the end.
6. Spoon into the bread bowls (or regular bowls!) and serve.

I’m not too sure how well this freezes, but have put a couple of tubs in the freezer so we will find out!

It’s also nice that it’s a soup that doesn’t take ages to cook – really quite quick as long as your potato chunks aren’t too big.

(Postscript – I took a picture the next time I made it – here it is! Yummmmm)