This Potato and Carrot Chowder with Scallops is a wonderful combination of seafood and root vegetables. 

This Potato and Carrot Chowder with Scallops is creamy, warming, and delicious. It's pretty much one of my new favorite soups. We had this soup with a salad for a light dinner, and it was perfect.

One of my favorite food groups is potatoes. If there really was a Justice for Potatoes League, I would join it. Plus, potatoes pair very nicely with my other favorite food group, cheese!

I also adore the sweet and rich flavor of scallops, and this soup is the perfect way to enjoy them.

This soup is actually pretty light. Instead of heavy cream, the soup gets its creaminess from milk and a puree of a portion of the vegetables already in the pot.

This soup was wonderful the day it was made, and surprisingly, also made amazing leftovers!

This recipe also calls for additional seafood. I added some fresh squid which I stir-fried before adding it to the soup, as well as cooked shrimp, clams, and mussels. Any cooked seafood mixture, including salmon, halibut, or cod, would work with this recipe.

This month, the Soup Saturday Swappers are sharing soups with root vegetables. This soup has potatoes, carrots, and onions, all root vegetables, and all delicious. Thank you to Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm for hosting this month and choosing a great theme. After the recipe, be sure to scroll down to check out the rest of the group's soups with root vegetables.

Potato and Carrot Chowder with Scallops

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 tablespoons salted butter
• 12 ounces large scallops, quartered
• 4 bacon strips, thinly sliced
• 1 large yellow or brown onion, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, thinly sliced
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• 3 white or Yukon gold potatoes (about one pound), diced.
• 2 large sprigs of fresh thyme
• 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 2 cups milk, scalded
• 10 ounces of cooked seafood, such as squid, mussels, clams, or shrimp
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a 4 quart sauce pan over medium heat. Add the scallops and cook them for 5 minutes. (If they don't all fit in a single layer, cook them in batches.) Remove the scallops from the pan onto a plate. Set aside.
2. Add the bacon to the pan and sauté for about 4 minutes. Add the onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover and cook over medium-low, stirring occasionally until the vegetables start to soften. Add the thyme, two tablespoons of the parsley, and the stock. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Removes the thyme sprigs.
3. Take a ladle full of the vegetables out of the pan and place them in a bowl. Mash them with a fork or puree them with an immersion blender, and then place them back into the pan.
4. Add the milk, the scallops, and the seafood mixture to the pan. Heat the mixture to serving temperature, add the lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve, garnished with parsley.

Yield: Serves 6

Recipe adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks, The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook. 

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