Delia Smith Smoked Haddock Chowder Recipe

No prawns, mussels or clams go into Delia Smith’s seafood chowder, a 50-minute soup for 4 made with undyed smoked haddock. The fish is poached in milk and water, half of it blended into a soft onion and butter base, and the rest flaked back in with lemon juice. Then poached quails’ eggs wait in the bottom of each bowl.

She adapted it from Cullen skink, the famous smoked haddock soup from Scotland, for the Warming Up chapter of her Winter Collection (1995). The same recipe turns up again in the spring pages of The Delia Collection: Soup (2003).

It’s the only chowder in her books that I can find. If you came looking for a shellfish one, this is the closest she gets, and it’s richer than it sounds.

The smoke runs right through the soft base, the lemon lifts it, and the eggs are a soft surprise under the soup when your spoon finds them. For a chunky, tomato-based fish soup instead, try her garlicky fish soup.

Delia Smith’s Smoked Haddock Chowder with Poached Eggs

Recipe by Anne Morgan

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: SoupsCuisine: ScottishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

40

minutes

Calories

355

kcal

Pale, smooth and gently smoky, with flakes of haddock and a soft-yolked poached egg hidden in every bowl.

Ingredients

• For the chowder:

• 560g (1lb 4oz) undyed smoked haddock, cut into 4 pieces

• 500ml (18fl oz) milk

• 500ml (18fl oz) water

• 1 bay leaf

• 40g (1½oz) butter

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped

• 25g (1oz) flour

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 8 quails’ eggs (or 4 hens’ eggs)

• 1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

• salt and freshly milled black pepper

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Directions

• Poach: Put the haddock in a large saucepan of about 3.5 litres with the milk, water, bay leaf and some pepper, but no salt yet. Bring it slowly to a simmer and cook very gently for 5 minutes, then tip everything into a bowl and leave to steep for 15 minutes.
• Onion: Meanwhile, wipe out the pan, melt the butter and let the onion sweat very gently, without colouring, for about 10 minutes.
• Base: Lift the haddock onto a board with a draining spoon, keeping the liquid. Discard the bay leaf and peel off the skin. Stir the flour into the onion, then add the fish liquid a little at a time, stirring after each addition, and add half the haddock in flakes.
• Blend: Blend the soup thoroughly in a liquidiser or food processor, then push it through a sieve back into the pan, pressing hard on the fish left behind. Flake in the rest of the haddock, season with salt, pepper and lemon juice, and keep warm.
• Eggs: Pour boiling water into a medium frying pan over the lowest heat, so only the odd bubble rises from the base. Crack in the eggs, cook for 1 minute, then take the pan off the heat and leave quails’ eggs for 3 minutes, or hens’ eggs for 10.
• Serve: Lift the eggs out with a draining spoon held over a wad of kitchen paper. Put 2 quails’ eggs or 1 hen’s egg in each warm shallow bowl, ladle the chowder over and scatter with parsley.

Notes

• The yolks stay soft, so for anyone pregnant, elderly or very young, I'd use British Lion eggs, which UK food safety advice treats as safe to eat runny.
• The fish already brings salt, so taste before adding any.

FAQs

Should I use quails’ eggs or hens’ eggs?

Either, depending on the meal. Quails’ eggs make it a lighter starter, and she likes the surprise of lifting a whole little egg out on your spoon.

Hens’ eggs make it more substantial, a main course for 4. Both ways, she serves it with brown bread and butter.

Can I make it for one?

Yes, her One is Fun (1987) has a single bowl with 175g of smoked haddock, 175ml each of milk and water, 10g of butter, half a small onion and a level teaspoon of flour. She cooked it on her One is Fun TV programme too, calling it something between a soup and a fish stew.

The egg is the clever part. Instead of a separate pan, one large egg is broken straight into the gently simmering soup and lifted out after about 4 minutes to check it, then served in a shallow soup plate with the egg in the middle.

Can I add prawns or mussels?

You can, though it’s not in her recipe. My own way would be to stir a handful of cooked, peeled prawns in with the last of the flaked haddock and just heat them through, so they don’t turn rubbery.

For mussels, I’d steam them open separately, then add the shelled mussels at the end and a splash of their strained juices to the soup.

Is it the same as Cullen skink?

It’s her own take on it. Her version has no potato and gets its body from a little flour and the blended haddock, passed through a sieve for a smooth, creamy base.

Traditional Cullen skink is often thickened with potato, which is my own note rather than hers. Her poached eggs are her addition too.