Kitchen-Sinking: Sardine Chowder

"Kitchen Sinking" is taken from the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" it's the general phrase I use when I have vegetables that I NEED to use.

The hoard:
a single potato
and a giant leek

solution: Sardine chowder!

I've always wanted to try making a chowder that wasn't Manhattan style. Looking at the Prepared Pantry's site on "How to Make Chowder" I gathered a general procedure on approaching chowder.

- Saute all the veggies (minus anything that will just specifically boiled like the potatoes)
- add stock or water
- add thickener, boil
- add cream
- add sardines!

Since I made this on a whim with the intentions of using up that leek and that potato, I knew it wasn't going to be perfect, but it still came out pretty darned edible.

I dumped chopped onion, celery, and leek in a pot of canola oil and sauteed until they were all soft. Added 2 cups of broth and the chopped potato and let it boil. When the potato was soft, I started adding the corn starch paste slowly and mixing it allowing the soup to come back to a boil and thicken. Once I decided it was thick enough, I added some milk and the sardines.

It was good, but I think the route to go is boneless skinless sardines. The sardines I had were too nice to mix in a chowder and I prefer eating roe on it's own or on a cracker. The chowder wasn't particularly sardine-y, but I don't think that's a bad thing, lastly, I think it would be worth the effort to try potatoes or mashed potato mix as a thickener. I just used corn starch because it's what I'm most use to as a thickener. Maybe I'll try bacon or butter at the beginning.