Seafood Chowder Recipe

Better.TV talks to Iron Chef, Jose Garces about winning the title and he shows you how to make a seafood chowder.

Audra Lowe: He’d beat out the competition for the world’s most coveted culinary title and now he joins the ranks of other celebrity chefs after he’s big win on The Next Iron Chef. Jose Garces had a lot of success prior to spending years perfecting his well known signature Latin cooking style. He's also the executive chef and owner of six restaurants and today Jose’s giving us little lesson and preparing some chowder for us well. Jose Garces: Yeah, a little Peruvian and inspired chowder. Audra Lowe: I love that. Before get that, congratulations. I was so happy for you. Jose Garces: Thank you. Audra Lowe: So what do you feel like when they said, you know you were the winner, what did that feel like? Jose Garces: Wow! I mean it was truly a life changing moment, I mean and I was very humbled and I was just in awe of the whole experience. Audra Lowe: Right, it was a crazy, crazy experience. A lot of anxiety, a lot of the stress going into the whole thing right but you gets to calm, cool the whole time? Jose Garces: I got to stay focus on there all of that those circumstances. Audra Lowe: How do you do that though, even with the cameras rolling and then all the challenges how do you keep your calm? Jose Garces: I think I was just focused on the price which was to become the next iron chef so I knew in order to do that I had to keep my calm and stay focused. Audra Lowe: Yeah, you're better than me because I would have burned up everything in the house too. What about your competition who do you think was your biggest competition? Jose Garces: There was a lot of talented chef so I thought Chef Mullin was really going to be their chef apple man from San Francisco. So it could have been anyone of those. Audra Lowe: Anybody ha? Jose Garces: Yeah. Audra Lowe: Did you ever a point when you just said I can't make it or I'm not going to do this or just think that it’s not going to be me? Jose Garces: I think I had a few of those moments but I didn’t want to show that and I just, you know, once again keeping my eyes focused on being the next iron chef. Audra Lowe: Yeah, and last question to the judges speaking of stay and focus to you see on them every single time as far as the results of concern did you have a favorite judge, a least favorite judge that you could woo a little bit? Jose Garces: Well actually I like actually I liked all the judges. But I thought Anya was the most level headed and seemed to be—be the most unbiased I'll say that. Audra Lowe: Yeah, there you. Well, congratulations again and now what you're doing is doing us your expertise and what kind of chowder are we making specifically? Jose Garces: This is a chufa which is Caribbean style chowder; I’m actually Ecuadorian so I actually grew up with eating similar soups like this and now the winner in that I think it’s perfect. Audra Lowe: It’s perfect, at anytime now. What about the ingredients what do you need to get started with? Jose Garces: So it’s a chowder so there a lot of root vegetables and vegetables. We have some onions and garlic, some sweet pepper, celery, carrots the foundation for the soup. We also have garlic, jalapeños, ginger, and some habaneras for little heat. We also have this Caribbean Aji Amarillo chile paste which is pretty fruity and really brings a nice kick to the whole chowder. Audra Lowe: You need some kick to it too. Jose Garces: Definitely. Audra Lowe: Okay, so once you mix it all together that’s what we had here. Jose Garces: Yup, so you sauté basically all of the aromatic vegetables. You hit it with white wine and the fish stock to get that kind of simmering and then I put a touch of cream. If you want to keep it healthy you want to try that you can leave it at the Yucca actually works as a nice thickener. So we have some the chowders actually work in pretty nice there. Now I'm going to add some of the shell fish so I have some— Audra Lowe: Okay, you’ve got scallops here and— Jose Garces: I've got scallops, calamari its really as much shell fish as you'd like pick up the ones you do like. Audra Lowe: And you always add this towards and you say just give it a few minutes, right? Jose Garces: Just give it a few minutes. I have some open clams and muscles on there. Audra Lowe: Wow! Then it been already been cooked for about how long? Jose Garces: They're been cooked for about two or three minutes just enough to open up the shells. And that’s pretty much it. I'm going to put a few of these clam in here. Audra Lowe: And the finish product ends up looking like this over here which is absolutely gorgeous, you know. Does this your own specialty? Jose Garces: This is a traditional—that’s what I do I take traditional recipes and put my spin on because in my opinion also with— Audra Lowe: That’s what they're going to do. Jose Garces: Yeah, well often have been cooked at some point so it’s really good to take it up to the next level. Audra Lowe: Exactly, all right. So we’re going to plate some of this in just a second and taste it I'm sure it’s going to be fabulous. Jose Garces: It’s going to be delicious. Audra Lowe: Thank you so much and congratulations again. Jose Garces: Thank you. Audra Lowe: And make sure to check out Jose at Kitchen Stadium for his battle as a New Iron Chef the show air is Sunday evenings on the Food Network.