New England Meets Southeast: Pan Seared Fish Fillet with Crab and Corn Chowder
This is a spring and summer dish that we do a rendition of every year. It's one of my favorites because it blends a little bit of my cooking background in New England with the great local ingredients of the southeast. We make a corn chowder with a lot of seasonal elements as they become available. The base is always a buttery sweet corn puree. We add in some local vegetables, whether that's escarole from Billy's Botanicals, locally foraged chanterelles, or my favorite - small new potatoes in the spring. We always serve it with a smoked pork element, usually bacon but sometimes ham. There is always a shellfish component. Right now it's crab from North Carolina, but it's very good with mussels or clams as well. Lastly, the main component is some variety of local, pan seared fish. We have done everything from grouper to flounder and lots of different varieties in between.
