Fish Chowder - very easy - made in Micro.

Ingredients:

2 tbls. approx. olive or sunflower oil

1 small onion - peeled and chopped

(thinly sliced white part of leek, if wanted)

2 celery stalks - peeled and chopped

approx. 2 medium sized potatoes - peeled and chopped

28fl.ozs. milk & fish stock mixed (again approx.)

couple of bayleaves, clove of garlic - chopped

approx. 12 ozs. cod, haddock, (white fish) - incl. a small amount of smoked haddock if wanted - cut into chunks (use skin for soup, but remove once cooked.)

Season - not too much salt - if you use fish stock cube and smoked haddock.

knob of butter

handful of cooked prawns

fresh corriander - chopped finely

Method:

Put the onion, celery, (leek), garlic and oil into a large bowl.

Zap for a few minutes until just softening.

Add the milk/stock, bayleaves, potatoes and fish and knob of butter.

Zap until the potatoes and celery are soft by which time the fish should certainly be done.

Add the prawns and micro for another couple of minutes.

Remove the bowl from the micro, taste for seasoning and leave for the flavours to 'meld' :).

When the soup is cool, discard the skin.

Keep aside some of the fish, prawns and potato pieces, and liquidise the soup until a nice, creamy texture is achieved.

Add the fish, prawn and potato pieces back in, and add some chopped corriander.

This is a pretty approximate recipe, but if you add more or less of anything, it's easy to correct and tastes good anyway!

If you find it is too thin, just add a little slaked arrowroot or cornflour once the soup is reheated and this should thicken it.

This is really nice as a light meal with a chunk of good bread and butter - you can also throw in a handful of cooked peas.