Catfish Chowder, Ala the Goodwife..........

Every spring and summer our clan heads to the lake to fish.  What do we fish for?  Catfish of course!  Channel cats or mud cats, we don't care, we love 'em all.  Actually I prefer the taste of mud cat, or maybe you call them yellow bellies?  Anywho, there is no size limit on mud cats because folks usually consider them a pest fish, like bluegill (which we enjoy as well). 

As I was makin' my Aldi list on Sunday I found three gallon bags full of itty bitty mud cats.  I was wondering what I could do with them and thought of clam chowder.  I have a recipe for cannin' New England style clam chowder and thought I could probably whip somethin' up, so I got started!

First I put my witty bitty frozen mud cats in my pressure pan and seasoned them up good.....

Fish takes no time to cook in a pressure cooker.  Once you get the steam up and put the jiggler on, it only takes about 10 minutes or less, so while that was cookin' I got the rest of my stuff ready to go!

1/2 lb of bacon..........

2 cups diced onions.........

About 4 quarts or so of peeled 'taters.......

Saute the bacon until it's slightly brown, then add in the onions and saute.......

Dump your 'taters in there and add some seasonings, I used dill, salt, pepper, and some celery seed....

Now while your bacon was cooking and your onions were sauteing you should have been boning that catfish.  Here's a little secret........when you pressure cook catfish, the bones do the same thing salmon bones do.  Yup, they get "soft" so you don't have to pick through it too much.  Pick out most of the bones but if you miss some it's ok because you can eat them. 

Cooked catfish..........

After you get all your catfish mushed up and the bones out, you add that to your pot of bacon, 'taters, and onions.  Then you strain the broth to get out any loose bones and add the broth to your pot along with some water if need be.  How much?  Heck I don't know, this is the Goodwife you are talkin' to....you just add enough!  ;0)  No really, you add enough to make a soup, as you shouldn't can really thick stew.  It should be a nice consistency, not too watery and not super thick either. 

You also musn't can this in anything bigger than a pint.  I used half-pints for single servings and then did some in pints for more than one.

 Once it's in the canners..........

You process it for an hour and 40 minutes at 11 lbs pressure and whalllaaaa.....

You've got Goodwife Farm's Catfish Chowder!

To serve you dump your chowder in a pan, add in some milk and some butter and heat through, but don't boil.

Then you eat it up!

Quite yummy with some homemade bread and butter and a glass of tea!

God Bless...................