SUPER FISH SOUPS

Nothing beats soup or chowder to warm you on a cold day. If you freeze fish in water and keep it a bit longer than the approved six months soup can gloss over freezer burn and the like. Soup gives the cook a rest too. After all, it's a "chop and dump" dish. Unfortunately, too many cooks take soups too seriously. In the following bisque, a fancy name for a thickened soup, crab and shrimp can be both hard to come by and expensive. So, if you have them, use shucked crayfish or two or three kinds of fish. We use heads and backbones of filleted fish for stock that works nicely in place of store-bought clam juice. Over 22 years, 13 cookbooks and dozens of fish cooking seminars my wife and I have focused our attention on a couple of basic soups that can be made with a variety of fish and shellfish.

Best of all, since this bisque uses flour for thickener and avoids milk, it can be made in quantity and frozen until needed. A loaf of hot French or other hard crust bread, salad if you have it and a good white wine complete the meal.

Important note: Most of the classic mixed seafood soups depended on whatever's handy. So feel free to substitute firm fish for firm fish and soft fish or shellfish. Just try to add ingredients so those that need the most cooking go in first. Shrimp, for example, only need to cook long enough to color nicely.

You can improve the happy result for this soup and the chowder that follows by serving the bisque in hollowed bread "canon balls."

SEAFOOD BISQUE

6 tablespoons butter or margarine 1 medium-size onion, finely chopped 1 carrot, finely chopped 2 celery stalks, finely chopped 2 tablespoons parsley, fresh or dry 1/2 pound cooked crab. flaked 1/2 pound cooked fish, flaked 1/2 pound cooked shrimp, shelled 7 1/2-ounce can clams, chopped or minced 3 cups clam juice or fish stock 1/2 cup dry white wine 1/2 teaspoon thyme leaves 1/2 teaspoon dillweed 3 tablespoons flour 1/4 teaspoon salt l/4 teaspoon white pepper

Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, celery and parsley. Sauté until soft. Combine crab, fish, shrimp, canned clams with liquid plus clam juice, wine, thyme and dillweed. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes. Mix flour and remaining butter and roll into a ball. (French cooks call this a roux). Divide seafood mixture in half. Add butter ball to half the seafood and stir over medium heat until sauce thickens. Season with salt and pepper. Blend remaining half of mixture 3 to 5 seconds in a blender. Combine mixtures and heat to serving temperature. Serves 6.

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