>>So in my pan, I'm melting four tablespoons of butter, and I'm gonna add to that one chopped onion.

You can use white onion or yellow for this.

(light music) Now let's just give that a little stir.

Make sure that all that onion is coated well with that butter 'cause we want to saute this just a little bit.

I have about eight small lobster tails, eight to 10.

What you're looking for is about three to 3 1/2 cups of chopped lobster tail.

Not cooked yet.

We don't want it to overcook.

Now, I also want to add to my pot right now about six slices of bacon.

And I didn't add it first because I don't want it super crisp.

I actually want this bacon to not be quite as crispy as if I'd started it and then added that onion and butter.

It's just a texture thing with this chowder.

All right, we're gonna get great flavor out of all of that.

Okay, now let's chop up that lobster meat.

So what we're looking for, some kind of chunks.

You don't want 'em too big.

I'm not looking at something that completely fills a spoon, but I'm not going to say, oh, we have to have it exactly a half an inch thick.

You want pieces that are kind of like this, maybe just a little bit smaller, about like that.

And we'll just chop that up.

And then what we're looking for is about 3 1/2 cups or so.

If your lobster tails are larger, you definitely don't need eight lobster tails.

So just look at those tails and go, ah, I think I could probably get a half cup of meat out of that one.

And do you know what?

If you have a little too much lobster, that's not a problem.

Okay, let's give that onion a little stir.

Mm.

It smells so good with the onion, the bacon.

Mm, so delicious.

All right, the next thing I'm gonna do is add some celery, cup and a half to two cups.

Finally, chopped celery will do it.

So we'll just give that a stir.

Let's get that celery going.

Those onions are cooking.

That bacon is getting nice and soft and the wonderful fat is being emitted from it.

It's just, oh, it's just beautiful.

Just keep stirring that until this vegetable mixture starts to get soft.

I'm gonna give it about another minute and then we're gonna add a couple extra ingredients.

Now I want a little thickening in my soup.

So let's take about a quarter cup of flour, sprinkle all over those vegetables, give it a good stir through, and we're gonna cook for about two minutes until all of that flour cooks through so that you don't get that uncooked flour flavor.

Make sure if you've got it on your spatula that you get that knocked off as well.

Now at this point you're going to start to see some sizzling on the bottom of the pan where that flour is starting to adhere to all the fat.

You're gonna start to build fond.

Fond is that brown layer that you start to get on the bottom of the pan that's caused by the proteins in the flour that are going to build up in this chowder base.

Okay, that looks cooked through.

Now as always, the best way to remove those bits, acid.

And what kind of acid are we gonna use?

Of course, we're going to use some wine.

Let's pour in about a cup of white wine.

Nice and dry.

Boy, that looks so good.

You can see it's a nice thick liquid now.

And the next thing we're gonna do is add our lobster before we put in any more liquid.

I know that sounds a little bit odd, but usually you think of putting the lobster in first or you think of putting it in last.

Because it's uncooked, I wanna put it in early, but I also want it to get that thickening around it so that it almost sears it.

It doesn't let it overcook.

All right, so we've kind of coated all of our lobster now and I want to add three ears of corn that have been just stripped.

And I'm going to do the same with that.

Let's just kind of stir that through.

Okay, now let's add a little more liquid.

So first of all, two cups of milk.

Whole or skim for this works fine.

And let's just kind of stir that through.

And then I wanna add a potato.

Now, if I was going to simmer this longer, I would make sure I used a raw potato and cut it up.

So one large baking potato or two small.

But because I want this to cook a little bit faster today, I've already cooked through the potato so that potato won't take terribly long to cook.

Now it's time to add some seasoning.

I wanna go in with about a tablespoon of salt.

It seems like a lot, but remember, we did not cook that lobster.

Normally, you'd be cooking that lobster in a little bit of salt water, and we haven't added any kind of stock here.

There's no chicken stock in here.

This is a nice, rich, thick, very thick lobster and corn chowder.

So we want to make sure that we're putting in enough salt so that we have a good seasoning base.

And then I also want to add some freshly ground pepper.

Now, I know some people really like to use white pepper when they're cooking with white ingredients, but for me, I like to see the pepper.

I like to know that it's been seasoned.

So it's really a personal choice, and you choose yours.

Now, last but not least, for the liquids, let's add a cup of heavy cream, as if it can't get any richer.

Wow.

And then I wanna take a bunch of chives, just a small bunch, and just finely mince, and I'll stir those in with that cream.

This is gonna give a little extra color and of course a little extra flavor.

And if you're measuring by what you've chopped, I'd say probably about three tablespoons of chopped chives.

So if you're using dry chopped chives, about three teaspoons or one tablespoon.

Okay, let's get this right over in our pan.

Now let's stir that through, and we're gonna let this simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes.

We never really want to boil heavy cream.

If we want to bring it to a simmer, to a lovely simmering liquid that then cooks everything that's in it.

So let's give this a try.

Let's ladle some out into this gorgeous bowl.

Look at that.

Oh, chunky, rich, intense with flavor.

Beautiful and creamy.

So creamy and good.

I can just imagine this on a cool winter's day.

This is a Viognier.

Viognier is from the Rhone Valley of France.

It's just a gorgeous wine with hints of vanilla, honeysuckle.

Sometimes you even get a little spice, like some cinnamon, some clove.

It's just wonderful.

So fruity, so, mm, sparkly.

Just makes me happy on my tongue.

Mm.

Viognier has to be one of my very favorite white varietals.

So delicious.

And of course, it's the state grape of Virginia.

(light music) Mm.

So good.

The celery is still just slightly...

It's not crisp.

I wouldn't even say it's tender crisp.

It's just slightly under tender crisp.

It's just perfect.

It's so good.

And with this wine, incredible.

Mm.

(light music)