I love gathering food and near us there is a beach where you can harvest Green Lipped Mussels and Paua (Abalone). I check the tides and choose a day when the low tide will be around late morning-midday. The drive to the bay is about 40km and then we walk around the rocks about another 40 minutes. The best place to collect the mussels and Paua is on a large rock shelf that is only exposed at low tide. We have found that the biggest mussels are not the best! the medium-smaller sized ones tend to be of better colour, texture and flavour. Apparently you can age the mussels by the rings on their shells though I have not ever done this, but the larger ones definitely tend to be tougher and often badly discoloured. Paua are harder to find and must be over the regulation size to legally harvest. This time we went there were quite a few so the latest chowder is rich in Paua. There is also a limit on how many mussels you can take too- 50/day/person.

The chowder recipe. Shell all the fish and take out the 'beak' from the mussels. Cut all the fish into small pieces. Now make a white sauce- I do not measure things exactly but roughly enough butter to saturate the flour when melted. So melt the butter in a pan and add the flour stirring constantly. To make about 7 litres of white sauce I used two large mugs of flour and probably 200 grams of butter. After about five minutes start adding milk. You can use milk powder for fresh milk. I tend to use milk powder as then you can simply boil water, add milk powder and then add the hot 'milk' to the flour/butter paste. Add enough milk to make the white sauce base creamy but not too thin. If you use natural milk it is better to heat it before adding it to the flour/butter base...otherwise you must stand there constantly stirring the mix until it is hot enough for the flour to cook and thicken. It is often a challenge to make this chowder without the base of the pot getting burned to some extent- but with care it can be minimized.

Once the white sauce is judged to be cooked/thickened sufficiently (I give it at least 30 minutes at a low simmer to achieve this) add the chopped Mussels and Paua. I also like to add several handfuls of chopped parsley if we have enough in the garden...it really adds to the flavour.

It is a long day when you finally finish cooking all the chowder and freezing most of it but we get 8-12 litres of it and it lasts quite a while.