Yield: 6 servings.
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 green onions, sliced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice
3 cups seafood stock
1 cup water
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 pound cod, catfish, or halibut fillets, cut into chunks
1 cup whole milk
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
Hot sauce (optional)
Celery leaves (for garnish)
Melt butter in a 5-quart stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and garlic, and cook, stirring, until onion is tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Add green onions and stir.
Stir flour into the vegetable mixture until vegetables are evenly coated. Pour clam juice, stock, and water into the saucepan; whisk until smooth. Add potatoes, bay leaf, thyme, and cayenne pepper to the mixture. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook at a simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.
Place fish into the soup. Cover soup pot and cook until fish is flaky, about 8 minutes, depending on type of fish used.
Pour milk into the soup and stir. Simmer soup until hot, 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper. Remove bay leaf to serve. Add hot sauce, if desired, and garnish with celery leaves.
From its northernmost point in Corolla to its southern terminus on Cedar Island, this scenic byway — bound between sound and sea — links the islands and communities of the Outer Banks.
For the owner of The Country Biscuit, welcoming diners is the fulfillment of a decades-long dream. And diners’ dreams come true when they try the glazed biscuit doughnut holes.
Black bears are the embodiment of North Carolina’s adventurous spirit, immense and wild.
After nearly a century — or just a couple of years — these seafood restaurants have become coastal icons, the places we know, love, and return to again and again.
