When I was in the southwest of Ireland, I had fish soup at the Scariff Inn. It didn’t have any dairy in it and appeared to have been thickened by pureed potatoes. Going by taste, I tried to recreate the recipe. It’s not exact, but pretty close to what I ate.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 celery stalks, chopped, divided
  3 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 3 1/2 c water
• 1 tbsp fish base
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 carrot, cut into 1/8″ half moons
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 pound cod, haddock or rockfish, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1/4 c parsley, diced

Directions:

Warm the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat; saute the onion, garlic, and half the celery until translucent. Add the two of the potatoes, water, fish base, thyme, salt and pepper. Cook until potatoes are fork tender.
Meanwhile, add the remaining potato, celery and carrot in a separate pot and simmer for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender. Drain.
Carefully pour the onion/potato mixture into a blender and blend until pureed (or use an immersion blender). Adjust salt and pepper as needed.
Return all items to pot and bring back to a simmer. Add fish and parsley and cook through.