Baked Chowder
Cut 2 pounds of cod, or any other firm fish, into inch-squares. Fry a small sliced onion in a large tablespoonful of butter, strain, and return butter to frying-pan. Put the small squares of fish into the pan and toss and turn them until they become well coated. Pack the fish in a buttered bake-dish alternately with slices of parboiled potatoes, half a pound of finely minced salt pork, small pieces of butter which have been rolled in flour, minced parsley, and 2 chopped tomatoes. Pour over this a large cupful of oyster liquor which has been seasoned with salt and paprika. Cover with split Boston crackers that have soaked half an hour in milk. Cover the dish and bake for an hour. Then remove the cover and brown.
A layered casserole version of New England fish chowder, built dry in the dish rather than simmered in a pot. The original gives no oven temperature, so the main work of modernising is filling that gap and finding a stand-in for oyster liquor.
- Oven temperatureNone is stated. A covered dish of this kind belongs at 350F for the hour under cover, then 425F or a few minutes under the broiler for the browning at the end.
- Oyster liquorThe strained liquid from shucked oysters, commonly available where oysters were sold. Bottled clam juice is the closest available substitute; fish stock thinned with a little cream also works. Season lightly, since both are already salty.
- Salt porkHalf a pound of minced salt pork is a great deal of salt for 2 lb of fish. Blanch it in simmering water for five minutes and drain before mincing, and add no salt to the oyster liquor until you have tasted it.
- Boston crackersA large, thick, plain cracker of the period, sold whole and split in half before use, as the recipe directs. Common crackers are still made in New England; otherwise use unsalted saltines or plain water biscuits, and shorten the milk soak to ten or fifteen minutes so they do not disintegrate.
- Parboil the potatoes properlyThey should be sliced about a quarter inch thick and boiled five to seven minutes, until the edges yield but the centres are still firm, which is what the recipe's 'parboiled' implies.
- Straining the onionThe point of frying the onion and then discarding it is to flavour the butter without leaving soft onion in the layers. If you would rather keep it, layer it in with the tomatoes.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre manie in all but name, and it is what thickens the liquid as the dish bakes. Work equal parts soft butter and flour together, roughly two tablespoons of each, and dot it through the layers.
- YieldTwo pounds of fish plus potatoes and crackers fills a 2 to 3 quart dish and serves six generously. Let it stand ten minutes after browning so the liquid settles and it can be cut in portions.