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Corn Chowder
1 dozen well-filled ears sweet corn; 1 pint sliced and peeled tomatoes; 1 onion; 3 medium-sized potatoes; 1 slice fat salt pork; 1 pint milk; 1 teaspoonful salt; 1 saltspoonful pepper; 1 tablespoonful flour; 1 heaping tablespoonful butter.
Pare and slice the potatoes and put them to soak in plenty of cold water. Cut the corn from the cob, and put the latter in water enough to well cover, and boil fifteen or twenty minutes. Cut the pork in dice, slice the onion, and fry them together. Drain the water from the boiled cobs, add to it the fat, strained from the pork and onion; put in the potatoes, corn, tomatoes, and seasoning, and cook until the potatoes are tender. Rub the flour and butter to a cream with a little of the cold milk; have the rest of the milk hot, stir this and the flour and butter in carefully; let it cook until it thickens, and serve very hot with thin toasted crackers.
A late-nineteenth-century chowder that builds its stock from stripped corn cobs, which is still the best reason to buy corn on the cob rather than frozen kernels. The only real hazard is the acid of the tomatoes meeting the milk.
- Add the milk last, off a hard boilTomatoes will curdle milk if the pot is boiling when the dairy goes in. Bring the vegetable base down to a bare simmer, stir in the hot milk and butter-flour paste, and hold it just below a simmer while it thickens.
- A saltspoonfulA quarter teaspoon. It was a real piece of Victorian flatware, the smallest spoon in the set, used for salt and pepper at table.
- Cob stockSnap the stripped cobs in half, cover with water, and boil 15-20 minutes. The cobs give up a good deal of corn flavour, and this liquid is the only broth the chowder gets apart from the pint of milk.
- The slice of fat salt porkFigure 2-3 oz, cut into small dice. Thick-cut unsmoked bacon or pancetta works; if you use smoked bacon the chowder will taste of smoke, which this recipe does not intend.
- Straining the fatThe instruction is to pour the rendered fat into the cob stock and leave the crisped pork and onion aside. Some cooks return the pork and onion to the pot at the end so nothing is wasted.
- Soaking the potatoesCold-water soaking was meant to draw out surface starch and keep the slices from clouding the broth. Skip it if you want a thicker chowder; drain and rinse if you want it clean-tasting.
- Corn quantityA dozen well-filled ears gives roughly 6 to 9 cups of kernels, a generous amount against three potatoes. Eight ears makes a more balanced pot if your corn is large.
- Yield and timingServes six to eight as a first course, four as supper. Potatoes sliced thin are tender in 12-15 minutes; the whole dish comes together in under an hour once the cobs are boiled.
- Thin toasted crackersCommon crackers or water crackers, split and toasted. Oyster crackers or plain saltines toasted a few minutes in a 350F oven give the same effect.