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Fish Chowder
4 pounds fish; 6 medium-sized potatoes; 2 slices fat salt pork; 1 quart milk; 2 small onions; 2 teaspoonfuls salt; 1 saltspoonful white pepper; 6 Boston or butter crackers.
Remove the skin from the fish; with a boning knife cut it clean from the bones, taking out the small bones near the head, if the latter has been left on.
Rinse the fish in cold water, wipe with a dry cloth, cut in two-inch squares, and put it aside in a cool place.
Crack the bones, which are rich in gelatine (especially those of the head); put them to boil in sufficient cold water to cover.
Pare the potatoes and slice them one-fourth of an inch thick or less. The potatoes and fish should be about equal in quantity. Soak the potatoes in cold water for half an hour. Slice the onions and cut the pork into small dice and fry together in a frying-pan, taking care that they do not burn. Strain off the fat into the kettle; put in a layer of the sliced potatoes, then a layer of the fish; adding the salt and pepper to each. Strain over them the water from the boiled bones, and add the rest of the boiling water. Let it boil up briskly, and keep it boiling steadily, but not too rapidly, for twenty minutes or until the potatoes are tender, but not broken or mushy. When both fish and potatoes are tender add the milk, which has been heated with the butter, and stir carefully to allow the milk to mix with the chowder, without breaking the fish. Split the crackers and lay them on the top of the chowder, where they will absorb just enough of the gravy to moisten them slightly. Let it boil up, lift the crackers carefully to the tureen, and pour the chowder over them. A tablespoonful of cracker flour may be added to the hot milk, or a little flour rubbed into the butter, if the broth is liked thicker; a little Worcestershire sauce or cayenne is added if a more highly seasoned dish be liked. The broth should be rich and creamy. A little finely minced parsley may be sprinkled over the top if desired.
A New England chowder built the old way: a stock from the cracked bones, layers of potato and fish, and split crackers laid on top to soak. Most of the work is in the cutting and the restraint.
- Do not let it boil after the milk goes inThe instruction to "let it boil up" once the milk is added is the one place modern practice diverges. Bring it just to steaming and hold it there; a hard boil will curdle the milk and shred the fish.
- Choice of fishA firm white fish with usable bones is what this wants -- cod, haddock, pollock or hake. The four pounds appears to be whole, bone-in weight, since the recipe has you skin and bone the fish yourself and allows for the head being left on; expect somewhere around 2 lb of flesh. Ask for the frame and head if the fish has been filleted for you; that is where the gelatine is.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon.
- Fat salt porkSalt pork belly is still sold, usually near the bacon. Two slices means about 2 to 3 oz. Unsmoked is correct here; bacon will push the whole pot toward smoke.
- Boston or butter crackersHard, thick, unsalted round crackers that split into two discs. Common crackers or oyster crackers are the nearest survivors; plain saltines work but dissolve fast, so add them at the last moment.
- Water quantityThe recipe says only to cover the bones and then add "the rest of the boiling water." Add enough liquid to just cover the layered potato and fish before the milk goes in.
- Cracker flourSimply crackers crushed to a powder. A tablespoon thickens lightly; a beurre manie of equal butter and flour does the same job with more body.
- Strain the bone broth carefullyCracked bones shed splinters. Pour the stock through a fine sieve or a doubled cloth rather than a colander.
- YieldServes six generously as a main course, with bread.
Chowder came to New England from the North Atlantic fishing trade, and the name is generally traced to the French chaudiere, the cauldron in which crews cooked their catch, though the derivation has never been settled. The layered construction here -- salt pork fat, potatoes, fish, and hard crackers -- is the older shipboard and coastal pattern, in which crackers served as both thickener and bread ration; the smooth, flour-thickened chowder of later restaurant cooking is a descendant. The insistence that potatoes and fish be equal in quantity, and that the potatoes stay whole rather than dissolving, marks this as a careful late-nineteenth-century domestic version of a dish that began as rough work food.