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Connecticut Chowder
4 lb. cod or haddock 2 1/2 cups stewed and strained tomatoes 4 cups potatoes cut in 3/4-inch cubes 3 tablespoons butter 1 1/2-inch cube fat salt pork 2/3 cup cracker crumbs 1 sliced onion Salt and pepper Prepare same as Fish Chowder, using liquor drained from bones for cooking potatoes, instead of additional water. Use tomatoes in place of milk and add cracker crumbs just before serving.
A tomato chowder that borrows its method from the milk-based Fish Chowder printed earlier in the same section, so the instructions here are deliberately skeletal. The points below fill in what the cross-reference assumes.
- The method it points back toStandard practice in this style: skin and bone the fish, simmer the head and bones in water for about 20 minutes to make a light stock, render the diced salt pork, soften the onion in the fat, then cook the potatoes in the strained fish liquor before the fish goes in. Here the tomatoes replace the milk entirely.
- Buy the fish on the boneThe 4 lb is whole weight, and the recipe depends on the frame for its stock. A 4 lb whole cod or haddock yields roughly 2 lb of flesh. If you can only get fillets, buy about 2 lb and use fish stock or light chicken stock in place of the bone liquor.
- Salt porkA 1 1/2-inch cube is about 2 oz. Cut it into small dice and render it slowly until the fat runs and the bits are pale gold; unsmoked pork belly or thick-cut bacon substitutes, though bacon adds smoke the original does not have.
- Cracker crumbsThese mean plain common crackers or soda crackers, crushed, not seasoned breadcrumbs. Added at the very end they thicken the broth slightly and give body; stirred in early they dissolve into paste.
- Do not boil the fishThe potatoes want 12 to 15 minutes in the fish liquor. The fish itself needs 5 to 8 minutes at a bare simmer, added once the potatoes are nearly tender, and should be lifted in large flakes rather than stirred to shreds.
- Why tomatoes and no milkThe acid in tomato can curdle dairy in a chowder held hot, which may well be why this version omits the milk rather than adding tomato to the standard recipe. Keep it that way if you want a clean-tasting broth.
- Stewed and strained tomatoesRoughly one 28-oz can of whole or crushed tomatoes, simmered briefly and pushed through a sieve, gives the 2 1/2 cups called for. Canned tomato puree works but is denser; thin it with some of the fish liquor.
- Seasoning and yieldThe salt pork and the fish stock carry most of the salt, so season at the end. Serves 6 to 8 as a main course with more crackers alongside.