Fish Chowder
4 lb. cod or haddock 1 1/2-inch cube fat salt pork 6 cups potatoes cut in 1/4-inch slices, or 4 cups potatoes cut in 3/4-inch cubes 1 tablespoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 3 tablespoons butter 4 cups scalded milk 1 sliced onion 8 common crackers Order the fish skinned, but head and tail left on. Cut off head and tail and remove fish from backbone. Cut fish in two-inch pieces and set aside. Put head, tail, and backbone broken in pieces, in stewpan; add two cups cold water and bring slowly to boiling-point; cook twenty minutes. Cut salt pork in small pieces and try out, add onion, and fry five minutes; strain fat into stewpan. Parboil potatoes five minutes in boiling water to cover; drain and add potatoes to fat; then add two cups boiling water and cook five minutes. Add liquor drained from bones, then add the fish; cover, and simmer ten minutes. Add milk, salt, pepper, butter, and crackers split and soaked in enough cold milk to moisten, otherwise they will be soft on the outside, but dry on the inside. Pilot bread is sometimes used in place of common crackers.
A New England chowder in the older style, built on a quick stock from the fish frame rather than water alone. Nothing here is unsafe; the only real risks are overcooking the fish and letting the milk boil.
- Buy the whole fishThe recipe assumes a 4 lb fish bought whole and skinned, with head, tail and backbone included, since those bones make the stock. If your fishmonger sells only fillets, ask for a bag of frames and trimmings and use about 1 1/2 lb of them with the 2 cups of water.
- "1 1/2-inch cube fat salt pork"That is a solid cube measuring an inch and a half on a side, roughly 2 oz. Salt pork is still sold in the pork section of many markets; thick-cut unsmoked bacon or pancetta is the nearest substitute, though both bring flavours salt pork does not have.
- "Try out"Render slowly over moderate heat until the fat runs and the pork bits are golden. Rushing this scorches the fat and carries a burnt taste through the whole pot.
- Common crackers and pilot breadBoth are hard, dry, only lightly salted crackers meant to be split and soaked. Vermont common crackers are still made; failing that, use hardtack or a generous handful of oyster crackers. Ordinary soda crackers dissolve into the broth rather than holding their shape.
- Soak the crackers as directedThis is the fussiest instruction and it has a reason: a dry cracker dropped into hot chowder softens on the surface and stays chalky at the centre. Split them, moisten with cold milk, and let them stand while the fish cooks.
- Ten minutes on the fish is the outer limitTwo-inch pieces of cod or haddock are done in five to eight minutes at a bare simmer. Slide the pieces in, cover, and pull the pot off the heat as soon as the flesh flakes; the residual heat plus the hot milk will finish it.
- Do not boil after the milk goes inScald the milk separately (heat to just below simmering, when it steams and shows bubbles at the edge), then add it off the boil. Hard boiling can make the milk separate, and it will break the fish apart.
- SaltA full tablespoon is generous for a pot this size, and the salt pork contributes its own. Season lightly at the start and correct at the end, especially if you have used bacon.
- YieldAbout 3 1/2 quarts, serving eight generously as a main course. Like most chowders it is better the next day, reheated gently without boiling.
Chowder in New England was originally a fisherman's and shore dinner dish, layered in the pot rather than stirred: pork fat, then fish, then potatoes and hard bread, with liquid poured over. This version comes from the era when cooking schools were tidying such dishes into measured method, and it keeps two older habits worth noticing. The first is making a short stock from the head, tail and backbone, which is why the recipe insists the fish be ordered skinned but otherwise whole. The second is the hard cracker, a descendant of the ship's biscuit that went to sea with the cod fleet, serving as both thickener and starch long before oyster crackers were sprinkled on top as a garnish. The name is generally traced to the French chaudi\e though that derivation is traditional rather than settled.