Fish Chowder
3 slices salt pork. 6 small Irish potatoes. 4 small onions. 2 lbs. fish (cod or haddock.) 1 qt. can tomatoes. Salt and pepper.
Cut pork into dice and fry crisp and brown. Turn into kettle. Cut potatoes and put in also half of onion, cut fine. Lay the pieces of fresh fish (cod or haddock) in kettle and put rest of onion over it. Season well and pour over just enough water to cover fish. Pour over all the can of tomatoes and cover closely. Cook until potatoes are done. Add to this two quarts of milk and let it scald well again. Serve with tomato catsup. Clam and oyster chowder can be made the same way, adding oysters and clams just before serving. Cook juice with vegetables.
A New England-style chowder with the unusual addition of a full can of tomatoes, which puts the milk at risk. Read the note on curdling before you start.
- The hinge: acid and milkTwo quarts of milk poured onto a tomato-and-fish broth will curdle if it boils, and often even at a hard scald. Heat the milk separately to just below a simmer and stir it in off the heat, or accept a slightly broken look.
- Irish potatoesSimply white potatoes, as opposed to sweet potatoes, which were often meant when a recipe said only "potatoes" in the American South. Six small ones is roughly 1 1/2 lb; a waxy or all-purpose variety holds its shape better than a russet here.
- Salt porkThree slices means about 4 oz of fatty cured pork belly, diced and rendered until the bits are crisp. Thick-cut unsmoked bacon is the nearest substitute; if you use smoked bacon the chowder will taste noticeably different from the original.
- A quart can of tomatoesAbout 32 oz, so two standard 14.5 oz cans with their juice. This is a large amount of acid for the quantity of fish and is the reason the milk needs careful handling.
- Fish and timingTwo pounds of cod or haddock fillet goes in as large pieces and will be done in 8 to 10 minutes, well before the potatoes. In practice, start the potatoes and onion in the water, and lay the fish on top for the last ten minutes so it flakes rather than disintegrates.
- Clams and oystersThe note to add them "just before serving" is correct and worth obeying. Shucked oysters need only a minute or two, until the edges ruffle; longer and they toughen. Strain the clam or oyster liquor and cook it with the vegetables as directed, and hold back some of the salt, since it is already saline.
- Seasoning and the catsupSeason the broth lightly at the start and correct at the end, after the salt pork and any shellfish liquor have had their say. The tomato catsup served alongside was a table condiment; a dash of it in the bowl reads as a period touch rather than an error.
- YieldWith two pounds of fish, a quart of tomatoes and two quarts of milk this makes close to a gallon, serving eight to ten as a main course. It reheats poorly once the milk is in, so halve it if you are cooking for fewer.
Chowder came to New England from the fishing cultures of the North Atlantic, and the name is generally traced to the French chaudière, the cauldron in which a shore cook boiled up the day's catch with pork and biscuit. The layered method here, with pork fat first, then potatoes and onion, then fish laid on top, is the older technique. The can of tomatoes reflects the wide availability of commercially canned tomatoes, and the recipe uses tomato and milk together rather than choosing between them. The closing lines, turning one recipe into three by swapping in clams or oysters, suit a household buying whatever the fish market had.