Corn Chowder
2 slices fat salt pork
2 cups boiling water
I onion
1 cup cooked corn, fresh or
3 cups diced boiled potatoes canned
Salt and pepper
4 cups hot milk
Cut the pork into small pieces and try it out. In this cook the sliced onion. Strain the fat into another receptacle, and put the potatoes into the strained fat. Add boiling water, corn which has been cooked till tender, and hot milk. Season with salt and white pepper, bring to the boiling-point, and serve with a cracker on each soup-plate.
A plain New England-style chowder that leans on salt pork fat rather than butter for its body. The ingredient list was set in two columns and reads scrambled; the working quantities are 2 slices fat salt pork, 1 onion, 3 cups diced boiled potatoes, 4 cups hot milk, 2 cups boiling water, 1 cup cooked corn, and salt and pepper.
- Do not let it boil hardThe instruction to "bring to the boiling-point" means just to the edge of a simmer. A milk chowder held at a rolling boil will curdle and the potato starch will scorch on the bottom of the pan.
- "Try it out"This means render the diced salt pork slowly over medium-low heat until the fat runs and the scraps are crisp, about 8 to 10 minutes. Fish out the cracklings and scatter them over the finished bowls rather than discarding them.
- Salt porkSold in slabs near the bacon in many supermarkets; two slices is roughly 3 to 4 oz. Unsmoked is correct here. Thick-cut bacon works but brings smoke the recipe does not intend, and blanched pancetta is closer in flavor.
- Straining the fatPouring the fat off the onion and pork and returning only the fat to the pan gives a cleaner, paler chowder. If you would rather keep the onion in, leave it, but pour off all but about 3 tablespoons of fat or the soup will be greasy.
- PotatoesThe recipe assumes potatoes already boiled and diced, so this is a quick assembly. Starting from raw, simmer 1 lb of diced boiled or all-purpose potatoes in the 2 cups of water until just tender and use that water in the pot; it thickens the chowder slightly.
- CornKernels cut from one large ear, or two small ones, give about the cup called for. Canned corn is already cooked and needs only to be warmed through; frozen kernels need two or three minutes.
- White pepperSpecified so no black flecks show in the white soup. Black pepper will serve if you do not mind the specks, though white pepper has a noticeably different, earthier flavour.
- Yield and the crackerMakes about 2 1/2 quarts, or four to six generous bowls. The "cracker on each soup-plate" was a hard common cracker meant to be split and soaked in the broth; a plain water cracker or oyster crackers stand in. Like most chowders it is better after resting an hour and reheating gently.
Corn chowder is the inland cousin of the New England fish and clam chowders, built on the same three-part frame of rendered salt pork, potatoes and milk with corn standing in for the seafood. The word chowder is often traced to the French chaudière, the cauldron said to have been used by coastal fishermen for communal pots of the day's catch, though that derivation is traditional rather than settled; the salt-pork-and-cracker structure survived long after the fish became optional. The recipe is of the kind that leaned on staples a household already had: cooked potatoes left from another meal, a can of corn, milk. The instruction to strain out the onion and pork before finishing suits a preference for a smooth, pale soup.