No. 301

Chowder of Fresh and Salt Water Fish a la Stebens

Chowder de Poisson d'Eau Douce et d'Eau de Mer a la Stebens

Fresh Water Fish.—Prepare a pound and a half of fresh water fish, such as eels, pike perch or wall-eyed perch (sandre), and cut in one and a half inch squares; also one pound of potatoes cut in half inch dice, three-quarters of a pound of minced onions, half a pound of chopped fat pork, and three green peppers chopped fine. Melt the pork, add to it the onions fry without coloring, then the add squares of potatoes and the fish, moisten to the height of the fish with water, season with salt and black pepper and let boil until the potatoes are cooked. This chowder must be thick and appear more like a stew, still, some broth can be added to it, to thin it out according to taste.

Salt Water Fish.—Prepare two pounds of sea bass, sheepshead, blackfish and kingfish, cut them in one and a half to two inch squares, have also three-quarters of a pound of minced potatoes, three ounces of salt pork, and three ounces of onions. Put the salt pork into a saucepan with one ounce of butter, fry lightly with the onions, then add the potatoes and the fish, also a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and summer savory; season with salt, black and red pepper, and moisten to the height of the fish with some water. Cook on a quick fire for twenty minutes, or until the potatoes are done, then remove the parsley, add two broken and soaked pilot crackers and serve.

← No. 300 Clam Chowder Soups & Broths No. 302 Cold Soup, Russian Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two parallel chowders, one freshwater and one salt, sharing the same method: render pork, sweat onions, add potato and fish, barely cover with water. Both are meant to be thick enough to eat with a fork.

The hinge: liquid level"Moisten to the height of the fish" means the water comes just level with the solids, not over them. Any more and you have fish soup rather than the near-stew Ranhofer describes; broth is added at the end only if you want it thinner.
Add the fish later than writtenBoth versions put fish and potatoes in together, but half-inch potato dice need 12 to 15 minutes and firm white fish needs 5 to 8. Start the potatoes, then lay the fish squares on top for the last stretch so they poach rather than shred.
"Quick fire"High heat, meaning a hard simmer. Twenty minutes at a rolling boil will break up sea bass, so hold it at a lively simmer once the fish goes in.
Pike perch and sandreIn American usage "pike perch" and "wall-eyed perch" are the same fish, the walleye; sandre is the French name for its close European relative, the zander. Any firm freshwater fish works; skinned eel is still sold at Asian and Italian fishmongers and adds richness, though the recipe lists it as only one option among several.
Sheepshead, blackfish, kingfishBlackfish is tautog, kingfish is northern whiting. All were common on 1890s New York fish stalls and are now largely regional catches. Substitute any firm, non-oily saltwater fish: cod, hake, striped bass, black sea bass.
"Minced" potatoes and onionsNineteenth-century usage here means finely cut rather than ground. Cut the potatoes in small dice as in the freshwater version, and chop the onions fine.
Pilot crackersHard ship's biscuit, soaked in a little of the broth or milk until soft, then broken in to thicken. Common crackers, unsalted saltines or oyster crackers do the same job; add them off the heat so they do not dissolve entirely.
Green peppersGreen sweet peppers, in the freshwater version. Three is a lot of pepper against a pound and a half of fish; two is closer to modern taste.
Salt porkPork — The freshwater version calls for half a pound of chopped fat pork, the salt water one for three ounces of salt pork. Rinse it if it is heavily cured, and hold back on salt until the pork has rendered and you can taste the broth.
YieldOn the quantities given, each version makes roughly four main-course or six first-course servings.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years in the kitchen at Delmonico's, and its chowders sit oddly in a book otherwise devoted to French service — chowder was American tavern and shore food, descended from the fishermen's pot layered with pork, biscuit and fish that English and French Atlantic crews had made for generations. The name is generally traced to the French chaudière, the cauldron, though the derivation is traditional rather than documented. What Ranhofer does that a New England cook of the period would not is split the dish in two: a freshwater version built on eel and walleye, with green peppers and no crackers, and a saltwater version thickened with soaked pilot biscuit and scented with thyme and summer savory. "A la Stebens" is one of the many personal dedications scattered through the book. The pairing is a good snapshot of what a New York fish market offered in the 1890s — Hudson eels and Great Lakes walleye on one side of the counter, sheepshead, tautog and kingfish on the other.