It Only Hurts When I Blog

Greetings, Bloggy TGIFers!

It's Friday, and you know what that means - march in a circle chanting 'Fri-day! Chow-da! Fri-day! Chow-da!'

That's the Maine variation on the normal march...

I am sure you know this, but 'real' chowder (from my perspective) begins with 'real' salt pork, slowly cooked down at the bottom of the pan so you have a little, highly salted oil to sautee the onions with.

You extract the salt pork bits and set them aside to sprinkle on the chowder later, or not. They can be chewy.

Some chowders don't have any onions, but I like onions. You then put in a few cups of water or fish stock if you had the bones and head to boil beforehand, and add your fish, and SLOWLY poach it, extracting all the flavor you possibly can without overcooking the fish.

Meanwhile - I cook the potatoes separately in water and have them ready to go. They shouldn't fall apart, but they shouldn't be hard either. They should be fork tender.

This photo really looks like a perfect bowl of chowder, but just a few too many potatoes. Go heavy on the fish and not too many taters...

This looks like it has a sprinkle of chives on it, and I have also seen dill used that way.

When the fish is done - add your ready-to-eat potatoes, and add milk, half and half or cream to make the quantity of chowder you need. Be sure you add more salt if it needs it (it should be salty like the sea), and add a dollop of butter to melt in there too...

Hungry yet? TTFN!