Julia's Kitchen Wisdom (5 page)

CHOWDERS

Traditional chowders all start off with a hearty soup base of onions and potatoes, and that makes a good soup just by itself. To this fragrant base you then add chunks of fish, or clams, or corn, or whatever else seems appropriate. (Note: You may leave out the pork and substitute another tablespoon of butter for sautéing the onions.)

The Chowder Soup Base
For about 2 quarts, to make a 2½-quart chowder serving 6 to 8

4 ounces (⅔ cup) diced blanched salt pork or
bacon

1 Tbs butter

3 cups (1 pound) sliced onions

1 imported bay leaf

¾ cup crumbled “common” or pilot crackers, or 1 pressed-down cup fresh white
bread crumbs

6 cups liquid (milk,
chicken stock
,
fish stock
, clam juices, or a combination)

3½ cups (1 pound) peeled and sliced or diced boiling potatoes

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Sauté the pork or bacon bits slowly with the butter in a large saucepan for 5 minutes, or until pieces begin to brown. Stir in the onions and bay leaf; cover, and cook slowly 8 to 10 minutes, until the onions are tender. Drain off fat and blend crackers or bread crumbs into onions. Pour in the liquid; add the potatoes and simmer, loosely covered, for 20 minutes or so, until the potatoes are tender. Season to taste with salt and white pepper, and the soup base is ready.

CHOWDER SUGGESTIONS

• NEW ENGLAND CLAM CHOWDER.
  For about 2½ quarts, serving 6 to 8. Scrub and soak 24 medium-size hard-shell clams (see box below). Steam them for 3 to 4 minutes in a large tightly covered saucepan with 1 cup water, until most have opened. Remove the opened clams; cover, and steam the rest another minute or so. Discard any unopened clams. Pluck meat from the shells, then decant steaming-liquid very carefully, so all sand remains in the saucepan; include the clam-steaming liquid as part of the chowder base. Meanwhile, mince the clam meats in a food processor or chop by hand. Fold them into the finished chowder base. Just before serving, heat to below the simmer—so the clams won’t overcook and toughen. Fold in a little heavy cream or sour cream if you wish; thin with milk if necessary, correct seasoning, and serve.
  

  TO PREPARE CLAMS.
  Scrub one at a time under running water, discarding any that are cracked, damaged, or not tightly closed. Soak 30 minutes in a basin of salted water (⅓ cup salt per 4 quarts water). Lift out, and if more than a few grains of sand remain in the basin, repeat. Refrigerate, covered by a damp towel. Use them within a day or two.
  

• FISH CHOWDER.
  Prepare the chowder base using
  fish stock
  , and/or light
  chicken stock
  , and milk. Cut into 2-inch chunks 2 to 2½ pounds of skinless, boneless lean fish, such as cod, haddock, halibut, monkfish, or sea bass, all one kind or a mixture. Add to the finished chowder base and simmer 2 to 3 minutes, just until fish is opaque and springy. Correct seasoning, and top each serving, if you wish, with a spoonful of sour cream.
  

• CHICKEN CHOWDER.
  Substitute boneless, skinless chicken breasts for fish, and make the chowder base with chicken stock and milk.
  

• CORN CHOWDER.
  Prepare the chowder base using 6 cups of light chicken stock and milk. Stir 3 cups or so of grated fresh corn into the finished base, adding, if you wish, 2 green and/or red peppers chopped fine and sautéed briefly in butter. Bring to the simmer for 2 to 3 minutes; correct seasoning, and top each serving, if you wish, with a spoonful of sour cream.
  

TWO OF THE MOTHER SAUCES

Classical French cooking divides the sauce family into the brown sauces, the béchamel or white sauces, tomato sauce, the hollandaise or egg-yolk-and-butter sauces, the mayonnaise or egg-yolk-and-oil sauces, the vinaigrettes, and the flavored butters such as
beurre blanc.
We have brown sauces and flavored butters in the meat chapter, tomato sauces in the vegetable chapter, mayonnaise and vinaigrettes in the salad chapter, and here are béchamel and hollandaise.

MASTER RECIPE

Béchamel Sauce
For 2 cups, medium-thick

2 Tbs unsalted butter

3 Tbs flour

2 cups hot milk

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Pinch of nutmeg

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan, blend in the flour with a wooden spoon, and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until butter and flour foam together for 2 minutes without turning more than a buttery yellow color. Remove from heat, and when bubbling stops, vigorously whisk in all the hot milk at once. Bring to the boil, whisking. Simmer, stirring, for 2 minutes. Season to taste.

VARIATIONS

• VELOUTÉ SAUCE.
  Follow the master recipe for béchamel sauce, but whisk in hot chicken or fish stock, meat juices, or vegetable broth plus milk if needed.
  

MASTER RECIPE

Hollandaise Sauce
For about 1½ cups

3 egg yolks

Big pinch of salt

1 Tbs lemon juice

2 Tbs cold unsalted butter

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and hot

More salt, and freshly ground white pepper to taste

Beat the egg yolks with a wire whisk in a stainless-steel saucepan for a minute
or two, until they thicken lightly and turn lemon-colored. Whisk in the pinch of salt, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon cold butter. Set over moderately low heat and whisk continuously at moderate speed, removing pan from the heat now and then to make sure the yolks aren’t cooking too fast. When they cling to the wires of the whisk and you can see the bottom of the pan between strokes, remove from heat and stir in the second tablespoon of cold butter. Start beating in the melted butter by little driblets at first, until a good ½ cup of the sauce has thickened, then add it a little more quickly as the sauce thickens into a heavy cream. Taste and correct seasoning.

TROUBLESHOOTING HOLLANDAISE SAUCE.
If you have added the butter too fast for the egg yolks to digest it, or if you’ve kept the sauce over heat too long, it can thin out or separate. To bring it back to its creamy state, whisk it briefly to blend, and dip a tablespoonful into a bowl. Whisk in a tablespoon of lemon juice and whisk vigorously until creamy. Then whisk in very little dribbles of the turned sauce at first, not adding more until the previous addition has creamed and the sauce begins to reconstitute.

MACHINE-MADE HOLLANDAISE.
The handmade sauce is easy and relatively quick when you are used to it, but you may prefer the electric blender. Use the same system, but it’s so difficult to try and get most—never all—of that sticky sauce out of the blender! And then you have to reheat it. However, if it’s to be a machine I prefer the food processor, and I also recommend the processor for mayonnaise.

VARIATIONS

• BÉARNAISE SAUCE.
  For about 1 cup. Bring ¼ cup each of wine vinegar and dry white wine or dry white French vermouth to the boil in a small saucepan, adding 1 tablespoon minced shallots, ½ teaspoon dried tarragon, and ¼ teaspoon each of salt and freshly ground pepper. Boil rapidly until the liquid is reduced to 2 tablespoons; strain, if you wish, pressing liquid from seasonings. Substitute this essence for the lemon juice in the preceding master recipe but add only 1½ sticks of butter in all, to make an authoritative sauce. You may wish to stir chopped fresh tarragon leaves into the finished sauce.