Best seafood chowder

How To Cook Best seafood chowder

Best seafood chowder - A chowder is like a chunky soup. It usually contains fish, seafood, and vegetables. The history of this tasty dish is not as well defined as certain other recipes and the first recipe was not printed until the middle of the nineteenth century.

We do know that chowder was popular before that time. It is believed that the recipe originated in a fishing community and the ingredients depended on what fish had been freshly caught. Different types of fish stew recipes are found in every country with a shoreline in the world. Fishermen in France would toss some of their freshly caught seafood into a big pot and it is thought that the word "chowder" comes from "chaudiere" - the French word for the iron cooking pot.

Best seafood chowder

Modern Chowder Recipes Clam chowder is the most famous type in New England today, although there are various ways to make it. Since the original recipes depended on what the fishermen had caught, this is a dish, which is wide open to interpretation and adaptation.

You can make yours thick or thin, clear or colored and garnished or not, depending on your preferences. Crusty bread is a nice accompaniment or you might like to crumble crackers into it.

It is important to use a good stock when making seafood chowder. This can be a time-consuming process but stock freezes well so just make a big batch and freeze it in portions. You can use bottled chicken broth or clam juice if you are in a rush. These are bland enough to blend with fish and seafood flavors.

Best seafood chowder Ingredients

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
100g streaky bacon, chopped
1 tbsp plain flour
600ml fish stock, made from 1 fish stock cube
225g new potatoes, halved
pinch mace
pinch cayenne pepper
300ml milk
320g pack fish pie mix (salmon, haddock and smoked haddock)
4 tbsp single cream
250g pack cooked mixed shellfish
small bunch parsley, chopped
crusty bread, to serve

Best seafood chowder Steps and Methods For Cooking

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat, then add the onion and bacon. Cook for 8-10 mins until the onion is soft and the bacon is cooked. Stir in the flour, then cook for a further 2 mins.
2. Pour in the fish stock and bring it up to a gentle simmer. Add the potatoes, cover, then simmer for 10-12 mins until the potatoes are cooked through.
3. Add the mace, cayenne pepper and some seasoning, then stir in the milk.
4. Tip the fish pie mix into the pan, gently simmer for 4 mins. Add the cream and shellfish, then simmer for 1 min more. Check the seasoning. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve with some crusty bread.
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Best seafood chowder Additional Trivia

What is traditional chowder? The true or traditional chowder is a matter of debate. There are numerous varieties, and each has its loyal following. Just bring up the subject of chowder and most likely a debate will ensue as to which style is the true, authentic chowder. True chowder lovers delight in their pursuit of the perfect chowder, from creamy white to clear and briny to tomato based. Practically everyone claims their chowder is “award-winning."
What is traditional chowder? The true or traditional chowder is a matter of debate. There are numerous varieties, and each has its loyal following. Just bring up the subject of chowder and most likely a debate will ensue as to which style is the true, authentic chowder. True chowder lovers delight in their pursuit of the perfect chowder, from creamy white to clear and briny to tomato based. Practically everyone claims their chowder is “award-winning."

Chowder is a type of rich soup, usually made with seafood, vegetables, and cream. Traditionally, it includes a base of bacon and is thickened with broken up crackers, although variations of the dish with slightly different ingredients are made in many seafaring communities. Often likened to a stew, this soup is thick with chunks of ingredients, and has a very hearty, warming flavor. In the United States, chowder is frequently made with clams, and two varieties are very popular: New England style, which uses cream, and Manhattan style, which uses a base of pureed tomatoes.

In many seafaring communities, fishers would throw samples of the catch into a large cauldron and boil the chunks of fish with an assortment of vegetables such as potatoes. In France, this dish was called chaudiere, after the pot it was cooked in. The French also added broken biscuits or crackers to make the dish thicker. It is probable that Americans adopted chowder from French settlers in the Northern areas of the colonies, because of the name, although the British have a long tradition of seafood stews as well.

The word first appeared in English within a recipe header in 1751, although there is evidence that the dish was popular well before then. This recipe included onions, bacon, fish, an assortment of spices, biscuits, claret, and water. In the 1800s, American cooks began to make the transition to clams, because of the abundance of shellfish in the new colony. Cooks also began to add cream to the soup, and to differentiate unique types depending on the ingredients.

Technically, chowder does not have to include seafood. Corn chowder is another popular type, usually made with bacon, onions, potatoes, corn, and milk. A wide variety of vegetable-only chowders can be made, especially when cooks keep in mind that the original soups were probably made from whatever the cook had lying around the kitchen, thrown into a pot to simmer in wine and water with chunks of fish. Cooks might also want to experiment with seafood stews from other parts of the world that have a spicier flavor thanks to the addition of hot ingredients such as chilies.

To make a creamy chowder, chefs can start by frying pieces of bacon and onions in a stock pot. They can add spices, such as marjoram, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper, to taste and stir in chicken or fish stock along with cream and a small amount of flour or breadcrumbs to thicken the mixture. The soup should be allowed to simmer for approximately 20 minutes before adding presteamed fish and/or canned clams, along with peeled and diced boiled potatoes. The ingredients should be warmed through and then served immediately; if clams are included, the chef should be careful not to cook the soup too long, or the clams will turn rubbery. The dish can be dressed up with a sprinkling of fresh parsley and pepper, and served with thick crusty bread on the side.

Chowder History

16th & 17th Centuries
The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word chowder to the fishing villages along the coast of France from Bordeaux to Brittany. There are also early European references made in the Cornwall region of Southwestern England and in the Brittany region of northwestern France. These two regions are located across the English Channel from one another. When the ships returned from the sea, every village had a large chaudiere waiting for a portion of each man's catch, to be served later as part of the community's welcoming celebration.

18th Century

1751 - Even before cookery books were published in America, newspapers, magazines and travel accounts mentioned broth and soup as well as recorded recipes. According to the book 50 Chowders by Jasper White, the first and oldest-known printed fish chowder recipe was in the Boston Evening Post on September 23,1751. The use of herbs and spices in this recipe show the typical 18th century English taste for lots of seasonings.

1796 - The first cookbook authored by an American was Amelia Simmons's American Cookery or The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables and The Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes, from Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake, Adapted at This Country and All Grades of Life, published in 1796. Her first edition, published in the same year, did not include any soups. The second edition, published in 1800, was the first American cookbook to give a chowder recipe.

19th Century

1828 - Mary Randolph, cousin of Mary Custis (wife of Gen. Robert E. Lee) and a first cousin of Thomas Jefferson, in her book The Virginia Housewife, has a recipe called Chowder, A Sea Dish.

1832 - Newspaperwoman, novelist, and ardent advocate of women's rights, Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) published her cookbook called The American Frugal Housewife. This cookbook was a “must” for every bride of the mid-1800s. Lydia Child described the standard layering technique of chowder-making, but also suggested additional ingredients such as lemons, beer, tomato catsup, and the first written directions to add clams.

1841 - Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), writer and editor of Godey's Lady's Book (the most popular women's magazine of the era). She used her platform as editor to profile successful women who otherwise may have gone unnoticed. She effectively called for the opening of the workplace to women. Sarah Hale is credited with convincing President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), sixteenth President of the United States, to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. She had spent 40 years writing to congressmen, lobbying five presidents, and writing countless editorials in her campaign to create an official day of thanks. In 1841 she also wrote wrote The Good Housekeeper. In this book, she describes how to make cod chowder:

To Make Chowder - Lay some slices cut from the fat part of pork, in a deep stewpan, mix sliced onions with a variety of sweet herbs, and lay them on the pork; bone and cut a frsh cod into thin slices, and place them on the pork, then put a layer of pork, on that a layer of biscuit, then alternately the other materials until the pan is nearly full, then season with pepper and salt, put in about a quart of water, cover the stew pan very close, and let it stand, with fire above as well as below, for four hours; then skim it well, and it is done. This is an excellent dish and healthy, if not eaten too hot.

1850s - By the middle of the 1800's chowder was a mainstay throughout the northeastern United States. Clams and shellfish began to be used in chowder because of their relative ease to accumulate, having to simply dig them up from the shore. When the country expanded to the Pacific Ocean the fishermen followed. As the fishermen's migration continued from the Atlantic coast, the recipes for chowder were introduced along the way.

1884 - The original Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln (Mary Bailey) had a recipe for Clam Chowder:

In Fannie Merritt Farmer's 1896 updated version of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book, she has three recipe for clam chowder - Clam Chowder, Connecticut Chowder, and Fish Chowder. Later editions have recipes for New England Clam Chowder, Manhattan Chowder, and Rhode Island Clam Chowder. Source: chowder

Source Recipes: Here

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