January: cold, wet, dark, gloomy, and depressing; financially embarassing, too. No folks, it ain't my favourite month, and to combat all this, I need gutsy, unpretentious, winter food, as I'm sure you do as well.
Chowder is a classic American East Coast dish, usually a creamy soup enriched with salt pork fatback and traditionally thickened with crushed saltine crackers or corn. I've no doubt that each State or city have their own way of making it. Massachusetts will say this, Rhode Island will say that. Manhatten adds tomatoes, while in Maine, apparently, this is/was illegal. Here's my Limey take on it. I think smoked haddock (one of my all-time favourite fishes) works well. If Americans want to bombard me with abusive chowder emails- that's fine- please do; go ahead. All I know is that it works, and I like it.
First, cook the smoked haddock. Try and buy a smoked, undyed fillet. The bright yellow fillets you see in the supermarket have been artificially dyed with all sorts of nasty chemicals. Undyed smoked haddock is a lovely, light cream colour. It's more expensive. but worth the extra cost, as the taste is far more subtle. In effect, the smoked haddock has already been cooked, so it will need very little poaching. Place it in a pan with a decent amount of water, to which you have added a bayleaf, a carrot, a small onion and one or two peppercorns. Bring it to the boil, turn off the heat and put the lid on the pan.
Next, in a large pan sauté some chopped salt pork or pancetta in unsalted butter. Add some finely chopped celery and onion or shallots. Pour in the poaching water from the haddock, and add some potatoes, which you've previously skinned and chopped up into smallish cubes. When the potatoes are almost cooked (which won't take that long), add milk and cream, and then the smoked haddock which you've broken up into large flakes.
Check the seasoning: chunky black pepper would be good, and it may or may not need sea salt, depending on how salty the haddock is. Add some fresh thyme and simmer the chowder gently for ten minutes. Serve with crackers.
