If you’ve followed this column a long while you’ll now I’m a fan of chowder in all its forms. To showcase that I’ve offered several recipes for it over the years, such as clam chowder, deluxe seafood chowder, Bermuda-style fish chowder and Manhattan-style chowder.
I make chowder year-round, but I particularly like having it during the holiday season. It’s a time of year I can joyfully simmer up a pot and create a hearty, comforting West Coast-style meal to serve visiting family and friends.
When making chowder recently, I was guided in my choice by the package of bright, orangey/red sliced, cold smoked salmon, and vibrant-looking salmon fillets I saw and bought at a grocery store.
To give my chowder a pleasing, smoky flavour, I sometimes dice, cook and add bacon to some of the chowders I make. In this case, though, to achieve that goal, I chopped and added bits of that smoked salmon to the chowder.
To make what I called two-salmon chowder, the salmon fillets I bought were skinned, cut into cubes and swirled into the base of chowder near the ending of cooking. You add the salmon then because it only takes a few minutes to cook through.
The base for the chowder is a typical one stocked with vegetables, such as potatoes, celery, onion and carrot, a good amount of chopped dill, and last-minute addition of cream. Those ingredients, when combined with the two types of salmon and a few seasonings, yielded a very sumptuous pot of chowder.
To make a more filling meal, I often serve a quick bread with chowder and in this circumstance it was dill havarti bread. It’s called quick bread because it’s leavened with such things as baking powder and baking soda, not yeast, which means you can quickly get the bread in the oven after making the dough.
Two-Salmon Chowder
Cubes of fresh salmon and small pieces of smoked salmon give this rich chowder an appealing taste.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: about 30 minutes
Makes: six servings
500 grams sockeye or other salmon fillets
100 grams sliced cold smoked salmon
1/4 cup butter
1 medium onion, diced (cut into 1/4-inch cubes)
2 large celery ribs, diced
1 small to medium carrot, diced
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
5 cups chicken or fish stock
• a few splashes Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce (optional)
1 1/2 cup peeled yellow-fleshed potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup half and half (10-per-cent) cream
2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
• salt and ground white pepper, to taste
Carefully remove skin from the salmon fillets with a sharp, thin bladed knife (see Eric’s options). Cut the skinned salmon into 1/2- to 3/4-inch cubes, set in a bowl and refrigerate until needed. Now chop the smoked salmon into 1/4-inch pieces set on a small plate and refrigerate until needed.
Melt butter in a pot set over medium heat (my pot was eight-inches wide and five-inches tall). Add the onion, celery and carrot and cook until softened, about five minutes. Mix in the garlic and cook one minute more. Now mix in flour and cook two minutes more, creating a roux.
Slowly stir in 1 cup of the stock into the roux. When this mixture has thickened, slowly mix in the rest of the stock. Also mix in the Worcestershire and Tabasco, if using. Add the potatoes and bring the chowder to a gentle simmer. Simmer chowder 12 minutes, or until the potatoes are just tender
Mix in the cubed salmon and smoked salmon. Simmer chowder until the cubed salmon has cooked through, about four minutes (see Eric’s options). Stir in the cream and dill and heat them through a few minutes. Season the chowder with salt and pepper, and it’s ready to serve.
Eric’s options: If removing the skin from the salmon is something you don’t feel confident doing, then ask the fish monger where you bought the fish to do it for you. If you want to make the chowder up to a day in advance of serving it, once you’ve mixed in the cream and dill, immediately remove the chowder from the heat. Quickly cool the chowder to room temperature by setting the pot in an ice-water bath. When the soup has cooled, cover and refrigerate it in the pot until needed. When needed, rewarm the chowder over medium-low heat, season with salt and pepper, and serve.
Dill Havarti Bread
Dill- and cheese-flavoured, yeast-free bread accented with other tastes, such as onion and garlic, you can slice and serve with today’s chowder recipe. You could also serve the bread with other foods, such as slicing, toasting and serving it with scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Makes: one large loaf
• vegetable oil spray
1/4 cup butter
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (see Note)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill (divided)
1 1/2 cups grated plain or dill-flavoured havarti cheese (about 125 grams)
Evenly grease a 9- by 5-inch, non-stick loaf pan with vegetable oil spray. Cut a piece of parchment paper the size of the bottom of the pan and set it there. Set the pan aside for now.
Place the butter in a small bowl, set in the microwave and zap a few seconds, until just melted. Or put butter in a small pot, set on the stovetop over low heat, and melt it that way.
Preheat oven to 375 F. Place the eggs in a medium bowl and beat well. Mix in the buttermilk, and then quickly mix in the melted butter.
Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, onion powder and garlic powder in larger, mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Now mix in the dill and 1 cup of the grated cheese.
Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour the buttermilk mixture into it. Gently mix with a spatula until flour mixture and buttermilk mixture are combined and no dry ingredients remain visible.
Spoon this dense dough into the loaf pan and, with your spatula, spread it evenly into the pan. Top the dough with the remaining grated cheese. Bake the bread in the middle of the oven for 40 minutes, or until loaf has risen and springs back when touched in the very centre.
Set the pan on a baking rack. Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. If needed, with a thin metal spatula or paring knife, loosen the bread from the top, edges of the pan. Now remove bread from the pan. You can slice and serve the bread warm or at room temperature. When the bread has cooled to room temperature, put it in a bag and store at room temperature. It will keep at least three days. This bread also freezes well.
Note: You’ll need to buy a 500 mL container of buttermilk to get the 1 1/2 cups needed here. Refrigerate and later use the buttermilk left over in the container for another use. For example, it could be used as base for a salad dressing, added to pancake batter, or mixed into mashed potatoes.
Eric Akis is the author of eight cookbooks. His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
