The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 240
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CORNCHOWDER
My mother’s corn chowder recipe involved a can of
creamed corn, an equal amount of half-and-half, and a
teaspoon of chicken bouillon. I loved that version growing
up (and it’s still a cornerstone of my little sister’s recipe
repertoire),butasI’masemi–NewEnglander,chowderisa
semisacredthinginmybook,withafewhard-and-fastrules:
All chowders contain dairy (don’t give me none of that
Manhattan clam chowder crap), most contain potatoes, and
some contain pork—all traditional and inexpensive New
England products. Iused to make my corn chowder with
bacon,themostreadilyavailablecuredporkproductatthe
supermarket,butIwasnevertoohappywithitsdominating
smoky flavor, so I switched over to unsmoked salt pork,
which adds the characteristic porkiness without
overpowering the sweet corn. And some days, when I’m
trying to feel extra valorous or have simply let my freezer
runempty,I’llforgotheporkaltogether.
Most chowder recipes call for sweating some onions in
butter, adding your corn kernels, potatoes, and dairy, and
lettingitcookdown.Asitcooks,thepotatoesreleasesome
starch, thickening up the broth. None of this bothers me.
What does bother me is what goes into the trash: the
strippedcorncobs.
Anyoneelseouttheregofortwoorthreeroundsontheir
corn on the cob just to suck at the little bits of sweet milk
leftinthecobafteryou’veeatenthekernels?Likethecrispy
fataroundaribbone,that’sthetastiestpart.Whywouldyou
want to throw it away? Instead, I use the corn-milking
techniquehere:scrapingoutthemilkyliquidfromthecobs
with the back of a knife. By then infusing your base stock
withboththescrapedmilkandemptycorncobs(alongwith
a few aromatics like coriander and fennel seed), you can
vastly increase the corniness of the finished soup. (I mean
thatinagoodway.)
Itdoesn’ttakelongtoinfusethestock—allof10minutes,
which is just about enough time to sweat off your onions
and corn kernels. Once you’ve got your corn-milk stock
made, the rest is simple: simmer the onion-butter-stockpotato mix until the potatoes are tender, add some milk (I
prefer it to cream, as the fattiness of cream can mask some
of that sweet corn flavor), and then puree just enough of it
