Salmon Chowder
By Maggie Noble
YIELD: About 2 quarts. Serves 4.
INGREDIENTS:
butter 3 Tablespoons
onion 1 - small dice or rough chop (size doesn’t matter)
garlic 2 cloves, minced
celery 2 stalks 1/8” sliced against the grain of the rib. If you don’t have celery, keep going, it isn’t essential.
fennel 1 bulb - small dice (rough chop is fine)… Saves the fronds if you have them for a garnish, if you don’t have fennel, skip it, I use a small bunch of carrots in its place if I don’t have fennel on hand.
thyme 1 bunch (no need to get hung up on amount, whatever you’ve got) pulled off stem and rough chop. About 2 teaspoons of dried thyme is fine, too.
flour 3 Tablespoons (about the same amount as butter)
water 1 quart (4 cups)
yukon gold potatoes 4 - 6 rinsed, medium dice (red skins work and russets will too, you just need to peel russets whereas you don’t with yukons or redskins).
fresh corn, 2 ears. If you only have one or you have a can or some frozen…proceed! If you’re working with fresh ears, cut the kernels off the cob and set them aside. Take the back of your knife and run it up and down the cob. Scrape the goop you get from the cob into the bowl where you’re keeping your kernels or directly into your pot. This liquid is natural thickener and will naturally increase the viscosity of your soup.
salmon 8 oz (2 fillets), 1/2 inch dice. Frozen or fresh, either is fine. Skinless is important. If fillet is frozen, carefully trim off skin by turning fillet to stand up on the short side and slowly saw just at the point where the flesh is darker, between the skin and the coral colored flesh. If you lose some meat, it’s ok. Be careful! Dice while completely frozen. You can go straight from this frozen dice into the soup.
lemon 1/2 juiced. You might want more or less so taste as you go.
heavy cream 1/2 cup (skip this if you’re lactose intolerant or just not into cream).
salt & pepper
TOOLS:
Chef knife and cutting board.
Bench scraper, not essential but makes moving chopped product so easy.
3-4 quart soup pot.
Cooking spoon (I still use a wooden one, reminds me of mom).
METHOD:
Melt the butter in pot over medium heat.
Sweat onions (sweat always means lid on) until translucent. About 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
Add garlic, celery, fennel and thyme and continue to sweat, stirring occasionally for another 5 minutes or so.
Singer (sounds like sanjay and is a French cooking term meaning to sprinkle flour over cooking ingredients). Stir to coat vegetables with flour.
Sauté ( no lid. French cooking term for medium heat and near constant movement) until the flour starts to brown at the bottom of the pot, this means the flour is cooked and it also adds flavor (this brown stuff is known as fond in French cooking).
Add water. Try to stir at the same time so as to break up the fond and incorporate it into the liquid.
Increase heat to medium high or stirring until you reach a boil.
Add potato, the heat will go down due to the addition of the new items so you don’t need to adjust your heat yet.
Stir until you reach a boil.
Add corn and salmon, again, the heat will naturally go down so do not adjust it.
Bring to a boil while stirring.
Turn heat down to a simmer. Continue to simmer for 5 minutes to ensure salmon is cooked.
Add creamed and stir.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve
NOTES:
I tend to use frozen salmon fillets from Wholefoods. They come 6 to a pack, skin-on and they are so universal. We make crispy skin salmon almost once a week if I remember to pull the fillets out of the freezer in time to thaw. If I don’t remember, I simply bake them skin side down for 40 minutes directly from the freezer. In the case of this chowder, you obviously want skinless salmon. That means you have to buy fresh fish from the fish counter or you have to pull your salmon out in the morning to thaw it in time for dinner. It is easier to remove the skin without taking too much flesh when salmon is NOT frozen.