Cut the fish, the potatoes, and the onion into slices. Cut the pork into half-inch dice. Put the pork and the onion into a pan and sauté them a light brown. Place in alternate layers in a large saucepan first potatoes, then fish, then pork and onion; dust with salt and pepper, and continue in this order until all the materials are used. Cover the whole with boiling water and let the mixture simmer for twenty minutes. Scald a pint of milk or of cream, take it off the fire and add one and a half tablespoonfuls of butter and three broken ship crackers or the same quantity of water biscuits. Arrange the fish mixture in a mound on a dish, cover it with the softened crackers, and pour over the whole the hot milk.
CLAM CHOWDER
- 50 clams.
- 1 medium-sized onion.
- 6 oz. salt pork.
- 3 large potatoes.
- 1 teaspoonful salt.
- ½ teaspoonful pepper.
- 1 tablespoonful butter.
- 2 tablespoonfuls flour.
- 1 pint of milk or cream.
- 1 saltspoonful of mace.
- 1 saltspoonful of thyme.
- 3 ship crackers.
Put the clams, with their own liquor, into a saucepan on the fire. When they have boiled three minutes, remove the clams and return the liquor to the fire. Cut the pork into slices. Chop an onion and fry it with the pork until both are browned. Then stir in two tablespoonfuls of flour. When the flour is cooked, add slowly the clam liquor, a dash of mace and thyme, and salt, if necessary; then add three parboiled potatoes cut into dice, and cook until the potatoes are tender. When ready to serve add a pint of milk or cream, the clams cut into pieces, and a quarter of a pound of broken ship crackers or any hard water cracker.
[84-*] It is not meant to imply that the stock-pot should never be removed from the range and that articles should be added at any time. When the nutriment is extracted from one collection of materials, the stock should be strained off, the pot thoroughly cleaned, and a new stock started as soon as enough materials have again accumulated.—M. R.
[87-*] It will be difficult if not impossible to make a perfectly clear and brilliant soup from stock where bones have been used, if the stock has been subjected to boiling heat. Boiling dissolves the lime in the bones, and this gives a cloudiness which clarifying will not entirely remove.—M. R.
[98-*] This receipt gives a perfectly clear brilliant soup after it is clarified. If no bones are used it can be boiled slowly without injury instead of being simmered. The stock will not always jelly.—M. R.
[108-*] Any soup made of milk will be greatly improved by adding a cupful of hot cream just before serving.
A little fish stock improves clam or oyster cream soup.