Salt 101

October means comfort food season is coming. Here's some New England fish chowder. I've been craving this for weeks now!

And if you want to learn to use salt well, make some soup! Or chowder.

New England fish chowder is peasant food. I love peasant food. You take what you have and work with it. I really like Yukon Gold potatoes in my chowder. I forgot to get them. So I used a couple of Russets. I really like fish stock for fish chowder. I couldn't find any. So I used some clam broth. And then I screwed up! I'd already put in some dried thyme when I remembered I wanted to try some Herbs de Provence in my next chowder. So I used some Herbs de Provence anyway.

It was *delicious*.

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• One tablespoon butter
  
• Finely chopped celery, about 1/3 of a cup
  
• Sliced onions, about 1/3 of a cup. Slice them and just cut the slices in half.
  
• One half cup white wine. Whatever you're drinking. You can skip this if you want.
  
• Two potatoes, pretty much any kind, I like Yukon Gold
  
• One or two cups of fish stock. You can use clam broth
  
• One pound of white fish - cod or haddock
  
• One cup of milk. You can use half and half, light cream or even heavy cream. If it were heavy cream I'd use a half cup.
  
• One teaspoon of dried thyme or one tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme
  
• A bay leaf
  
• Maybe...some salt
  

Sweat the chopped celery and onions in the butter in a sauce pan for oh, 7 or 8 minutes, until they're soft. Raise the heat and add the wine and your herbs and bay leaf. You can skip the wine if you want. If you use wine, reduce by half. You can use dry vermouth too. Peel and chop the potatoes into 1 inch cubes, add to the pot with the fish stock. Gently boil for maybe 8 minutes. Add the milk or cream. If you use milk or half and half or light cream DO NOT LET IT BOIL. It will separate and curdle if it boils. Now, take your fish, sliced into 1 or 2 inch strips, add it to the pot and let it poach for 10 minutes or so.

Taste it. If it needs salt, add a tiny pinch of salt and taste it. Keep doing this until it's right.

Have a nice loaf of rustic bread with it.

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Now, what was that about salt?

I used clam broth. I hardly ever use salt when I use clam broth. But for some reason this time, I tasted my chowder and ... it was flat! I added a pinch of salt. Flat. Pinch of salt. Flat. I must have done this 6 or 8 times when all of a sudden...one more pinch and...my chowder was bursting with flavor. Salt really is the most amazing thing. I have a favorite lentil soup which, when I use homemade chicken stock, I have the same thing happen. It's just flat and boring until I get the salt just right and it's that one pinch that puts it over.

It's so striking that I think I've learned about seasoning in general by making soups and chowders more than by any other means.

There's nothing fussy about this recipe. You can make it countless ways and there's a lot of latitude. Put some olive oil in with your butter. But I wouldn't use salmon or bluefish. Or swordfish. But ...Red Bliss potatoes? Sure. Tilapia? Sure. If it goes for 15 minutes instead of 10? No big deal. Use whatever herbs you like. I just like thyme.