[Warning: the dish discussed herein is NOT kosher or halal.]
I call this "White Fish Chowder" not only because it utilizes white-fleshed fish -- in this case
fillets of whiting (y'know, that stuff Baltimorons know as "Lake Trout" when it's breaded in
assorted moldy crumbs, deep-fried in used 10W-30 and served with complementary ptomaine), purchased
on sale from my local Winn Dixie -- but also because it's made with milk rather than tomato paste
(in which case I'd call it "_Red_ Fish Chowder_"😉. I realize that y'all damn Yankees might have
another regional appellation you'd rather slap on, which I defy you to, yet I myself ain't got
sufficient pro-Southroner or pro-Lewisvillain regional jingoism to bestow on this recipe of mine
anything but a strictly descriptive description. I also realize it's possible to be too descriptive,
so I ain't caling this "White White Fish Fish Chowder" unless I'd put out one calling for, say,
tomato paste and whiting ("Red White Fish Fish Chowder"😉 or, e.g., milk and salmon ("White Red Fish
Fish Chowder"😉, and so forth and etc.
That said, I'll proceed tell you how I made it.
First, I never learned how to cook correctly; even my scrambled eggs turn out differently every
time. This necessarily imposes an improvisational aspect to my cooking that would make a Free Jazz
player whap me with his cornet if I compared it to his art. Hence for those who can cook right, the
key to replicating my results in your own kitchen is probably slight brain damage, a hangover, and
moderate caffeine intoxication. (It works for me!) Or I should say more of those than you would have
anway: maybe being whapped with a brass instrument really would help.
To start with, I read a few recipes on line for a general idea -- "fish, milk, potatoes, etc., okay"
-- since I'm short on things like patience and a printer. Then I verified that I had potatoes (I
found two, of medium size) and milk (yep, I like it in coffee) and that the fish hadn't gotten too
greenish while sitting in the fridge for two days (it looked okay to me), and then I was off.
After washing the old potting soil off the potatoes, I diced them irregularly and threw them
offhandedly into a pan of salted water on the stove, which I then remembered to turn on. Then,
because the last "model" recipe I saw called for browned salt pork (that I didn't have) and sauteed
onions (which I couldn't find), I dug out the Country Jowl Bacon I bought at the Flea Market and
half- cooked a few strips of that, which I then tossed in the crockpot I aimed to assemble the
finished product in, and in the resulting half-inch of smoking grease I slopped around some hacked-
up garlic and dried red pepper I'd crumbled up a bit, then I tossed that in the crockpot with the
pork product.
Then, while the potatoes boiled away, I seared the fillets of unbreaded Lake Trout in the still-
smoking and now spiced-up fat, figuring it couldn't hurt it in any way I'm likely to recognize and
that, like boiling the potatoes beforehand, it would shorten the general cooking time a bit. (Bet
you'd've never figured out why I did those things if I hadn't told ya, eh?) Then, when the fish was
about half-done and sorta beige, I hauled it out onto a paper plate (for flavouring and ease of
cleanup) to scrape the meat off the skin, then tossed the resulting shreds of half-raw fish flesh
back into the skillet (under which I'd turned off the burner) to sit quietly while I wrapped up the
fish skin in the paper plate and threw that in the plastic bag I them dumped one of the ferrets'
litterboxes into and disposed of that. (Then I washed my hands!) Then, upon sliding the crockpot
closer to me so it might be a little harder to make a huge additional mess, I then combined the half-
fried fish and half-boiled potatoes (including the water from the latter) in that and turned it on
Low while I went rooting around in the cabinets for evaporated milk -- of which I only found one
small can, which had expired three years and a half years ago but still looked okay to me when I
opened it and sniffed at it before dumping it into the crockpot with the other stuff. While I was
doing that I found an onion after all, which I sauteed in fish essense and butter before adding that
too to the crockpot.
Then I rummaged around the kitchen and living room for some additional spices and seasonings: I
found "Italian Seasoning" I'd gotten for 33 cents at Walgreens two years ago, a bottle of chili-
powder stuff I'd mixed up myself from various items, and some black pepper I'd bought for 33 cents
from Walgreens about three years ago; into the crockpot a palm-full of each of those item went.
Then my vegetarian girlfriend got home, said "You're cooking fish!", and after I complained that I
hadn't found enough milk of the kind the recipes I had glanced at called for quickly found me a 12-
ounce can of evaporated milk that I then dumped half of into the crock pot and turned it on High. If
it looks like it needs more milk later I'll pour more in; if I'd used a little less water to half-
boil the potatoes I'd've simply used the 2% I cool my coffee with and not bothered with any of this
canned stuff, by the way; I'm sure there's plenty of lipidacious goop in there from the fish and
pork and butter. I can almost feel my arteries narrow more just thinking of it.
SO. It seemed prudent to post this sort-of recipe before I'd actually eaten any of it, so I can't
tell youse yet whether this turned out to be even fit for human consumption or not. I suppose we'll
see eventually somehow, won't we.
--
"You better understand that you're alone -- a long way from home."
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(C) `TheDavid^TM' 2003 | David, P.O. Box 21403, Louisville, KY 40221