Best thing I ever made
Background: I went to the US last summer and was very keen to try some of the food there, though obviously at first attempting to avoid all of the greasy shit. Okay, well I did have a Boston hotdog as soon as I got there, but that was great (decent quality Italian spiced sausage with fried onions and peppers, plus standard hotdog roll and ketchup).

The best bit was the chowder that I had at every opportunity, first time at a restaurant by the sea just on the Massachusetts side of the border with Rhode Island State. First spoonful and I had fallen in love. The creaminess, but with a sensible amount of bite, the warmth, the comfort, and the subtle but perfect amount of that "sea-food" flavour wrapped my tongue in a blanket of dopamine.

Once I got home I went back to being vegan (I've played with it for a while, but frankly the taste of animal is too much for me at the moment). It was only recently that I completely dropped all pretences at having an environmentally sound diet, and so one of the first things I did was to try to recreate that sensation, the mouth-swaddling delight of New England Chowder.

I used this recipe: 2 small Zucchini (or 1 medium), thinly sliced
1 sweet Red Bell Pepper, thinly sliced
1 onion, diced small
1 medium Potato, cubed (1/2" cubes)
2 tablespoons Butter (or marg)
1 (10 ounces) can Chicken Broth (I used 1 teaspoon of veggie stock powder in 300ml of hot water)
1 teaspoon Seasoning Salt (or just use salt and add, as I did, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon of mustard and 1 teaspoon of black pepper. If you don't have mustard, chuck in another teaspoon of pepper or something)
A few teaspoons of paprika
2 tablespoons flour
3 cups Milk
2 (6 ounces) cans Crab Meat, drained, picked
1 (3 ounces) package Cream Cheese, cut up

1: Heat up the milk and melt the butter (or marg) in a fairly big pan at about medium temperature until it starts to sizzle, then add the flour and stir until it there aren't any lumps left. Once this is done start adding the milk and stirring. At first you should just add the milk slowly and try to keep any lumps out, but once it has gotten fairly runny you can just chuck the rest of the milk in.

2: Throw everything else in except for the crab and the cheese, stir, and keep it on a low heat for four hours, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick.

3: Add the crab and the cheese and keep stirring until the cheese has fully melted.

4: Eat with a bit of good bread and enjoy!

Now, there is a slight problem with this recipe, and that is that the result looks very approximately exactly like vomitus. However, when it comes to taste it is sublime. It has that exact comfort food 'umami' sensation, and with the wee bit of black pepper and mustard each spoonful slowly and gently warms up your mouth with just the smallest hint of fire.

I think the problem of presentation could be solved by specifically using cornflour/cornstarch, and mixing that with the milk first in much the same way as you might make custard, i.e. heat up the milk and slowly add it to the flour whilst constantly stirring. If anyone tries this, please get back to me to let me know if it works.

P.S. I was particularly looking forward to trying some Mexican food while I was in California, and had visions of mounds of spicy bean sauces with rice and tortillas. Instead I was served a side of runny brown slop with a fairly sad looking burger. I made a much better chilli when I got home.

No apologies for length. I'm the one who eats it all the time.
( clockworkrat has nice pants, Fri 27 May 2011, 2:21, Reply)