Corn Chowder with Halibut Cheeks and Mussels
Okay, I really haven’t been around much, and I apologize for being such a flaky friend and not visiting enough. In my defense, I have been out of town for work, with a spotty-at-best wireless connection (I used the hotel lobby to reply to my comments on Thursday). Also, I have a huge backlog of food and photos to chat about by now, and I’m getting a wee case of The Daunteds. But I think I’m ready to come out from beneath that rock.
Corn is in season, as are some of my favorite seafoods – Dungeness crab, halibut, albacore. New Seasons must be paying attention, because they recently started carrying the most coveted of halibut cuts, the cheek. Frankly, the cheek is the best part of all animals (Hank from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook knows what I’m talking about). I’ll prove that later by showing you what I did with the smoked pork cheek from Pig Roast 2008. Oh, it is that good.
As much love as I have for New Seasons (I’m doing that thing where I pound my heart twice with my fist and throw out a sideways peace sign), their mussels can be kind of shitty. Remember how last time I said to be sure and check your shellfish? Well I didn’t remember to mention that this is really hard because they bag them in those little mesh bags, then wrap them up all pretty in brown butcher paper so you can’t see that no less than 20% of the mussels have broken shells (I counted!), or consist of nothing but broken shells. Why are they selling me broken, empty shells that I can pick up off the beach for free? The fuck.
Anyhoo, we’ve had a spot of cooler weather up here in good ol’ PNW, so I jumped at the chance to make a warm, buttery chowder, this time with fresh corn instead of frozen. Corn chowder is so good with a little seafood in it (remember the coho chowder I made for Black History Month?), especially the sweet, tender cheek of halibut and succulent mussels, both from the northern Pacific.
When you cut corn from the cob (or even after just eating it off), do yourself a favor and save up the cobs in a freezer bag until you have enough to fill a pot, then make corn cob broth by simmering these in some chicken stock for an hour or so. This broth is perfect for chowder and my chicken enchilada soup (“Sopa del Fuego“), and is probably just delicious to use for polenta.
To make this chowder, just make slight adjustments to the recipe from February, subbing fresh corn for frozen, corn cob broth for seafood stock, leaving out the Thai spices and jalapeño, and using cream instead of coconut milk. Add a pinch of saffron. At the very last moment, add the halibut cheek (cut into bite-sized pieces) and mussels, and hit it with some chopped flatleaf parsley. Soup is ready when the mussels are open. Serve with buttermilk biscuits and a clean, citrusy white (we had a Castelvero Piemonte Cortese 2007 – an unassuming, $9 Bianco that is extremely decent for the price and didn’t try too hard against the food).
Coming soon: What to do with leftover biscuits…
