Last night's supper

[nlbarber]

Supper last night: smoked turkey chowder and bacon cornbread muffins (baked in a popover pan) Southern style, which started out from this Peter Reinhart recipe.

To all those recipe-description-writers whose entries I browsed by looking for this recipe: any cornbread recipe with THREE KINDS of sugar (white, brown, and honey) ain't "slightly sweet". To a Southerner, cornbread takes no sweetening at all. I left all the forms of sugar out, upped the butter a little to compensate, and baked it in a popover pan. Moderately successful, but I think it would need more tweaking from a better cook than I to deal with the removal of the sugars, plus my palate can't tell what difference soaking the cornmeal in buttermilk overnight made and I think I prefer my cornbread without corn kernels added. Next time I'll probably just stick crisp bacon crumbles on my standard cornbread, which is Martha White's Cotton Country cornbread mix made with an egg. <g>

The turkey chowder is my second batch of the season, as the first batch was mostly devoured while the family was gathered for Thanksgiving. I didn't get enough, so made another batch with some smoked turkey necks.

Comments

[spiffikins]

your chowder looks sooo yummy - would you be willing to share the recipe?

[nlbarber]

Sure thing. This is the best I've been able to do replicating my mother's turkey chowder--she had a great hand with soups, and didn't measure. I need measurements. :)

2 T. butter
2 small onions, chopped fine
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup uncooked white rice
2 quarts turkey stock
3 or 4 cups of milk (less if it's whole milk, more if it's nonfat or you just want more body)
1-1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
8 grinds pepper, or to taste (I like mine peppery, and add more to my bowl)
1 cup or so turkey meat, chopped (optional)

Melt butter in a soup pot, add onions and celery and sauté until onions are soft. Add rice and stir to coat with butter. Add stock, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer about 20 minutes or until rice is done. Add milk and turkey meat, bring back to serving temperature, adjust the seasonings, and serve.

Notes: If I have roasted a turkey, I make stock by putting all the bones, skin, and scraps in a crockpot and letting it cook overnight, then straining, letting it cool, and removing the fat. This year we had Turkey Orloff for Thanksgiving, so I bought smoked turkey necks and legs for the stock. I sliced most of the leg meat to use for the soup and for sandwiches, then made stock with the necks and the leg bones and skin. The smoked turkey really gives this soup an extra lift, so I recommend it.
This year's first batch of chowder didn't get the onions and celery sautéed well, and the celery was a little crunchy. Several of us thought that was a nice contrast--if you like the idea, sauté the onions alone, then add the celery with the rice.