Seasonal Pantry: Deconstructing Gravenstein chowder

Let’s deconstruct a recipe.

At the Gravenstein Apple Fair earlier this month, I gave out hundreds of samples of my Smoky Gravenstein Chowder. I also had conversations with people who wanted to make it and so I deconstructed it verbally, over and over again.

As I did so, I understood there are markers in this and most other recipes where you can go this away or that way and still get to approximately the same destination.

A recipe is a signpost, but it is not necessarily the only route to your dish.

Julie Child talked about this, though not necessarily in these words. She often said that we learn to cook so that we don’t have to rely on recipes.

That’s pretty much the same thing but it is a skill that develops, naturally, with taste, time, experience, and, perhaps most importantly, desire.

If you hate to cook, you may never develop this skill. But if you enjoy cooking, it’s not difficult to begin acquiring this sort of intuitive knowledge.

It is best when it begins in childhood, as you watch someone you love cook all the time, but it is never too late to begin.

The choices I made while preparing the chowder included which fat to use; whether to add an onion, a shallot or no aromatics at all; whether to use water, cider, stock or a combination; whether or not to peel the potatoes and the apples and what level of heat to add. What cheese would be best? Should the chowder be entirely smooth or slightly chunky? Should it be finished with a condiment and if so, what?

My first choice was fat: Olive oil, butter or bacon fat?

Because I wanted layers of smoke in this version, I chose the smokiest bacon I could find, Oliver’s Markets “platter bacon.” That decision determined another.

Now that the soup was not vegetarian (it could have been had I used butter, or vegan if I’d chosen olive oil), I decided to add another layer of smoke by making ham hock stock, which is easy to do if you start a day in advance, which I did.

I put about a pound and a half of ham hocks into a large pot with homemade chicken stock and water and let it simmer very gently overnight.

What about peeling? Would peeling the potatoes or the apples make a better soup? Would it be more nutritious if I left the peels intact? And then there’s time: How long would it take me to peel five pounds of potatoes and seven pounds of apples?

Let’s go with the peels, I said to myself. Both were organic so I washed them well, cored the apples and sliced both using the larger slicing blade of my food processor. I switched to the grating blade and grated Redwood Hill Farm’s smoked goat cheddar cheese.

After I fried the bacon, I poured off most of the fat and fried a diced sweet onion in what remained. Now it was time to add the heat. I added a teaspoon of smoked ground serranos from Min-Hee Hill Garden and Nursery, tasted it and added another teaspoon, along with some salt.

The stock strained, I returned it to the pot, added the sliced potatoes and apples and tipped in the onion. In about 20 minutes, everything was perfectly tender. While I waited, I chopped the bacon in the food processor fitted with its metal blade. Why not? I thought. It’s already out and needs cleaning so it’s the easiest route. I scraped the bacon into the soup, removed it from the heat and let it cool a bit.

By this time, the soup was already fairly thick, as the potatoes had begun to fall apart.

Even so, I decided to puree it anyway and did so using an immersion blender. I stirred in the cheese, waited until it was fully melted and tasted the soup.

It needed more salt and definitely wanted some pepper, so I added both and tasted again. Flavors of smoke blossomed on my palate but I felt a bit of a letdown on the slightly sweet finish.

The rich smoky flavors would blossom even more brightly with a bit of acid.

Sour cream would be too flabby, not acidic enough, and yogurt would be too acidic. Creme fraiche to the rescue! I scooped some into a bowl, stirred to loosen it, added not quite a teaspoon of the smoked serrano, the juice of about half a lemon and a big pinch of salt and poured it all into a squeeze bottle with a pointed tip. After I tasted it, I was satisfied that a tiny dollop of the now mildly spicy creme fraiche was the ideal contrast to the luscious soup.

The people who tried it seemed to agree.

I’m including a recipe for the chowder with this column, but I encourage you to experiment as you like to make it your own.

Spicy Gravenstein Chowder

Makes about 8 cups

11/2 pounds smoked ham hock

12 cups homemade stock, optional

6-8 bacon slices

1 small white onion, cut into small dice

- Kosher salt

11/4 teaspoon chipotle powder or smoked ground serranos

10 large apples, preferably Gravenstein, quartered and cored, thinly sliced

5 large potatoes, preferably Yukon gold, scrubbed and quartered lengthwise, thinly sliced

- Black or white pepper in a mill

8-12 ounces smoked cheese, preferably Redwood Hill Farm smoked goat cheddar

4 ounces creme fraiche

1 lemon wedge

Put the ham hock into a large pot, cover with homemade stock or water, adding at least 12 cups. Bring to a boil over high heat and when the water boils, reduce the heat to very low. Simmer gently for several hours or overnight; skim off any impurities that rise to the surface. Strain the stock into a clean pot; discard the meat and bones.

Fry the bacon in a heavy skillet until it is very crisp. Transfer the bacon to absorbent paper to drain and pour off all but about 2 tablespoons of the fat. Return the pan to the medium heat, add the onion and sauté until very soft and fragrant, about 10 to 12 minutes. Season with salt, add 1 teaspoon of the chipotle powder or smoked ground serranos, stir and remove from the heat.

Set the ham hock stock over medium heat, add the cooked onions, apples and potatoes and simmer gently until both are tender, about 15 minutes or a bit longer, depending on the thickness of the slices. Remove from the heat, let cool slightly and puree with an immersion blender. Season with several turns of black pepper and stir in the cheese.

When the cheese is fully melted, taste and correct for salt. Cover and set aside.

Put the creme fraiche in a small bowl, add the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of chipotle powder or ground serrano, add a few pinches of salt and squeeze lemon juice on top. Stir well.

To serve, ladle into soup plates, bowls or mugs, top with a generous swirl of creme fraiche and enjoy right away.

Michele Anna Jordan has written 24 books to date, including the new “Good Cook’s” series. Email Jordan at michele@saladdresser.com. You’ll find her blog, “Eat This Now,” at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com