Cronin's Fish Soup
A little silver bell rings in my head when I think of fish chowder. My brain starts to drool and I am in the west of Ireland. Our vacation there turned into a chowder-tasting tour. We’d hike a spiny trail overlooking Bantry Bay and then have a bowl of chowder. We’d have a bowl of chowder and then listen to the music in Doolin. We caught trout on Lough Leane then had some chowder to warm ourselves. We’d have some chowder, play a round of golf, then have some more chowder. We stood in line to look at the Book of Kells with a go cup of chowder. We found a tiny church graveyard with Cronins in it and revived ourselves with some chowder. We soothed our nerves from adventures on the wrong side of narrow roads with chowder. Some of it had a creamy base, but our favorites didn’t. The best chowder Susan and I had was at the Corner Stone, a pub in Lahinch, Clare. That was almost two years ago.
In March, with St. Patrick’s Day coming, I decided it was time to get down to figuring out just how they made the stuff. It’s something I’d been meaning to do. I read recipes while I drank Murphy’s and listened to the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. Dinny Cronin, our fishing guide, sent me a copy of his favorite recipe. I watched a YouTube video of an Irish cooking show. None of them emphasized the stock, but in the Corner Stone, Susan and I were convinced that was the key. Start with a great stock. The first pot I made started with some Bar Harbor Fish stock and a supplement that I made with the shells of the shrimp and lobster in the chowder. It wasn’t bad; better on the second day, but a little thin I thought.
So, I headed to the local lobster pound and after some dumpster diving I ended up with two plastic shopping bags of carcasses and shells. I smashed up the crab and lobster with a rolling pin, baked it all in a 40- degree oven for about 10 minutes, covered the shells with a little water in a big stock pot and started simmering. Then there was dry sherry, and herbs, more simmering, straining, reducing, roux, and leeks, onions, celery, fish, lobster, shrimp, potatoes, mussels. After a few days I was getting somewhere. And it was better the next day, and the next, until it was gone.
A few pints and fish soup tasting develops its own vocabulary of associative descriptors. There was the “smokiness of peat,” or “a note of tin whistle,” the “surprise of a tour bus on a narrow bridge,” or “the weary sassiness of the hotel desk clerk.” How do you get them all in the soup? Mine was doing okay, but still not hitting all the notes. I had a few days left until March 17 to work out the harmonies.
Fine tuning. Back to the dumpster for more shells and the start of a new batch of stock. This time I steamed the mussels in two pints of Guinness and added this broth to the stock. Next, I thought perhaps a couple of cubes of salt pork in with the roux and veggies. A little pork never hurt anything. Finally I added the remainder of last summer’s smoked mackerel. I think that’s what did it. It was the smokey note I was looking for.
It was all in the pot by Friday the 15th. Saturday’s taste test was good. The soup was going to measure up. Ron, Mary, Paul, and Emily — cooks and fishermen — were the taste testers on Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day. Susan made ginger cookies and homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream for a touch of green. There was hot soda bread. But it’s Belfast, Maine, not Ireland. I wondered, where around here I could buy a brick of turf for the fire?
If the tourists came here in winter I’d open a little place down by the town dock. I’d call it Cronin’s Fish Soup and serve fresh bread and chowder. There would be a tap. I’d wear a long white apron and have a nice turf fire. But the tourists come in the summer while I’m busy with the fishing.
Rick Cronin fishes in Maine and reports on why the big ones got away.
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