Recipes
from STOPPING TO HOME
Seth's Favorite Cod Chowder
Ingredients: salt, pepper
small piece of salt pork (about ¼ pound) or 3-4 strips of bacon
½ pound per person of cod, haddock or halibut, cut in 1-inch pieces
2 medium white potatoes per person, pared & cut into 1-inch pieces
½ onion per person, sliced & diced
2 cups milk or light cream
2 cups chicken broth or water
Abbie made her chowder with salt pork and cod. Today, depending on what fish are available in your area, you might use one of the other fish listed above.
Cut the bacon or salt pork into small pieces and put into the same sized pan you use to heat water for spaghetti. Add the diced onion and stir over medium heat until you can almost see through the pieces of onion. Pour in about 2 cups of chicken broth or water, and add the potatoes. If the water doesn't cover the potatoes, add some more, and about ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until you can stick a fork easily through a piece of potato. Add the fish. Cook another 5-10 minutes, until fish is cooked. Add about 2 cups of milk or light cream and heat until liquid is hot.
Abbie served her chowder with bread; today in Maine it would be served with plain "chowder" or "oyster" crackers.
Sally Clough's "Wedding Cakes"
The word "cookie" is American, and was not commonly used until the second half of the nineteenth century. Before that, small cakes were called -- "small cakes." The cakes Seth loves are therefore what today we would call "cookies."
This is a traditional New England recipe for molasses cookies that is "special" because it uses both molasses and sugar, a number of different spices, and raisins, making it more expensive to make than simpler cakes.
Mix:
1 Cup of melted butter (2 sticks)
1 Cup sugar
1 Cup molasses
Beat in 1 egg
Add: ¾ cup liquid coffee (strong instant coffee is OK)
4 ½ cups flour
2 t. ginger
¼ t. powdered cloves
¼ t. nutmeg
2 t. cinnamon
¼ t. salt
4 t. baking soda
2 cups raisins
1 t. caraway seeds
Mix all ingredients well and chill them for 6 hours, or overnight. Roll the dough until it is about ¼" thick and cut into squares or circles. (An easy way is to use the top of a glass to cut the cakes.) Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes and then cool on racks. Makes about 85 "cakes," 2 inches in diameter. (They freeze well.)
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1774 kitchen fireplace in Lea Wait's home |
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From SEAWARD BORN
Mama's Shrimp Pie
A shrimp pie in 1805 Charleston was similar to what we call a "casserole" today. Sometimes cooks would form a crust of rice to surround the shrimp and other ingredients.
2 cups cooked, peeled, chopped, shrimp (about one pound)
3 cups cooked white rice (not instant)
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1 small green pepper, chopped
butter to taste
1 large onion, chopped
salt & pepper
Sautee the onion and pepper in about 2 tablespoons of butter and a little salt and pepper until vegetables are soft. Cook the tomatoes in a pan until they are slightly stewed - perhaps 5 minutes. Butter a casserole dish, and put in onion and pepper, tomatoes, rice, and shrimp, mixing well. Dot the top with butter, and cover. Bake in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until bubbles slightly. Serves 4-5.
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Pemaquid Point Lighthouse & wild roses |
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From WINTERNG WELL
Cassie's Anadama Bread (makes 2 loaves - 1 to freeze!)
Anadama bread is traditional in Maine, but is seldom heard of outside New England.
It contains few ingredients, hence the tradition that a husband, aggravated at his wife's lack of productivity, and wanting his dinner, threw some molasses and flour and corn meal together and baked them himself, muttering, "Anna, damn her!"
To make anadama bread you'll need some time and
½ cup cornmeal
½ cup molasses
2 T butter
2 t salt
1 envelope or cake of dry yeast
2 ¼ C water
5 cups of flour (approximately)
Boil 2 cups water. Add the cornmeal and stir, slowly, for a minute or two. Add the molasses, salt, and butter. Cook and stir together until mixed well. Put the mixture in large bowl and allow to cool a bit. While it is cooling, mix yeast in ½ cup warm water. When mixture in bowl is lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast. Stir.
Now start adding the flour, one cup at a time. When it is a stiff dough, put on a floured surface and knead it. (Push it down; turn it; push it down again.) Add a little more flour if you need to. Continue kneading until you have a ball of dough that is smooth and shines and bounces back when you push it down. (This should take 5-8 minutes.)
Put this ball of dough in a large buttered mixing bowl in a warm place. Cover it with a light dishcloth and allow the dough to rise until it has doubled in size. Depending on how warm your room is, this could take 30-90 minutes. After it has doubled, push the dough down in the bowl several times. Then remove it from the bowl and let it sit for 5 minutes. Divide it in 2, shape it into loaves, and place the loaves in greased loaf pans. Cover the pans with a towel and again let the dough rise until it has doubled in size. (It should rise until it is just slightly higher than the side of the pans.)
Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce the heat and bake at 350 degrees for another 20-25 minutes, or until the loaf tops are slightly brown. Turn the loaves out of the pans and cool on racks.
Note: Both anadama bread and wedding cakes use molasses as a basic sweetening ingredient. In 18th and early 19th century America molasses was much less expensive than refined sugar. Although molasses (called "treacle" in England) was usually a by-product of sugar processing, in New England it also was sometimes made from the sap of the sugar maple tree, now called maple sugar or syrup.
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