The Chesapeake’s Bounty
As I gazed into my refrigerator, I was impressed by the quality of the items that jammed its shelves. Chesapeake Country is bountiful.
I found leftover ears of locally grown sweet corn that had proved very good the day before. There, too, was a platter of sliced, rich, red tomatoes from the Eastern Shore, the ragged remains of a roasted chicken, a large handful of fresh green beans and a few blue crabs that had escaped consumption two days previous.
They were the perfect foundation for a one-dish Chesapeake feast.
Pulling a rockfish fillet out of the freezer and digging some Vidalia onions out of the veggie bin, I began.
Some of my most memorable meals have begun in just such a manner, and since a few friends had just announced they were dropping by in a couple of hours, my project would be timely.
Placing the chicken remains in a large pot and adding a quart or so of water, I began a stock broth. I added a little chicken base to speed things up as I sharpened my chef’s knife to begin preparing the rest of the affair.
Removing two cups of corn off the cob and chopping up a cup or so of the Vidalias, I consulted a couple Bay cookbooks and concluded that my impulses were pretty much on target. Peeling and chopping a large carrot, I put it in a steamer basket in a small pot and prepared it for the blender. That would give my broth a bit of color and some body.
The picked crabs resulted in more than a cup of meat. Thawing the rockfish fillet and chopping it gave me another critical ingredient. Adding a tablespoon of Old Bay and some olive oil to the fish made it even better. I then set all of the seafood back into the refrigerator until its proper time.
A healthy dollop of olive oil, a minced garlic clove and thin slices of the three or four large radishes that I had discovered in the refrigerator added a little complexity.
Running the now cooked carrots and a cup of water thoroughly through the blender and into the stockpot gave my budding broth a lovely reddish-orange color and a little bit of sweetness. I next dropped the rockfish bits and Old Bay into my large hot cast-iron skillet to quickly brown the meat.
With about a cup of chicken from the stock remains, I added into the large pot all the ingredients: the corn, the fish and the rest of the vegetables, including a couple small cubed potatoes. I then thickened it with two tablespoons of cornstarch dissolved in water. Holding out the crabmeat until the very last, I squeezed the juice from half a large lemon into the savory-smelling broth, which by now was approaching the consistency of a seafood stew.
At last, tasting and adding a little salt, dill and fresh-ground pepper to round out the flavors, I gently stirred in the crabmeat careful not to break up the chunks. It was complete. Holding it over a very low heat to allow all of the flavors to mingle, we greeted our guests and enjoyed a beverage or two.
At last, scattering a couple of sliced spring onions over the surface for appearances, slicing up a big loaf of artisan sourdough bread that our guests provided and portioning the contents of the pot out into hefty bowls, we sat down to enjoy what, a couple of hours ago, had been refrigerator leftovers. It was heavenly.