The Common Culinarian

Dear readers, I love to hear when you try out something I put up on this site. A friend of Stacie’s made the Chicken and Corn Chowder I posted about the other night–you can see his review here.

This makes me really excited, because someone else tried what I came up with, he liked, and he did a few things that made the recipe his own. Oh, and he added a recipe to his cooking arsenal

Here’s what he did and why it worked:

• He used buttermilk rather than whole milk. This was in response to the question “Can I use skim instead?” I said he could try, but it might not work as well–this is because skim milk is not as rich, and he’d really just be adding white coloring to the chowder. Buttermilk, however, is not as fattening as whole milk, but is richer than skim. Good way to improvise!
• He used regular baking potatoes rather than the small potatoes I recommended. This worked in this chowder because regardless of the size, potatoes have starch, and starch is what thickens the chowder. When I came up with this, these potatoes are what I had on hand and what I needed to use up. He noticed that his potatoes were not browning (though everything else was)–this is because baking potatoes have more water in them than the “baby” kind. The starch never could get hot enough to caramelize because the potatoes just kept steaming themselves.

However it works, I’m excited he tried it and liked it. Cooking is not that scary. Many times, it’s just taking a basic recipe or idea and tweaking it for the vision in your head or whatever ingredients you have on hand. Kudos!

P.S., dtjunkie, the taste you found that was new to you–probably was the tarragon. It works especially well with chicken and potatoes, and is apparently one of the four fines herbs of French cuisine–or, at least, Wikipedia says so, so it must be true!